GhostMiner

We are able to put in 6 Plans of Operation on two sides of virgin ground. The plan is to high grade the bottom 15 ft of gravel from the exposed sides of a big hill. This material has been testing out at an average of $60/yard after allowing for smelting. We will run a Pioneer 30 trommel that averages 15 yards of gravel per hour. So 150 yards of processed gravel per day at $60 a yard should gross about $9000 per day. We are running a 3 man crew who are all partners. We won't need to do any hauling of any distance (only 200 - 300 ft) but will run a skid steer as a loader. I still need to buy a small dump truck. I have been waiting for gold to rise to these levels to make this a worthwhile project and I think the time has come.

Specs. https://www.ritchiespecs.com/model/john-deere-210g-hydraulic-excavator

Getting ready for the new mining season. Just bought this nice mid size Deere 210.

September 24 2002 Digging Deeper We all got an early start to our workday. The weather is still holding up with temperatures in the 70’s and no rain. The haul road is in great shape and we are trying to get our glory cut finished before the next storms set in. Jacob said we are on borrowed time and the weather could change quickly. Even snow could be here soon which would likely end our season. Jacob is still working his way deeper and the test pans are fair with some coarse gold. Nothing like we are thinking we might get but we are absolutely convinced that there is a big pot at the bottom. If only Jacob could get down there with the excavator. He is trying his best and that’s all we can ask. We washed another 100 yards and will do a cleanup in the morning. Not expecting anything great but it will add to our totals. I called my wife tonight and told her we are getting near the closing of the mine for this year. Can’t wait to get back home. TO BE CONTINUED ............

Hang in there - We're almost home.

On the subject of gold and its value back in 2002 -- gold was anywhere from $310 to $350 an ounce that year. There were several partners that were part of the crew early in the season and left. They got their gold cut up to the time of leaving. When they were there and working it was a 4 way equal split. After they left the gold was being split up equally amongst Jacob and myself. When Conor came to the mine Jacob paid him out of his cut. Gold cuts and percentages can be a touchy thing, especially when there is gold fever in the camp. It can destroy a crew and ruin friendships. We were lucky. Jacob was not a greedy person. In fact, he was quite generous. Did we ever hit the jackpot at the end of the rainbow? Let's find out.

September 23 2002 The Gold Fades Conor and I did the gold cleanup today while Jacob and Clay worked the dig site and hauled pay. The gold weigh was disappointing and surprised us. There were 35.5 ounces. This was about a third less gold than the last cleanup gave us and I was puzzled. However, Jacob told the crew he thought he knew why the gold total had dropped. He said that he was no longer digging at the bedrock level he had been at but now digging at the top of a new area where the bedrock dropped deeper as he had shown me. Therefore, the gravels from this weigh were well above bedrock but still fairly rich in gold. He continued on to say that what he believed about a huge pot of gold in the bottom of this digsite should still be correct. The only way we would know for sure was to find it. Our gold count from this pit now total’s a whopping 419.7 ounces. Our total for the year now sits at 1115.9 ounces. Jacob actually believes that we could double this total when our current pit is finished. TO BE CONTINUED ................

September 22 2002 Part Three We finished up our day without any problems or interruptions with 100 yards of washed gravel. We will do the cleanup in the morning. Guard duty will be shared in shifts tonight starting at dusk. I am ready to get the season finished up and head for home. I have not talked with Jacob or Conor about their plan to stay the Winter out here but I think it is a bad idea. TO BE CONTINUED .............

September 22 2002 Part Two Conor and I were working gravels through the tom when I got a call on my walkie talkie. It was Jacob and he wanted me to come up to the dig site. He said he had something to show me. When I got up there he had shut down the excavator and was standing near the edge of the giant hole he had been expanding. He pointed to the west side of the pit and said he had struck a solid wall of sloping bedrock. He had found the lateral boundaries of the rich material. Then he told me that the bedrock continued to drop in that area with no sign of a bottom. He showed me a test pan from and there was still plenty of coarse gold there. The area of the second stage drop zone was about 20 feet by 20 feet. He figured the best gold was still to be found wherever the bottom of that drop contacted bedrock. There was no way to tell how deep he would need to dig. He had a nice platform sitting on the first area of bedrock to start the next section. He would be able to go down about 20 to 25 feet from there without expanding his footprint. If the bedrock was still deeper than that he would need to back out and come back in from the south side by digging what would amount to a massive trench that would slope downward deep into the channel. If that was needed it might require timbering the sides for safety or digging a very wide cut. In other words, a big project. All we could do was hope he struck bedrock from where he was presently stationed. TO BE CONTINUED ..............

September 22 2002 Part One Back To Mining Last night’s trouble ended as quickly as it started with no further incidents. The five men had vanished into the night. We must have scared them off. The question for us now is did they leave the area or are they still hiding out on the mountain waiting for the right time to rob us? There is no way to know. This morning we all got back to the work at hand after we had a quick meeting over breakfast. We will need to take turns on night guard duty for the remainder of the season. The weather remains in our favor and we will push on and hopefully get all of the gold out of the glory hole we are working. The mining season is growing short and I am anxious to get back home with my gold. TO BE CONTINUED ...............

