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

[Mike Furness]

Sounds like a reasonable plan to conserve water. Either way you will find gold this season or next. I don't really think it is much of a gamble, just realistic planning with what is presented to you ... if that makes sense! 

[GhostMiner]

40 minutes ago, UT Dave said:

The site does seem snappier.  Much appreciated!

- Dave

Have you ever been to Area 52 (Dugway) ? Very interesting place.

[UT Dave]

A few times.  

- Dave

[GhostMiner]

Here's some old school mining. I'd love to run those tailings through a good trommel & sluice setup.

 

 

[GhostMiner]

11 minutes ago, UT Dave said:

A few times.  

- Dave

My wife & I were there once back in 2015. Found it totally by accident. 

[Old Miner Don]

1 hour ago, GhostMiner said:

Here's some old school mining. I'd love to run those tailings through a good trommel & sluice setup.

 

 

You and me both lol. The film quit just when it started getting real interesting.

[UT Dave]

I did some work out there a long time ago.  And knew the quartermaster that was there for a couple of years a long time ago, he took me out coyote hunting on the base a few times.  Have "accidentally" wandered onto it from the edges once or twice too.  

- Dave

[dig4gold]

I wasn't too impressed at 3.58 when he threw the ring pull from his Pepsi can into the creek.

D4G

[GhostMiner]

   September 29   2002     Part One     Nearing Bedrock     

 

   The weather today is hot and dry. This morning we started digging deeper into the pit and followed the sloping walls of granite down. The dimensions of the pit are narrowing quite a bit now and Jacob believes we are nearing the bedrock. The crew is watching as the excavator takes away each scoop. No one is saying a word but you can feel the excitement in the air. The gravels are being stockpiled as per our plan in order to ensure we will have a water supply to run the bottom gravels first. I have been test panning and the gold seems to be getting coarser than before. We must be close.  

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

 

[GhostMiner]

 September 29   2002     Part Two     We Hit The Big Strike

 

   We are stockpiling gravel in piles according to their depth. That way we will know we are running the lower gravels and work our way up. It’s basically a high grading operation at this time. Around mid afternoon I heard the excavator bucket strike something very hard. Everyone came over to the pit to have a look. Jacob hollered to us that he thought he had hit bedrock. He tried to get deeper in several areas but was just scraping the hard bottom of the glory hole. Jacob said “We are there boys” and let his machine idle.

   I grabbed two five gallon buckets and placed them in the excavator bucket and I stepped in as well. Jacob slowly lowered me into the deep pit. The walls were smooth and nearly vertical. When I got to the bottom I filled them with gravels right off bedrock and Jacob raised me back to the surface. We classified the material through a quarter inch screen and then Jacob and I started panning.

   The black sand was heavy and so was the gold. When we finished up the panning we poured all the gold into a pan. Everyone was quiet as we set it on the scale. We figured the two buckets made about 1/20th of a yard. When I saw the numbers on the scale I couldn’t believe my eyes. The entire crew let out a holler and a cheer that probably was heard in town that night. 

   Jacob said that yardage doesn’t mean a thing when you’re at the bottom of a glory hole. And he sure was right. There were .8 ounces in the pan from those two buckets. That figured to 16 ounces to the yard. We had finally hit the jackpot. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ................