GhostMiner

September 26 2002 Part One Haul Road Troubles It rained all through the night and the temperatures are in the upper 40’s. The rain is not overly hard but it is steady. Clay and I took a walk up the haul road and it has deteriorated in a few places. He said he and Old Bulldog could handle it so we all got started with our work for the morning. Around 10:00 AM the rain started picking up in intensity. It wasn’t too long after that when my radio came to life. It was Big Clay and he said Old Bulldog had slid off the road. Conor kept the tom running while I jumped in my truck and headed up the mountain. It had gotten very slick and parts of the road were washing out. A little more than halfway up I saw the truck. Clay had gone off the side on a tight turn and slid down into a depression about ten feet below. There was no getting out of there in these conditions without help. He was extremely lucky not to have rolled the dump truck over. He dumped his load of gravel between the road and where his truck was sitting. Then I went up and got Jacob. He brought the excavator down and used his bucket to build a little ramp back up. Then I hooked a logging chain to his bucket and the back of the dump truck. It worked and we got him back where he needed to be and Jacob reloaded the gravel back into his truck. It was looking like our time here was running out. TO BE CONTINUED ...........

Steve said there was an issue with part of the website.

I think I've figured it out - we've entered The Twilight Zone.

It looks like all of my notifications have vanished except for a new one today. Any idea why? Thanks.

Something odd here - all my old notifications have vanished on the journal except for the new ones from Mike Furness just now. It says I have no notifications.

But we have water licenses for two creeks and can pump water from those creeks to processing plants outside of the 300 ft buffer zone. These licenses are from the state of California. They first send out a hydrologist to look at the plan. It is not a violation if approved.

As an introduction, I am the president of a small placer gold mine exploration & leasing company. While doing research on one of our mine properties I came across an old leather journal & thought i'd post the entries over time here. I named it "Lost Gold At The Dead Man's Mine." Hopefully the old timer who wrote it won't mind. I tried to find any relatives but have run into one dead end after another. I felt it was a story worth telling & over the period of posting the entries I will include pictures of the area as it looks today and what our modern activities at the site have been. The journal was mentioned in a 282 page government report that I stumbled upon while doing research. I was able to secure the original journal from the descendants of the president of a defunct mining company who did some work in the area back in the mid 1960's. The journal itself was written by a prospector who worked the area in 1936. He hit a gold strike of epic proportions and lived an adventure that is very fascinating to say the least. It's a wild ride showing a glimpse back into a long lost time. I hope you enjoy the journal.* PROLOGUE : This is a journal of the experiences written in the first person in 1936 by a prospector by the name of Jed Stevens while mining at the Whiskey Jack Mine. Jed had several claims in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. This area of claims produced large amounts of gold from the mid to late 1800's. The old placer mines were abandoned in the late 1800's as a result of California's Sawyer Decision which banned or severely limited hydraulic gold mining operations and left large amounts of undiscovered gold in the gravels. Here is the first entry : APRIL 12 1936 : Today I filed all the paperwork at the county court house for the mining claims I now hold near Lost Ravine. I then drove my Ford truck out to my claims. There was a good spot near Jake's Creek up to the north about 1500 feet from the main road that follows Morgan Creek where I set up my camp. It took the entire day to pitch the tent and set up my kitchen. The tent is a 15 foot cabin tent with a stove jack. I have a first rate box stove set up inside to be used for heat and some cooking. I also set up a second stove about 200 feet from camp for the main cooking jobs during good weather. Today was a good day for getting camp set as it was sunny and not too cold. Tomorrow my plan is to investigate one of the claim sites where the old diggings took place and get a bearing on my situation as far as where I might sample gravels and old tailings. I am losing daylight and getting cold so I will get into my sleeping bag on the cot and get some sleep. TO BE CONTINUED .................................... Here is a picture of Jed's journal as it looks today. It is in fairly good shape & also included some old maps. *this story is based on a real gold strike in 1936 according to what reports I have in my possession, but the journal itself is a work of fiction.