** Lost Gold At The Dead Man's Mine ** A Miners Journal **

[GhostMiner]

7 hours ago, arizflash said:

Ghostminer - I've had a great time reading your stories the last few months. Thank you.

Thank you for reading. Hopefully you have been here from the beginning.

[GhostMiner]

   So just to refresh everyone's memories - this is what we're discussing when talking about the old crew's dig site of 1936. That was the first one and the area of the big strike before they moved to the south kettle 1/2 mile south. There is an old road there where they trucked the buckets down the mountain to the creek to wash them at the tom. That road is not passible for anything but a 4 wheeler or Jeep now - & that's after we worked on it with a skid steer.

[GhostMiner]

9 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

   So just to refresh everyone's memories - this is what we're discussing when talking about the old crew's dig site of 1936. That was the first one and the area of the big strike before they moved to the south kettle 1/2 mile south. There is an old road there where they trucked the buckets down the mountain to the creek to wash them at the tom. That road is not passible for anything but a 4 wheeler or Jeep now - & that's after we worked on it with a skid steer.

   And this sure didn't look too good out near the 1936 dig site.

[GhostMiner]

 May 28   2002

 

   The mood at camp this morning is low. However, I am unable to disclose the reason here in my journal. However, we have all had our breakfast and are more than eager to get back to our dig site. 

   All of the crew including Jacob was up at the site today and we sent gravels singing through the tom at a good clip. By day’s end we were bushed and had washed 17 yards of pay. Jacob’s test pans were all looking very good with plentiful gold in them. We will see what the morning brings. We are all ready for a good night’s sleep I think.

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

[GhostMiner]

   May 29   2002

 

   The morning warmed up quickly and I think it was a hot day for mining. We got 1.3 ounces of gold from yesterday’s work. We headed up to the trench around 9:00 AM. Jacob was saying that this might be the start of the heat but it was a bit early in the season. We will find out that come June things start to get more difficult according to him. If we could just get our permits it wouldn’t be bad for us but as of now there is still no word. We wait as usual. For now, we dig and work the claim by hand just like the old crew did. I sort of take it as a challenge. Can modern man, pampered by equipment to do his work, compete with the old timers who worked so hard to get their gold? I suppose we will find out if our permits don’t come soon.

   By noon I felt exhausted and was starting to feel the dry, 90 degree day sap my strength. I drank water like crazy to keep up with the fluids draining out of me. None of us had much of an appetite for lunch but we ate a little and hurried back to work. I think stopping was the worst thing to do as it was hard to get back into a rhythm for digging. We stayed with it until nearly 8:00 PM. Even Jacob had got down in the pit with us for a spell. We ended with 15 yards of gravel being washed. The heat had definitely taken its toll on us today.

   TO BE CONTINUED ..................

[GhostMiner]

   May 30   2002

 

   We ended up with 9/10 of an ounce of gold out of yesterday’s work. Jacob was saying that if we are going to bring in an excavator we should just do it now. He didn’t want to wait. I explained to him again that we need to wait for our permit to be approved. As if on cue, while we the crew sat around camp this morning eating breakfast, who decides to show up? The government agent from the Forest Service. He came walking into camp with a fine howdy due and told us we were going to be approved and needed to post our bond. He said the paperwork would be sitting in his office tomorrow, which was Friday and the last of the month. Then he said we’d needed to post our bond. If we wanted to start immediately, we needed to put a CD in place at the bank payable to the Forest Service and we were good to go. Hallelujah, we are in business. 

   When the agent left we all started talking about our plan. Jacob was really excited to mine with some digging equipment. We decided to buy a mid-sized excavator at a lot in town.We had been eyeing it for several weeks. This would put a sizable dent in our gold count but we figured to make up for it in pay gravel volume quickly.

   So we took the day off from digging and Jim and I went into town to conduct business. When we concluded, I stopped and bought some good whisky and beer for the crew. We had ourselves a big supper and sat around the campfire drinking and talking about the mine and all the gold we were going to get. Before we knew it the time had slipped right past us and it was 1:00 AM. We all headed for our campers. Tomorrow will be a big day for us.

   TO BE CONTINUED ..................

[GhostMiner]

   May 31   2002

 

   We were all up early before daylight and had breakfast and coffee. We finally got the excavator delivered around 10:00 AM and took it up to the dig site. Vern and Jim were already working on a big grizzly setup to protect the tom. Our plan was to feed it directly from the bucket on the machine and also use it to remove tailings as needed. We set the tom up high on a platform of compacted gravel so the tailings would have a place to fall away. Then as needed when they piled up near the tom we would push them aside and remove them. The excavator had a blade on the front which could be used to push them away.

