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

[GhostMiner]

Pure fact  -  the Stevens brothers had outlaw blood.

 

[GhostMiner]

   July 16   2002

 

   Things have been nice & quiet out here since we turned in the thugs to the law. We are sleeping good and mining for gold without any problems. This is what I came out here for. We worked for a good part of the day on the gold cleanup and the time finally came for the weigh. We got 61.5 ounces. The gold is still holding up and we are still in a good streak. 

   The only issue we are going to need to deal with soon is our water supply. The pond and north/south creek are beginning to dry up. There is no rain in the forecast and the heat is constant. We do have a rear ‘round creek at the bottom of the claims with a plentiful water supply. It is about 2000 feet to our south and the elevation change would mean sending water uphill to an elevation about 300 feet higher than the creek. The other option would mean re-setting the trommel near the south creek and hauling the pay gravel down there via a road west of that area and then driving down the side of the creek east and back to the processing area. We considered all this when doing our plan and have the permits in place if needed. 

   Pumping water up to our present trommel location would mean buying a massive eight inch pump and water line. It would most likely require a full time pump tender as well. Jacob likes the idea of processing down at the creek. He said we could buy a big dump truck and haul 10 yards of gravel at a time. We could probably haul 25 - 30 yards down to the lower creek site per hour and if we worked a 10 hour day that would come out to 250 - 300 yards a day which is more than enough to keep us running at current rates. We would actually get ahead on pay and start stacking it at the base of the mountain. It would require one man driving the truck up to the digsite, getting in the excavator and loading pay, then driving the truck back down the mountain to the processing area. We would need to make a haul road right up to the digsite to get the truck close to the excavator. Also, that road would need to be moved frequently as the dig area moved west. The only other option would be to buy another skid steer to load the truck if it couldn’t get close enough to the excavator. The other man would be stationed at the trommel and feeding the gravel. We would also most likely move camp down to where the trommel would sit. Jacob and I are discussing all this tonight.  

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

 

[GhostMiner]

 July 17   2002     Part One

 

   Last night Jacob and I talked until well after midnight about the mine, the water supply, equipment, and much more. There was one more option we discussed. Something that didn’t involve buying more equipment. We discussed shutting down the mine when our current water supply dried up. There was no way to put an actual date on when that would happen but after having a look at the upper creek and pond we figured maybe a week of supply remaining at best. Our gold count including Jacob’s generous donations now sits at 590.9 ounces. Our former partners have taken their gold and it is just Jacob and I splitting everything now, including expenses. Gold has been ranging in the low $300 area. If we continue mining into late Summer and Fall we will need to spend some of our profits on a large dump truck and a second skid steer. There is no guarantee that our pay streak will hold up. It would be a gamble. For now we are open to all options but will continue our current operation until the water is gone.  

   TO BE CONTINUED .............

 

[GhostMiner]

   The decision we faced  :  Close the mine until the late Fall rain or for the season and take our profits and go home winners. Or -- gamble a chunk of the profits to see what's behind door # 3 so to speak. 

[GhostMiner]

 July 17   2002     Part Two

 

   At breakfast Jacob brought up yet another plan. This was unexpected. He suggested we set up the tom down at the year ‘round creek. Then we would use the excavator to do the digging and hand load buckets to place on the pickup truck and drive them down the mountain to the tom. We could only haul maybe half a yard at a time and haul a yard or two at best per hour. Then there is the fact that Jacob is 85 yrs old. He would have to run the tom while I brought down gravels. I don’t see this being a viable operation but he thinks it would at least keep the mine open and pay for the “whisky and beans” as he put it. I’m not keen on it but he is perfectly happy to stay here for months on end while mining a small amount of gold until the water comes back. I do admit that this last idea would eliminate the possibility of our going broke as we wouldn’t need to spend a big chunk of our profits on unknown results. There are many things for me to think about now.

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

[GhostMiner]

Maybe the end of the 2002 season nearing? We'll see. 

[Mike Furness]

My only concern with closing for the rest of the summer into early fall is the possibility of riff raff showing up while you are gone. High grading could be very profitable to them if only on a short term basis while you are gone! However having a rest of a few weeks before giving it hell for a few weeks before winter snows shut you down could be beneficial to both of you. And then there is the mater of the equipment while you are gone. If left on site I see someone potentially destroying them or at least doing major damage with a couple pounds of sugar. I'm sure there are other considerations that factor in to your decision but if it were me I think I would leave when the good water dries up. If I wasn't going too far off site for the rest time I might intermittently check on the mine at odd times to protect my interests. I am interested to see what your final decision will look like!