September 21 2002 Part Three The only place we had to go would be back into the creek and they had quickly gotten the high ground and to the north as well as blocking us east and west. I hollered out and asked them what they wanted. There was only silence. Then I heard Jacob holler out. His voice was loud and deep and enough to scare off a grizzly. He told them that if they wanted a gun fight then they would get one. He called them every foul name I had ever heard and maybe a few others I hadn’t heard. He told them we were well armed and would shoot them to pieces and bury them in a hole on the mountain where no one would ever find them. One of the thugs hollered back to Jacob saying we misunderstood what they were doing and they only wanted to talk with us about possibly leasing a spot to mine on our claims. I hollered out that they had a mighty suspicious way of approaching us about a lease. Then I told them we were not interested and to get off our mine. Once again there was complete silence. Suddenly, without warning, Jacob opened up with his Thompson. He discharged an entire magazine up into the woods in the direction where the voice had come from. The rest of us opened up with our guns but kept our shots high. It sounded like a war was on. They did not return fire and all was quiet. Once again Jacob challenged them to fight like men. I heard some rustling of bushes up to the north and it sounded like they were leaving. We all fired more rounds up that way and also a few to the east and west but kept them high. Then it got quiet again. I was thinking they might not have realized what they were up against but now they knew. Would they leave or come back? TO BE CONTINUED ................. .

September 21 2002 Part Two These guys looked to be middle aged but it was getting hard to see clearly in the fading light. The sun had just set when they appeared out of nowhere. Clay hollered over to them and asked them where they were going but they ignored him and kept getting closer. They weren’t on a path directly towards our camp but were following the creek about 100 feet away. I stood up and shined my flashlight in their direction and asked them what they were doing. The one in the front turned toward me and said they were prospecting for gold. Mighty funny I thought as they weren’t carrying anything with them. Not even backpacks or shovels. I asked them where their gear was and all five of them stopped walking. I saw the one in front say something to the others and before a few seconds had passed two of them walked away down the creek and three of them cut up the floodplain north towards the base of the mountain. Then I heard one or two of those three trampling through the brush just above us to the north. They had us surrounded. Conor said he saw some side arms on them. Clay said he did as well. Jacob said they might have been watching us weigh the gold and waited until dark to make their move. It was almost as if they had walked up near enough to size us up. Jacob said that if it's trouble they want he will give it to them in spades. He had his old Thompson ready for action. I was thinking to myself that what the hell is all this? Have we gone back in time to the 1930’s ? None of us were ready to give up our gold. If they wanted a fight they would get one. TO BE CONTINUED ................

Watch out you sinners Don't you know that your time has come Watch out you winners Now it's the same for everyone

September 21 2002 Part One Here They Come The weather is still in our favor. We stuck with our routine. Conor and I cleaned the concentrates while Jacob and Clay dug and hauled the pay. We have a good system going now. There is still no word on the trommel but we have not really missed it much. Around 1:30 I radioed Jacob that the gold weigh was done. To my surprise he said he and Clay were going to keep working straight through to about 5:00 PM before coming down to camp for supper and to see the gold. So Conor and I got back to washing gravels and worked until 5:00 PM as well. We were able to get another 20 yards of gravels processed. About that time I heard Clay’s truck coming down the mountain with Jacob riding shotgun. I really wanted them to see the gold in the pan.Finally, just before supper, everyone was gathered around the table with the gold pan and scales. Clay let out a low holy sh.. and sat back in his chair. I just smiled and put the pan on the scale. There was 119.4 ounces. This was the bedrock gold we were dreaming of. And it looked like we might not be finished yet. Clay let out a whoop that shook the mountain and old Jacob did one of his Irish jigs. Conor had tears in his eyes and I just sat there stunned. It was getting on towards dusk now and Jacob brought out a bottle and we all had a drink and then another drink. As I set the bottle on the table near the gold we looked over at five men walking down the creek and coming towards camp. We didn’t recognize any of them and they sure weren’t Forest Service personnel. I didn’t like the looks of them and neither did anyone else. TO BE CONTINUED ............