   We wanted to find out how many yards of gravel the home built tom is capable of handling. We are hoping for a minimum of 5 yards an hour. That might be pushing it so we will see. Part of the day will be used to deal with tailings so we are planning on washing pay gravel for 9 or 10 hours a day. If the tom is capable of the 5 yards then we should get close to 45 - 50 yards of processed material in a day. Also, we are already discussing the possibility of buying a small trommel. One step at a time for now as the season is still early. We also added a larger water pump that should handle the increased volume of gravel being washed.

   It was past 5:00 PM by the time we were ready to give the new setup a try. Vern fired up the pump and Jacob hollered out “Here she comes” as the water came down and across  the mountain. Jim ran the excavator and the first load was fed into the grizzly feed hopper. We didn’t push it too fast and just let the tom take what it could. I set my watch on the operation and calculated nearly 7 yards for the first hour of run time. We decided to shut down and do a good cleanup. By then it was around 7:30 PM and we hauled the concentrates back down to camp and set them off at our cleanup station. We decided to go ahead and do the cleanup which we finished around 9:30 PM and called it a day. We took a look at the gold as Vern weighed it up. There was ½ ounce. We figured if we could run 9 - 10 hours a day we could get around 5 ounces of gold per day if those numbers held up.

   We were all pretty darn happy when we finally sat down to eat our supper and have a drink with Jacob. He was already saying that if we proved those numbers over the next week or two we should buy a trommel and triple our production. He was really getting into the operation now. Everyone’s eyes were full of dollar signs. Then Jacob gave us a stern warning. He said that when the big gold comes we must be very careful not to talk about it with any outsiders. He also said we should not let anyone near our camp or dig site. Period. He said big gold means big trouble. Then he said absolutely no woman will ever come near the claims because they are a jinx to miners. 

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

[GhostMiner]

   June 1   2002

 

   When we got up to the dig site Vern hiked up the mountain to start the pump. When he got it fired up we noticed the water flow was weak so Vern & I followed the water line back up the mountain. It looked to have been cut in several places. We wondered if we had been sabotaged. We didn’t have the parts to make the splices so Jim went into town and got what was needed plus a few extras just in case. By the time we were done it was nearly noon. Jacob shook his head and told us this was a bad sign. He reminded us that bad things can happen when gold is involved.

   We shook it off and got to work. Everything went pretty smooth for the rest of the day and we put a big cut into that mountain. By 7:00 PM we had processed 40 yards of gravel and cleaned out the tom. We decided that Jacob would begin doing the cleanups every day while the three other members of the crew would do the mining. Seeing as we were now processing more gravel the cleanups would likely to take longer. So we figured that when Jacob finished the cleanup he would head up to advise us on the mining operation. He was more than happy to do it. We told him that if this became too much for him or he got bored we could switch off from time to time. Jacob laughed and said he never got bored when working for gold. I couldn’t help but agree.

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............

[GhostMiner]

   I will be getting back to transcribing the 1950's operation soon. I didn't forget about it. The papers are spread out on my desk.

[Old Miner Don]

1 hour ago, GhostMiner said:

   June 1   2002

 

   When we got up to the dig site Vern hiked up the mountain to start the pump. When he got it fired up we noticed the water flow was weak so Vern & I followed the water line back up the mountain. It looked to have been cut in several places. We wondered if we had been sabotaged. We didn’t have the parts to make the splices so Jim went into town and got what was needed plus a few extras just in case. By the time we were done it was nearly noon. Jacob shook his head and told us this was a bad sign. He reminded us that bad things can happen when gold is involved.

   We shook it off and got to work. Everything went pretty smooth for the rest of the day and we put a big cut into that mountain. By 7:00 PM we had processed 40 yards of gravel and cleaned out the tom. We decided that Jacob would begin doing the cleanups every day while the three other members of the crew would do the mining. Seeing as we were now processing more gravel the cleanups would likely to take longer. So we figured that when Jacob finished the cleanup he would head up to advise us on the mining operation. He was more than happy to do it. We told him that if this became too much for him or he got bored we could switch off from time to time. Jacob laughed and said he never got bored when working for gold. I couldn’t help but agree.

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............

Saboteurs in '02? I would have loved to have been with you guys and riding shotgun.