GhostMiner

58 minutes ago, Joe L said:

More please.   

You mean more beer LOL ??

  September 4   2002     Part Four

   We got back to the mine around 3:00 PM. The truck was loaded down with all the lumber needed to rebuild the tom on a larger scale. We unloaded everything and got to work. The sluice run was lengthened first. Then all the mats were put in place with the riffles. By the time we had this completed Jacob and Clay had stopped work for the day and come down to camp for supper.

   I explained to Jacob what had happened and he didn’t have much to say. He was happy to see the new tom was being built. Conor and I worked right up to dark on the grizzly/hopper set up and we finished up just as it was getting dark. We had done the entire job in five hours of non stop labor. There were a few minor details left to finish up but we decided to get some food and call it a day. A long day for sure.

   Conor and I ate our late supper while Clay drank beer. Lots of beer. Jacob seemed to get a kick out of it. He asked us about the new long tom. I told him it would process double what the old one did. I figured it could handle 10 - 15 yards of gravel per hour so if the trommel broke again we had a good backup system ready to take its place. We could hardly wait to give it a try.

   Everyone hit the sack around 10:30 except for Big Clay who sat out at the fire with a case of beer by his camp chair. I’d never seen anyone like him before. He is a character. I told him I’d see him in the morning and am going to bed. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............

September 4   2002     Part Three

   I eventually calmed down and went over to speak with Conor. He was pretty upset and told me he’d pay for the repairs. I told him no, it will come out of company funds and everyone makes mistakes from time to time. I told him it was a lesson learned for him and I had made plenty of goof ups as well. That seemed to relieve his mind some but he was still feeling lousy.

   As we straightened up the mess we heard Big Clay rambling down the haul road and when he dumped the gravel he stuck his head out the window and asked what the hell happened. I told him it was just an accident and we’d get it taken care of. I told him not to mention any of this to Jacob as we would explain things when he came down to camp. I told him we were heading to town to get lumber to fix the tom. I didn’t want Jacob getting all upset while he was working. Clay let out a laugh and nodded his head in agreement and rambled back up the mountain for another load.

   I told Conor that we would get the materials to build a bigger long tom so we could process more material and if we got going and had it built in a day or so we wouldn’t miss a beat and actually would end up better off than when we started. That made him feel a lot better and off to town we went.

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

   Did I Do That ??

   September 4   2002     Part Two     Did I Do That?

   The mining didn’t last long. When Conor went to place the first scoop of gravel on the grizzly hopper he came down too quickly and smashed not only the grizzly but also the hopper and the top of the tom. We were done before we started. 

   I let out a long string of curse words I won’t write here in the journal and Conor had a sheepish look on his face. Clay was going to think he was working with goofballs. Before I could get over to the tom Conor attempted to back the skid steer up but the bucket was caught up on the hopper which caught the tom and the entire wash plant got dragged across the ground. I hollered for Conor to stop but it was too late. The top half of the tom was destroyed. I screamed for Conor to shut down the skid steer which he eventually did. I turned and walked away to take a seat on a nearby log. Everything would need to be rebuilt. I was thinking “What next” to myself. I needed to calm down before talking with Conor.

   TO BE CONTINUED .............

   September 4   2002     Part One     Mining Again

   When I got up this morning Clay was still sitting in his chair and the campfire was smoldering. He was sound asleep and I counted 13 beer bottles laying near his camp chair. I got some coffee going and Jacob and Conor came out to have a cup and eat some breakfast.

   I woke Clay up and he looked mighty rough. He said that was just a normal night for him and he'd be ready to haul gravel when we were ready. I handed him a cup of hot coffee which he downed and he poured himself another. We all had bacon, eggs, and biscuits. The sun was up now and we all got ready for the day ahead.

   Clay fired up the Mack and let it idle for a spell. I drove Jacob up to the dig site and he got the excavator started. I came back down and jumped in the Mack with Clay. We drove up to the dig site slowly as he checked out the haul road. He gave it his stamp of approval and I walked back down the road and back over to camp. 

   Conor and I set up the longtom about 100 feet from the creek. We had decided to go ahead and run gravel with the tom until we got the trommel back from town. We could stockpile as well as run the tom. The run rate on the tom was somewhere around 5 to 7 yards an hour. We could at least make a little gold and stockpile the extra gravel.

   It wasn’t too long before I heard the Mack coming down the mountain. Clay brought the load over to where we were standing and I showed him where to dump it. He pulled away and Conor used the skid steer to scoop gravel and feed the grizzly hopper. We were mining again and it felt good.

