Popular Post GhostMiner Posted January 23, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 23, 2022 APRIL 16 1936 Got woke up last night by loud screaching sounds which lasted an hour or so. Might have been lion or bobcat. There was more than one and they came close to camp. I spent the day working on the road up to the fault line. All hand saw and pick and shovel. Was too tired to take more samples. Tomorrow I should be able to get my truck up to the dig site. I will load some gravels to take down to the creek. I have a tom sluice that will sit in the creek where the flow is right. The creek is running good from all the melt off up higher on the mountain. My claims are anywhere from 3500 feet to 4000 feet in altitude. I have a hard wood grizzly screen to set over the head of the tom. I'll shovel onto that to screen out anything over two inches. The tom is 20 feet in length and 18 inches wide. I've got it lined with carpet matting and riffles. Got a nice supper of dried beef and beens. Turning in now. TO BE CONTINUED ........................ 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post GhostMiner Posted January 23, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 23, 2022 APRIL 17 1936 Got a good nights rest. I was able to drive the truck up to the dig site with my buckets. I worked on getting in further and as deep and close to country rock as I could. Then I filled about a quarter ton of good gravels in some buckets and drove down to the creek. I set up the tom and grizzly and set a good angle on the tom. Worked the rest of the day processing and finished up the panning from the heavies that were pulled. When weighed out it was about 20 cents to the ton. Not glory days but working wages at least. My thinking is there is better pay in there to be found. Tomorrow I will begin doing the road work out to the eastern drift mine I sampled. There is an old wagon road out there I can use once it's fixed up some. Then I plan to get a good test on that mine. Fixing a good supper of hoover stew with coffee spiced with Irish whiskey and turning in. TO BE CONTINUED .................... 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMiner Posted January 24, 2022 Author Share Posted January 24, 2022 I will post a map of Jed's area tomorrow. I hope everyone is enjoying the journal. It's about to get pretty interesting. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zincoln Posted January 24, 2022 Share Posted January 24, 2022 Ghostminer, Fun to hear this first person back when times were simpler. THx for sharing this....and looking forward to the daily dose of Irish Whiskey! Zincoln 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMiner Posted January 24, 2022 Author Share Posted January 24, 2022 Here is a map of Jed's area. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMiner Posted January 24, 2022 Author Share Posted January 24, 2022 Another note from me here : I tried to figure a rough calculation on what Jed got on his first test of the fault line. Gold was about $35/ounce in 1936. I like to figure my estimates in American dollars per cubic yard. He was figuring his values based in per ton. So doing the calculations I estimate somewhere arounf $25 per cubic yard based in today's gold values give or take a few dollars a yard either way. So when he said working wages I figure if he worked hard all day he might have got 2 - 4 yards a day so maybe $50 - $100 a day in gold in today's values. Also, it's hard to figure dollar values exactly as the price of goods has inflated at different rates. I also found it kind of humorous when he said glory days weren't there yet. We all know that feeling for sure when prospecting. However, not to give too much away, but he had no idea what was about to happen to him. I also found out he was working innitially under the direction of a very prominent geologist so that must explain why he chose to file claims in this location. I have tested this area as well & will give my values at a later date. Let's just say for now that there are some very good areas. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMiner Posted January 24, 2022 Author Share Posted January 24, 2022 APRIL 18, 19, 20 1936 Snow is all melted off and the creeks are running hard. I spent all three days out on the old wagon road that leads to the eastern drift mine. The road is now passable for my truck. There's a lot of exposed country rock and old iron pipe out near the drift which tells me this was worked bt hydraulic method mostly but for some reason someone drifted into the virgin gravels. The hill is a good 90 feet or more in height and the facings were hydraulicked to country. The old hand dug water flume runs up the mountain but is overgrown with brush. My guess is that the old boys had water delivery issues. Anyway, I will get my truck out there to haul samples to the tom. I noticed a lot of bear tracks out along the way out there. My goal is to find the best ground for my efforts. I'm getting anxious to start mining gold but I know that this early work will pay in the end. Turning in now after a supper of dried beef and crackers and a small cup of Irish whiskey. TO BE CONTINUED .............. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMiner Posted January 24, 2022 Author Share Posted January 24, 2022 April 21 1936 Got the truck out to the eastern drift mine and worked the old adit gravels. I went back in about 100 feet and dug down into the old river gravels along the bottom of the west wall. I took out ten buckets and hauled them to the creek to process. Once again I was not seeing the glory gold I had hoped for. The values were a little less than what I got at the fault line. Some fines mixed with a bit of nice coarse. Tomorrow I will go back out there for another try and perhaps get down to country rock which I think is still another five feet deeper. The weather warmed a bit today and the days are getting longer. I haven't seen a soul around this area since I came here. I will be heading to town sometime soon for a few provisions. I am finding the prospecting life to be most fullfilling but lonely at times. It will be nice to get into town. TO BE CONTINUED ................... 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostMiner Posted January 24, 2022 Author Share Posted January 24, 2022 1 minute ago, GhostMiner said: April 21 1936 Got the truck out to the eastern drift mine and worked the old adit gravels. I went back in about 100 feet and dug down into the old river gravels along the bottom of the west wall. I took out ten buckets and hauled them to the creek to process. Once again I was not seeing the glory gold I had hoped for. The values were a little less than what I got at the fault line. Some fines mixed with a bit of nice coarse. Tomorrow I will go back out there for another try and perhaps get down to country rock which I think is still another five feet deeper. The weather warmed a bit today and the days are getting longer. I haven't seen a soul around this area since I came here. I will be heading to town sometime soon for a few provisions. I am finding the prospecting life to be most fullfilling but lonely at times. It will be nice to get into town. TO BE CONTINUED ................... A side not here : We were able to find the drift mine on the side of the mountain based on what Jed wrote in the journal. There is still a rough trail out there that a 4 whl vehicle can use. At first we weren't exactly sure of the location because there had been lots of slides from above and the addit was buried. Luckily we're permitted for heavy equipment & have a bond in place so we took a mid size excavator out there and started digging into the side of the mountain. We hit it first try after about 30 minutes of digging. The 2 man saw was even still in there but it was broken. The timbers were all rotted out and large hanging rock everywhere. I told everyone to stay out but we scouped sampled with the excavator bucket allong the side wall near bedrock. We got anywhere from $15 -$60 per cubic yard out of the test which sampled bedrock to 20 ft above bedrock.. Not bad. We leased this mine out to a guy from Nevada who is now permitting for an operation. Anywhere into the sides of the mountain there have gold bearing gravels. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now