Lanny

Had some great correspondence with him over the years, and he was a supremely helpful person, and he always made me feel like he'd known me a lifetime, a rare person indeed. Thanks for the notification, as I was beginning to wonder why he had gone silent on some of his ongoing threads. All the best, Lanny

Holy jumpin' dynamite! What an enigmatic thread of definite maybes, cloaked in riddles, and all nicely wrapped in custom-made mysteries . . . All the best, Lanny

You're having a great adventure, and I'm sure as you keep swinging that coil and continue nugget hunting, you'll find the gold, whether it's the memories that will last a lifetime, the new and unfamiliar scenery and animals, the flashbacks you're having to better days in the USA, or the great people you'll meet. All the best as you're out there living the dream, Lanny

Great finds, and I loved the story that went along with your adventure, nicely phrased. All the best, and thanks for the pictures as well, Lanny

Great finds, congratulations! Thanks for posting the pictures, and all the best, Lanny

Gold Monster OutingWent to the gold camp in the Rocky Mountains last week. The weather was gorgeous, all kinds of songbirds back, plus the flowers of the mountain meadows are in full bloom, purple crocus and shooting stars, yellow buttercups, multi-coloured Johnny Jump-ups, etc., etc.At the camp as I was checking over the living quarters (camper and two travel trailers), a humming bird buzzed straight past my right ear! That snappy racket from those wings going a million miles an hour is unmistakable. So, we set out the humming bird feeders hoping to catch a glimpse of the beautiful and dazzling red to orange coloured throat of the Roufus variety before they head farther north, and we’ll keep an eye out for the beautiful iridescent green of the more common ones that stick around all season.My wife unpacked her shiny new Minelab Gold Monster, and for those of you familiar with the machine, there’s not much reading to do, but I watched a whack of user videos before we hit the mountains so I could give my little darlin’ some tips and guidelines as she set out to learn how to use it.I picked a spot for her to try her luck on, an old fairly level place in a valley where some placer miners once had their wash-plant. The claim is now abandoned, last worked by some modern-day Chinese miners, but they left the area under a gloomy cloud, and I doubt they’ll ever be back.I gave my June Bride some general instructions on how to run the Gold Monster (I’d never used one before, but the YouTube and other user-posted videos were a great help. Furthermore, I’d like to give a shout-out to Bill Southern for his wonderful educational efforts.). But, we figured the Monster out quite quickly, and that’s why I’m grateful to Steve Herschbach for recommending I get my sweetheart one due to its ease of use, and kudos to Steve and Jonathan Porter for their write-ups on the machine which helped me quickly get a handle on the basics; their input was invaluable.By eye-balling the old site, I could tell pretty close to where the Chinese had pulled out their wash-plant, so I used that information to gauge where I’d have my wife start to detect as there are always some “spill” areas that offer a better shot at finding a nugget or two. Having said that, it was easy to see they had bladed and bucketed the area carefully after they were done to gather any spilled material; those miners were no greenhorns.I blocked off in a rough rectangle an area I thought might pay, and right away, my wife was hitting targets, but they were almost all ferrous, so she kept experimenting toggling back and forth between discriminate and all iron, learning the different sounds, learning how to make it easier to ID targets (to get them to sound off louder), learning how to read the little bar graph when it gave its indication of non-ferrous more than ferrous, as well as getting used to the sounds of shallow vs. deeper targets, and learning how to use the magnet wand to save time while sorting trash signals. (To elaborate, she’s a great panner, but a green, green rookie when it comes to nugget shooting.)The thing about detecting an old wash-plant set-up is that it gets very easy to quickly tell where the repairs (welds, patches, etc.) took place, and the numerous bits of welding rod sure make for some interesting sounds, and curious readings on the graph! Having said that, the Monster’s discriminator sure came in handy, and yes, depth was lost, but by using the small round coil, target separation was much better, and I was impressed at how my wife was able to move slowly from target to target, separating their locations, as she dug out signals.While she was test-driving the Monster, I was going for a comfortable cruise with my Gold Bug Pro. That is one hot machine, at least mine is. (I’ve heard detecting folklore that some machines leave the factory “hotter” than others, and I have no idea it that’s true or not, but the one I have is a firecracker for sure, super sensitive, and a true gold hound for sniffing out gold from tiny flakes to meaty nuggets.)I started to hit non-ferrous targets in one slice of her search area, so I marked a few so she could check them out. Well, those miners had liked their cigarettes, and there were plenty of crumpled bits of foil from the wrappers as well as some other kind of lead foil with a gold-coloured outer covering that made for some increased heartbeat, but only turned out to be a bust.After having dug some of those duds, she called me over. “Hey, what do you think of this signal?”. She was getting a great reading on the Monster, and it sounded sweet too. She worked the ground for a bit chasing the target around with her scoop (when a target runs from the scoop, it’s usually something heavy, as most ferrous trash seems to hop quickly into the scoop). Dropping the dirt from the scoop onto the coil, she moved things around and there sat a pretty little picker, about a quarter of a gram! Man, was she pumped!!So, she kept on working that rectangle while I ranged farther afield with the Bug Pro, and I too found all kinds of cigarette foil, and that maddening, thick lead foil with gold coloring--craziest stuff I’ve ever seen, and I have no idea what it originally contained. I recovered a small aluminum parts tag, several electrical connectors, bits of lead, and pieces of broken brass likely from a bushing of some kind.My wife gave another shout, and over I went. Her meter was pinning consistently in the sweet zone, the signal sound nice and crisp. Capturing the target, she threw the dirt in a gold pan. Next, she then used the Garret Carrot to chase the signal around the pan. She moved some dirt then cried out, “Look at this. Is this gold?” At first, it was hard to tell what it was due to a covering of grey clay, but using a bit of water soon revealed a sassy nugget! If I’d thought she was excited about her first find, it was nothing compared to her reaction on that one!I can only come to this conclusion: The Minelab Gold Monster is a sweet machine that sure produces sweet results, because it’s so easy to use, and it makes my sweetheart happy (couldn’t resist punning on sweet, forgive me).All the best,Lanny