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

1 hour ago, dig4gold said:

I wish you the best of luck.

D4G

Many thanks. Luck is always good to have.

   Here's to 'Ya Big Clay

  September 3   2002     Part Three     The Crew Meets Big Clay Ekins and Old  

                                                                           Bulldog 

   Clay rumbled into camp with his old Mack truck about an hour before sundown. I introduced him to Jacob and Conor and we helped him with his gear and got him squared away. Clay took us over to his truck and introduced us like it was a living thing. He said “Bulldog, this here’s the mining crew we’re a gonna’ be workin’ for and I want you to mind your manners and do a good job for these men”.  One thing I noticed right off the bat was his stock of beer - all 20 cases of it that he brought to camp. Clay said he’d had his supper but we heated up some canned hash and Jacob brought out a bottle of whisky. He and Clay had a shot and seemed to hit it off pretty well right from the get go. 

   The air was chilling and I got a campfire going to help keep us warm while we sat around and got acquainted with Clay. He passed out some beer and proceeded to tell us about Old Bulldog. Clay was a big guy and as outgoing and friendly as could be. He had a kind of booming voice and liked to laugh about everything it seemed. He said his dad used the truck back in the day to haul coal out in Wyoming. He remembered his dad putting him in the truck when he was just a little kid and riding along while his dad worked. Clay had moved to California with his girlfriend a number of years ago and he got work as a truck driver. Freight or dump truck, it was all the same to him. When his father passed away he had the truck hauled out to California and he put it to work on the gravel quarries around the area. He said he and his girlfriend had split up a few years ago and he was footloose and fancy free. He seemed like the kind of guy that enjoyed that lifestyle. 

   Clay didn’t know anything about gold mining but was fascinated and excited to get the chance to work on a real gold mine. I noticed that he sure could drink beer. He’d down one in ten minutes and open another without losing a breath. In an hour he’d downed six of them and kept right on a going until we retired for the night at 10:00 PM. I counted eleven beers in about two hours. I told him we’d show him the haul road in the morning and see if it was fit for Old Bulldog. Clay said that would be fine and he was going to sit up a little while and have a few more beers. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............

52 minutes ago, dig4gold said:

Another side of the equation is how long the gold remains to be there & that is the unknown. A mine doesn't close down because it has made too much money but because the gold runs out or it costs too much to get it out. Drill testing can give very good indications of values & longertivity of the deposit.

Gold here in New Zealand has broken through the NZ$ 3,500 an ounce. First time in history. Our "new" government is pro mining so the West Coast Miners are rubbing there hands together. Good times.

D4G  

In our situation the mining area was left abandoned in the late 1800's due to water delivery issues as well as law suits stopping hydraulic mining. Our tests were done by trenching which I always prefer for small ventures. It has shown a 50 ft thick pay zone. The bedrock is exposed from the the hydraulic workings but ends at the virgin bluffs which can now be high graded by trenching methods. Of course, as you say, nothing is certain but I am confident enough to give it a go. Most likely this would be my last go around out there. 

NOT IN THE JOURNAL  :  Kind of excited to say I am working on a plan to re open the upper dig site talked about in the journal. With gold nearly $2200/ounce currently it is making a lot of sense. Back in 2019 & 2020 we ran 300 yards of material through a trommel and averaged a little better than a gram per yard. A gram is now worth around $70. At that time we only had a water license for the pond and were limited on production because the pond is replenished from a 150 ft deep flooded mine shaft. Since then we have obtained a water license for both the north/south running creek as well as the lower creek. This will solve the water issues. Luckily the dig site is nearly 3000 feet from one creek and 2000 feet from the other. That put us well out of the 300 ft buffer zone where it's impossible to permit. I'd rather pump water over a distance than haul material that far anyway. With a Gold Claimer 30 we were able to process 15 yards of gravel per hour. Trommels usually are rated for nearly double of what they can actually do in the real world. Doing the math, running the trommel for 50 hours per week which is conservative but leaves room for downtime which always happens gives us 750 yards of pay X $15 =  $11,250/wk. or around $45,000/month less expenses. A 6 month season would come out to $270,000 less expenses. A larger trommel would produce more gold but require more water & produce more tailings to deal with so I am inclined to start on this smaller scale for a trial run. This plan would also be able to be run by three people. The Gold Claimer trommel was very reliable and not prone to jam up like some others we have used. I am still working on all these details. 