Not in the journal : Comparing permitting & Plans of Operation from back then to now - man, have times changed. No politics here of course, just the process. Everything is slower and more detailed. As I was saying back in the Winter, I am attempting to get back to doing some mining on those claims again. I filed paperwork and need to transfer some water licenses out of a lessee's name and into mine. However, I was told I need to start the process over from scratch. Not a big deal but just time consuming. All of the environmental studies need to be done again as well. More time. I have put in a plan for an area of virgin gravels we tested back in 2019. They are 3000 ft from the north/south running creek I talked about in the journal. I have used two pumps hooked in series to get water over there before from a pond but that pond dries up in Summer. That was a 2000 ft deal with a 100 foot climb in elevation before the ground dropped back downhill again. The creek will be a 150 ft climb in elevation until it goes back downhill the last 800 ft. Should be interesting. Just based on what experience with pumps I have I am thinking three or maybe four pumps in series will get the job done. I am talking 3 inch pumps. This time around I will use foot valves as well. In 2019 there were no foot valves and every morning the water lines had to be purged so the pumps could start pushing water without much back pressure. Purging pumps first thing in the morning means taking the caps off the top and letting the back pressure blow water 30 feet into the air while you take a cold shower in 45 degree air. Not a fun way to start your day LOL. I'm smarter now - I think. I figure to looses 2/3 of the gallons per hour the pumps are rated for but that's ok as they will just need to keep a big holding pond replenished as needed. I am also delving into the idea of using a small electric water pump to run continuously. I have been talking with a person who suggested this idea and it would be much easier. When I put in plans I throw everything in there just in case and that is something I learned the hard way.

Here's is what I'm talking about with a Pearson Box with the exception of adding a big grizzly bar setup on top to screen off the bigger rock. It's all about volume and no moving parts over finesse and technology with one of these beasts. Cram in the gravels.

September 20 2002 The weather was in our favor once again today. Conor and I really like running the tom. There are no moving parts to worry about breaking on us. The downside is it will only process about one third of the gravel the trommel is capable of and it is not catching as much of the fine gold. However, it is doing its job and we may build a bigger one for next season. It would be something like a Pearson Box with a big grizzly and hopper capable of running much more pay gravel. The only issue is the fact that you aren't breaking up all the clay. If you are not in heavy clay it would work fine. I plan on getting some good opinions on all of this during the off season. We got a good start this morning and worked until nearly dark to get our 100 yards washed. Tomorrow will be another cleanup. I went up to the dig site this afternoon and Jacob has got himself quite a pit going. He’s down about 35 feet in depth and slowly widening the diggings towards the west. There’s lots of rounded river rock and the bedrock seems flat. He’s having to send upper gravels that are not as rich along with the bottom bedrock gravel. We are definitely on the gold with no end in sight. TO BE CONTINUED ................

Hello Old Miner Don & good to hear from a reader I hadn't seen here before. Early on it was determined that each crew member would receive his share of the gold after a gold weigh was completed. Then it became their personal responsibility to take care of it as best they could. I did not put this in the journal but we dealt with several gold buyers and some of the crew converted part of their poke into good old U.S Dollars. Some held on to most of their gold. As you have read previously, there was a turnover of the members of the crew and Jacob considered the ones who left weak links in our mining machine. I'm not convinced of that and every man must make his own decisions under difficult and sometimes dangerous times. I still have gold from that season & right now I wish I had kept it all but sometimes you need to cash some of it in to live on. Cheers & thanks for reading the journal.

Around 24 grams to the yard. Not bad.

September 19 2002 The Gold Vault It was a beautiful morning. The sky was clear and the temperatures were warm. We ran the tom until noon and shut down for lunch after having run 30 yards of gravel. That put us at 100 yards which is what we like to run now before doing the cleanup. I could see visible gold in the black sands and there was a load of it. More than we had ever seen. Jacob told us he had finally hit one area of sloping bedrock as he worked the pit north. Then he backed the excavator back away from the sloping wall and got another five feet deeper and hit bedrock again. He was around 30 - 33 feet in depth. He said the wall looked to be traveling across the back of the pit to the west and he would start following it tomorrow and see how far it went. He had a good feeling about the dig site and so did the rest of us. Conor and I finished up the gold weigh while Jacob and Clay dug and hauled pay. We finished the cleanup around 6:00 PM and set the pan on the table near the scales. There was a lot of gold in that pan but we waited until Jacob and Clay finished up for the night around 6:30. Clay’s eyes glazed over when he saw the pan. Jacob gave me a smile and a wink and said to weigh it up. There were 77.4 ounces. Conor suggested we name the pit and I came up with a name that everyone liked. The Gold Vault. TO BE CONTINUED .................

September 18 2002 We got back to mining this morning. Conor and I got the tom set up while Jacob and Clay started digging and hauling pay gravel. The weather is sunny and warm and things are beginning to dry out. The creek is still running fast but the water is back within its banks. I test paned the first load of gravel before we started processing and the gold is there in spades. We let Clay bring down three loads before we started running at 10:00 AM so as to give a cushion for the transport of material and we won’t run out or have to wait on him. One of the Forest Service people came by this morning as well and checked on us. I showed him the repaired road and he also took a walk down along the creek to check the waters and floodplain. He seemed pretty impressed that we had already repaired the haul road and were ready to mine so quickly. He said there was a mining operation along the creek about ten miles west of ours and they had lost their small trommel in the flood. We had a good day and were able to process 70 yards of gravel. We are going to run until around noon tomorrow and do a cleanup. Jacob has gotten deeper into the dig site with still no sign of bedrock. The gold seems to keep getting better. TO BE CONTINUED ..................

Journal will resume tomorrow. Thanks to all readers.

We will be putting the metal detecting expert to work next.