Awful nice of you to take them on, enjoyed the article as well. All the best, Lanny

My wife is fairly new to nugget shooting, and she loves to watch the show. I know a lot of lines and scenes are staged, but without that, you wouldn't get the flow the show has, but the nuggets they find sure make for good viewing, and there's always a few tips to learn as well. All the best, and looking forward to season 4, Lanny

Good luck with your gold-hunting down under, sounds like a true adventure. Australia is still on the bucket list for the diving and for the gold. All the best, Lanny

Nice finds all the way around, enjoyed the write-up as well. Thanks for posting, and all the best, Lanny

Lots of good reflections and good information on this post. Thanks, and all the best, Lanny

Amazingly different, but similar . . . Nice finds, and all the best, Lanny

Gold and opal, winning combination that makes for lots of fun. Thanks for posting the pictures, and all the best, Lanny

That's a beautiful nugget. They just don't grow them that size where I'm at. Thanks for posting the picture, and all the best, Lanny

Absolutely beautiful find! Nicely done, and all the best, Lanny

Can you smell the rice cooking?I recall being far to the north in a historic gold field, and I had the opportunity to have a chat with a Sourdough (a seasoned miner from the area) about his claim. He took me to a spot one day and told me a most interesting tale.However, before I relate his story, I’ll describe its location. It was far down in the bottom of a secluded valley. Steep, black-walled mountains rose on either side, and courageous growths of spruce and fur clung to the steep slopes, with birch, poplar and aspen peppering the evergreens lower down. Dark draws inhabited by deeper areas of gloom gave birth to swiftly flowing streams that emptied into the valley. From these gulches, the icy, ghostly breath of unseen currents of air rushed forth to randomly lift the hair, before chilling the neck and spine. Indeed, an eerie atmosphere pervaded that sullen spot of murky shadows where the long dead miners of some 150-years past had chased the gold to make their fortunes, or to lose their lives.On a gentle slop above long rows and piles of cobble stacks, the remnants of a massive hand-workings, the miner’s cabin was situated. It was an ancient cabin, one in continual use since the original gold rush, the cabin perpetually maintained and rebuilt until it was later used by a member of the North West Mounted police as a retirement refuge. Later, it was acquired by Glen the miner. Heavy logs formed the base of the walls, with smaller logs progressing up the sides, and there were only two windows, one big enough to allow light to enter, and one small one which served as a lookout. The log ends were all beautifully axe cut to fit and lock together, and there was an addition on the back of the main cabin that housed a food storage and washing area. The doors were heavy and sturdily built as grizzly and black bears frequently visited the area. (I have a story somewhere about the attack on Glen’s cabin by an enraged grizzly, quite the hair-raising tale he told me of his experience that truly made my blood run cold.)A path led down from the slope to a long draw that then led to a bedrock rise, with the draw, or gulch, continuing upward. On the other side of the bedrock rise a fast-flowing creek could be heard. The bedrock rise continued to climb as it joined the shoulder of the mountain. There was a trail that led up the non-creek side of that shoulder, and I headed off on foot to look the area over.The first thing I noticed, as I looked down into the draw from the trail, were the sunken places. There were five large areas where the earth had slumped, with smaller areas running perpendicular to the gulch that were still at the original level. This of course spiked my curiosity.When I returned from my hike, Glen the miner was at his cabin, and we had a chat.He started in with a bit of history of the area. That the place had been extensively hand-mined I had already seen; that it was shallow to bedrock in many places was also obvious. What he filled me in on was that the early miners were after the easy, shallow gold, and they had done very well, with many ounces of coarse gold quickly gathered from the shallow diggings. But, as was the common case in the 1800’s, there was always the news of new gold rush farther to the north where the gold was equally shallow, easier to get to, so the miners that loved the quick gold soon left to chase other strikes. That left the deeper gold that required organized groups of people with the necessary capital to start up larger operations.Then, he told me about the arrival of the Chinese miners in the area. They followed the gold rushes and came in after the other miners had had creamed the shallow gold and had either abandoned their claims or were looking to sell cheaply. The Chinese, he said, were not afraid of hard work, and moreover, many of them did not have a choice of whether they liked hard work or not due to being indentured laborers, a form of slavery so to speak, until they had paid off the Tong for their debt to the organization. Glen went on to explain