  September 3   2002     Part two

   When I got back to camp Jacob and Conor had made good work of the old mine road. They had smoothed out the rough areas and it looked fit for use as a haul road. From the upper dig site the old mine road traveled west by southwest until it reached a much better old road along the north-south running creek. This road followed the creek south going steeply down the mountain until it hit the main county road. Our turnoff to the lower creek was just before it reached the county road and this part of the haul was what needed the most attention. It followed the lower creek heading back east until it reached our processing site. All in all the total round trip was approximately two miles in length. 

   Then I did some calculating while Conor and Jacob worked the lower road. The Mack truck would be able to haul about 7 yards of pay gravel. It would take the excavator about 20 minutes to load it at the upper dig site. The time it would take the truck to complete the circuit would be about 10 minutes maximum. That worked out to us being able to send two loads of pay gravel per hour to the processing site or 14 yards per hour. Working a 9 hour day the truck should haul about 126 yards per day. That’s enough gravel to feed the trommel for 5 hours. We know the pay up on the mountain has been fairly rich with numerous hotspots so we should do pretty good. We will also have the chance to stockpile about 1000 yards of gravel depending on when we get the trommel back. I am hoping to run this way until the end of the season whenever that ends up being. Clay should be at camp sometime before dark. We will put him to work and see if the old Mack is up for the job.

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

   September 3   2002   Part One     Big Clay Ekins and Old Bulldog

   I got into town early and started hitting up the likely spots where someone might know of a truck for sale or rent. I found one dump truck for sale but the price was way too high. There wasn’t anything around the area for rent either. Around noon I was ready to head back to camp to tell the crew we’d have to widen our search. I decided to stop at the tavern for a beer before I left. There were only a couple of cars and trucks in the parking lot but one of them stood out. It was an old green colored Mack dump. I walked over to take a look at it. It looked older than the hills and pretty beat up. I walked into the bar. There were two guys sitting at a corner table eating sandwiches and a rough looking guy who looked to be in his mid 50’s sitting at the bar drinking a beer. I walked over to him and asked if he happened to own the Mack truck.

   Well, he said he was the owner and his name was Clay Ekins. Everyone called him Big Clay and I could see why. I guessed he was about 6 foot 4 inches in height and probably a good 250 or more pounds in weight. He was dressed in worn out bibbed overalls and steel toe work boots that had the leather worn of the steel toes.  I asked him about his truck.

   Big Clay told me it had been his father’s truck way back and when his father passed away he took it over. It was a 1937 Mack AC. I asked him how much gravel it could haul and he said around seven or eight tons easy. When I asked him about renting it he shook his head no. He said that truck was his baby and no one drove it but him. We had a couple of beers and I asked him if he would be interested in helping us out at the mine. Would he be interested in joining the crew for the remainder of the season?

   Big Clay perked up when I told him about our gold mine and he was all in. He  wanted a small weekly paycheck, a small gold percentage, and all his fuel paid for. I agreed. I gave him directions to the mine and he said he could be out there with Old Bulldog that evening. I told him we’d get him set up with a place to stay in a camper. We shook hands and I headed back to camp to tell Jacob and Conor the good news.  

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............

  September 2   2002     Part Three

   We found a single picker and a small amount of fine gold from the entire sample bucket. This was discouraging. We moved another twenty feet to the west and repeated the entire process with no better results. By now it was getting on towards dusk and we went back to camp feeling defeated. I was wondering if our season was coming to an end because of the poor gravel at the lower area of the mountain.

   After a good supper of hash and beans Jacob brought out a bottle of whisky and filled our cups. We sat back looking at the campfire light dance across the campsite as darkness took over the mountain. The air was getting chilly now when the sun went down and overnight freezing was not too far off. Then Jacob broke the silence. He had an idea.

   He said we knew the upper dig site we had abandoned due to lack of water was good ground. He figured we could buy an old dump truck or rock truck and start digging up there again. Then we could haul pay gravel down to our processing area down here and stockpile the material until we got the trommel back. We were told it might be a week or possibly longer to get the trommel repaired. We should be able to haul at least a thousand yards of gravel down to the processing area. Maybe more depending on the truck used. We could keep hauling while one man processed. There would be a person to dig with the excavator, a person to haul pay with the truck, and a person feeding the trommel with the skid steer. The road coming down the mountain would just need a little work to accommodate a truck.  We might be able to buy a truck or rent one from town. So tomorrow, I will go into town on a mission to bring back a truck while Jacob and Conor spruce up the old mine road. We might have a chance to end the season with a big payday after all. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ..............

ptember 2   2002     Part Two

   We started taking samples along the bottom area of the mountain and a bit west of our current digsite. It was early afternoon and we were trying to find what seemed like the impossible - good pay gravel worth running through the tom. I took the excavator over to an area Jacob recommended and started to cut a deep trench. I started where the base of the mountain hit the floodplain. Bedrock was struck at twelve feet in depth. Conor and Jacob panned samples of the material and other than a few fine specs the ground was devoid of gold. Jacob told me to drive the trench deeper into the mountain and try to stay on bedrock. I was able to get into the base of the mountain about twenty feet. Now we had a very deep cut. Again samples were taken and the results were not good. There was a little more fine gold in the sample pan but not enough for what we needed.

   I made one last effort and advanced the trench another eight feet. If I went any further the overburden would likely collapse the trench. Conor scurried into the cut and got out quickly with a nearly full five gallon bucket of material. At this point I shut down the excavator and the three of us started panning. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

 September 2   2002     Part One     Old School Long Tom 

   We talked everything over last night and decided to haul the trommel into town to have it repaired. Seeing as it may be there for quite a while we will be using the long tom once again. As Jacob says, it has no moving parts and is always reliable. We can set a small grizzly over the hopper and feed it with the excavator. The drawback is production is going to be severely cut. We are going to spend the remainder of today digging sample trenches with the excavator in the hopes of finding better paying gravel. I am keeping my fingers crossed and hopefully things will work out.

   TO BE CONTINUED .............

At least we didn't end up like these guys LOL.

  September 1   2002     Sometimes It Ain’t Worth The Fight

   We went out to the dig site bound and determined to get lots of gold today. Right off the bat things turned ugly. For some unknown reason the water pump refused to start. After about an hour of tinkering it finally fired up. However, it wouldn’t push water to the trommel. I purged the line by releasing the screw  cap on top of the pump. When the cap released it was under pressure and shot hot water into my face and knocked me on my tail. Luckily I was not scalded but the cap had shot out of my hand and disappeared into some bushes. We didn’t have another one so the three of us spent the next 45 minutes looking for it. Conor finally spotted it and we were back in business. 

   Now the pump was working and Jacob turned on the trommel. It made several rotations and then we heard a loud bang and everything stopped. Upon inspection we saw that one of the mounts for the barrel had broken off and as the trommel slid sideways a bit it took out the chain which in turn sheared part of the sprocket. Now I have heard many swear words but never as many and for as long as what came out of Jacob’s mouth. We were finished before we started.

   Conor gave the base of the trommel a good kick and broke his toe. I took a seat on a nearby log and just watched Jacob unload his temper on the inanimate machine. He had picked up a long, stout stick and was beating all heck out of the barrel. It was sad but I also wanted to laugh. And that’s just what the three of us finally did. 

   Jacob rolled a smoke and Conor looked over at me as if to ask what we should do. I just shrugged my shoulders. Now we had some serious work ahead of us. By now it was mid morning and I was done with this day. I told Jacob that we ought to do a cleanup on the previous day's run so that’s what we ended up doing. That cleanup turned out to be a complete loser with only 1.9 ounces out of the 250 yards of processed gravel. I was starting to wonder if it was even worth the trouble to get the trommel going again for the remainder of the season.

      TO BE CONTINUED ...................

   This was one of Jacob's favorite Irish songs. Thinking of him today. 

   August 31   2002

   We got an early start this morning and were running the trommel as the sun was coming up over the trees. The days have cooled some and the nights are getting colder. The season is slipping away now day by day. The mornings are my favorite time. There’s always the promise of a big gold strike with every bucket of gravel dug out with the excavator. I suppose we are all dreamers to an extent. We all have the fever and that’s what keeps us here every day facing all kinds of adversity.

   The day went by quickly and without event. We washed 250 yards of gravel. The test pans are showing fine gold but nothing special. Our trench has extended deep into the base of the mountain. Jacob says it is looking mostly like tailings. If we get some good rain during September and the pond gets replenished on the good ground higher up where we were working earlier we have a chance to end the season with a big finish. As of now our gold count stands at 694.3 ounces. This includes Jacob’s contribution from earlier in the season. 

   Tonight we celebrated Jacob’s freedom with his hot water cornbread and Hoover Stew. This was his brother Jed’s favorite meal. After supper we opened up a bottle of Bushmills and sat around a small campfire as the darkness set in. We had wasted a lot of mining time out here because of all the distractions and we wanted a lot more gold before we went home. The night air was chilly and the only sound that broke the silence was a lone bobcat screech somewhere far off in the distance. Somehow, against all odds, I still have a crew and we are still mining gold. At this point, that's all I can ask for. Jacob is still intent on  staying the Winter. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

Jacob is free.