[GhostMiner]

2 hours ago, Mike Furness said:

My only concern with closing for the rest of the summer into early fall is the possibility of riff raff showing up while you are gone. High grading could be very profitable to them if only on a short term basis while you are gone! However having a rest of a few weeks before giving it hell for a few weeks before winter snows shut you down could be beneficial to both of you. And then there is the mater of the equipment while you are gone. If left on site I see someone potentially destroying them or at least doing major damage with a couple pounds of sugar. I'm sure there are other considerations that factor in to your decision but if it were me I think I would leave when the good water dries up. If I wasn't going too far off site for the rest time I might intermittently check on the mine at odd times to protect my interests. I am interested to see what your final decision will look like!

   Yes, there was a lot of back & forth before we decided.

[GhostMiner]

July 17   2002     Part Three

 

   We got a somewhat late start to work because of our unplanned morning conversation. I went up to start the pump and headed back down to dig gravels. Jacob wanted to feed the trommel today. Seeing as we got a late start we worked straight through until around 6:00 PM and called it a day. We processed 175 yards of pay. 

   Jacob was doing test pans about every hour or so while we ran and he told me the material was starting to lose value. He wasn’t sure how much but he said the pans weren’t showing nearly as much coarse gold as before but there was still an abundance of fine gold so we should be ok. We’ll run another day and pull the mats on the trommel’s sluice and then we’ll find out how much gold we are getting. Jacob said if it fades too much we will move the dig west once again. He wants to high grade as much as possible until the water supply is gone. This makes sense to me. We might as well get what we can up here before we move the trommel or shut down. I didn’t say anything about water today but we are close to going dry. Jacob knows our situation and there is no need to harp on it. It would be nice to have a couple of big cleanouts before we stop or move. That’s not looking too likely right now.

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

[GhostMiner]

   July 18   2002     Part One

 

   We decided to shut down early today. By mid afternoon we had processed 150 yards and the water supply was extremely low. We may have one more day left before we run dry. We pulled the mats and took the concentrates over to the cleanup area. Then Jacob surprised me with yet another idea.

   He told me that where the mountain dropped off in a steep decline to our south there was a large tailings dump deposited there by the old time hydraulic companies. There was a 300 foot drop and a big cut in the mountain where the old timers had shot water and tailings down the mountain. The lower year ‘round creek was down there and the tailings were separated from the creek by a distance of about 150 feet of floodplain. 

   Jacob wanted to take the excavator down there and poke some holes for testing purposes. He figured that there might be enough gold in the tailings to make a mining operation that would last into the Fall.  If the numbers were right we could set the trommel up about 100 feet from the creek and process the old tailings as well as dig in the floodplain itself. Supposedly the floodplain had never been worked since the initial gold discovery back in the 1850’s. There likely were tailings covering the old bedrock of the floodplain and he wanted to try to find it and see what it held as far as gold.

   Now this idea got me pretty excited. It was a bit of a treasure hunt but the mining would be low cost and relatively easy. Actually, I’m not sure why we had never thought of this plan before. There was actually a good possibility of two operations going at the same time for next season if this worked out. One down at the south creek and one up at the current digsite. 

   We drove the excavator down the mountain along the side of the old mine road to the west until we got to the lower creek. Then we followed the floodplain to the east for about half a mile until we got to the old tailings pile. It was massive. The old reject material was stacked up against the bottom of the mountain and into the floodplain area. The height of the tailings near the mountain had to be 60 to 70 feet. Jacob said the tailings covering the original floodplain gravels had to be 15 to 20 feet deep or maybe more. We were hoping for a large amount of fine gold in the tailings and some nice coarse gold once we found the bedrock between the mountain and the creek. I started digging along the base of the deep pile. We brought a big tub and set it up on some old stumps. Then we set a small pump in the creek and used it to fill the tub with clean water. This would be our test panning station. Jacob and I took our first samples over to the tub to see if there was any gold.

   TO BE CONTINUED .................