how the Chinese used a lot of opium during their miserable existence, and he told me of bottle hunters that had come a few years before my arrival and of their efforts in trash dumps to recover the precious little bottles. He also told me of the tiny log huts the miners lived in, short-walled on purpose as they were easier to heat during the brutal winters. In addition, he told me of the superstitions the Chinese were bound to, mysterious ones that propelled their efforts.Then, he took me on a walk.The bedrock rise that I’ve already mentioned was where he took me, but he walked me over closer to the face where there was a bit of a fold, and that fold hid from view the entrance to a tunnel, but one that he had caved in with is heavy equipment as it led to a large area of unsafe underground workings, ones the Chinese had excavated by hand. I then told him about my upslope hike, and of seeing the collapsed areas, and he confirmed that all of that long draw was a continuation of the original Chinese workings. He elaborated that the Chinese had struck an ancient channel by cutting below it through the solid rock so they could hit the base of the channel where the coarse gold was trapped. A lot of trapped water had flowed when they punched through the last of the bedrock, but they had cut the tunnel on purpose so it would drain the ancient water down and away before they went to work.The gold was coarse, and they took out a lot of good gold over several years, but then one day the horrific happened, the roof of the tunnel, off on one side excavation of the gulch, collapsed, killing several Chinese. They left the area . . . (This is not an isolated incident, and I have read about this in other gold rush accounts, bad Josh/Joss [bad luck] was something they didn’t mess with, and the area was forever cursed to them.)When Glen first acquired the claim, he had gone into the tunnel mouth, and he’d taken samples from the floor of the tunnel. The buckets of dirt he’d recovered were full of pickers! To prove this, he gave a jar of the dirt for later panning, and it was indeed loaded with gold!!So, his interesting tale had answered my questions about the sunken areas I’d seen on my walk, and I could see just how extensive the underground workings were that the Chinese had driven up that gulch from the size of the collapsed areas. Those determined miners had really got the job done, regardless of their motivations.As we were leaving the tunnel mouth, Glen turned to me and said, “Can you smell the rice cooking?”I said, “What?”He said again, “Can you smell the rice cooking?”I answered, “No, can you?”He then told me that on certain days, when the wind was just right, he could smell the scent of rice cooking as it drifted down to the cabin from the gulch. He didn’t smile or joke in any way, and the gloomy setting of the area, with its accompanying tragedy, put nothing but a large punctuation mark on his story.All the best,Lanny

This is great information to know as when I finally quit my day job so I can chase the gold on my own terms, I'll be visiting Yuma in the wintertime to get away from our northern cold. Thanks for the information, for the pictures as well, and all the best, Lanny

Hi Fred, always great to hear from you, and thanks for the question. The main reason, right now, is that I'm on good gold as well as gold in quantity where I'm at. In addition, the gold is much closer, which is always a good thing, six times closer in fact. Another reason is the nature of the trip to get to that remote gold field: brutal roads, the need to dodge logging trucks that in no way can stop if I wander into their path or suddenly emerge from the choking dust (after a tight curve, or a dip or rise in the road, for instance) that constantly covers the roads in the summer, and then there's the numerous flat tires caused by the razor sharp bits of grader blade added to the road's surface from maintaining the roads. In addition there's the bears and the bugs: the deadly B's. However, the gold is very coarse in that area, and believe it or not, I will be making a return trip one day when I retire and get the opportunity to mount another expedition as I know of several places (other than the one I wrote about) where there's good gold to be found with the detectors, ones shown to me by my mining friends as they pried the pickers from the bedrock cracks with screwdrivers! (Now, that's low tech. gold gettin' equipment!) They showed me some great draws and gulches (screwdriver gold) where the old-timers worked by hand, places that are now overgrown, ones shallow to bedrock, and with what I've learned about detecting since I left that area, and with the advancements in detecting technology since I left the region, I'll have a good time chasing that sassy northern gold. Oh, and on a side note, I saw the gold the river snipers (floating the water with snorkel, mask, and sniping tools) were getting from bedrock cracks, and that's something I'm much better at now too. (The truly great thing to keep that gold safe up there is that there's only a tiny resident population, perhaps 30 people in many hundreds of square miles.) Hope the answer wasn't too long, and thanks for your question, Lanny

