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

[GhostMiner]

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

 

 

[GhostMiner]

  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 ...................

[GhostMiner]

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

 

 

[GhostMiner]

 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 .............

[GhostMiner]

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 ................

[GhostMiner]

  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 ..............

[GhostMiner]

 

[GhostMiner]

   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 ...............

[GhostMiner]

 

[GhostMiner]

  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 ................