One of King Midas' tears? Didn't know he was in Australia, but the proof is in his golden tear you've recovered. Cool find, and all the best, Lanny

This post falls into the category of things that haunt us, the lost opportunities, the unknowns that make us wish we'd have done something different, that we’d have paid more attention at the time, or that we’d have made a return trip . . . I know of a spot that I have to get back to one day where they were running the material so fast they were pushing nuggets over the end of the sluice boxes, and all of that material ran under a road across jagged bedrock, so those nuggets will still be there.That same outfit had a hopper that had a leak, and it used to ooze out material from one side. These guys were getting so much gold, they knew about the leak, and they knew they were pushing gold over the end of the sluices, but the season up north is short, and the material was incredibly rich, so they were running flat out to get as much as quickly as they could. Furthermore, because they were getting so much gold, they wound up not caring about what they’d lost.From my own experience, I know the gold was left at the site after they pulled their equipment out as I panned a few spots, and talk about pickers! That country is known for coarse gold. I gathered up a couple of five-gallon buckets for my son to pan, and what a party he had running those buckets through a little river sluice. There was lots of dirt left at the site of that hopper too. But, once again, a person would have to know exactly where to look, and to the casual observer, they'd never have a clue as to what had taken place there in the past.However, I’ll add a few more details about that abandoned area, and the wash-plant, as well as a bit about the crew and the deposition of gold in their mining cut.After removing about forty feet of overburden (boulder clay: thick glacial clay salted with boulders), the ancient channel was finally exposed, with lots of orange material (orange is a good sign of the heavy mineralization that runs with the gold in ancient channels) in the bottom six feet of material that was sitting tight on bedrock. Moreover, getting to the bedrock had exposed a large section of tunnel where the old-timers had worked extensively, and as those Sourdoughs did all of that underground, back-breaking work by hand, it was a good sign that we might have a great chance to hit some good gold as well, and we sure did.After the modern miners used the excavator to take the orange material out, and there was only bare bedrock left, I got invited into the pit to have a look at the side-wall of the channel, the area composing the ancient stream material that was still buried under all of the previously mentioned overburden. It was a sight I'll never forget.The excavator operator (who was also the mine owner) walked me in from the north end of the cut, and he said, "I've never seen this before. Come take a look."He walked me over to where the cleaned bedrock met the wall, and then he started pointing out nuggets in the wall! You just can't make this stuff up!!About a foot off of the bedrock, and all along the length of the cut, we walked along flicking out multi-gram nuggets from the side wall into a pan!! I'd certainly never seen anything like it before, and I haven't seen anything remotely close to that amazing sight since.The owner had to go to town for machinery parts, and the second-in-command wanted to yard as much through the wash-plant as quickly as possible, but not having been in the game as long as the owner, he overfed the plant, because when they shut it down, the twin sluices were yellow from top to bottom with nuggets!! That's another sight I haven't seen since, and one you should never see if you're running the plant properly. Furthermore, that's why the nuggets went over the end of the sluice with the discharge water, getting trapped on the broken bedrock as the water rushed under the road to fall into the waiting settling pond, and nobody ever tried to recover them as the whole outfit left at the end of the season and none of them returned (me included).However, as I said earlier, they got so much gold everyone was happy regardless. Now, that’s the kind of gold mining problem I’d love to have in the future, the issue of pushing nuggets over the end of the sluice but not bothering to recover them because the overall take was so rich!All the best,Lanny

Entertaining little thread. Thanks guys, and all the best, Lanny

If it's the right kind of quartz, that for the area is known to hold detectable gold, then yes. All the best, Lanny

Thanks for dropping in Mark, and if I'm in gold country whenever I find previously worked bedrock (from the 1800's, the 1930's, or later, right up until yesterday), I always check it with the detector. Almost always, something seems to get left behind. All the best, Lanny

Wow! Beautiful haul!! All the best, Lanny

Nice tribute to Gerry, seems like a great guy, and from what I've seen, he's very willing to help people out too. I'd love to meet him some day. All the best, Lanny