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

[GhostMiner]

   Here is a video someone made of a Pioneer 30 in action. When figuring out what a trommel can actually run I usually cut the company estimates for production by 40 - 50 percent. Otherwise you are usually going to over feed it and you will get lost gold and also jam ups which are no fun. Rock bars and shovels required.

 

 

[GhostMiner]

 September 12   2002     Part Two

 

   We worked the rest of the day and stopped around dusk. Conor and I had washed 90 yards of pay gravel. We were tired and hungry. Jacob said he was down another five feet with no sign of bedrock but the gold was still holding up. He was bound and determined to find the jackpot. If anyone could do it Jacob could. We have 130 yards of gravels washed and the concentrates are ready to be cleaned up tomorrow. I see a lot of gold poking out of the black sands. That’s always a good sign.

   Big Clay was telling us that he loved hauling the payloads down the mountain because he knew there was gold going to the processing plant. He was happy as could be and told us he wanted to be a miner now. Jacob said he was welcome to stay on our crew as long as he wanted. Conor’s attitude had changed quite a bit. He has calmed down and has not lost his temper one time. He isn’t drinking like he was either. I think the crew is becoming the best bunch of guys since I’ve been on the claims.

   We had a bobcat run right through camp after supper. It startled Clay and Conor went to get his shotgun but by the time he came back it was long gone. Maybe it smelled our food. We really haven’t had too much trouble with critters. There are lots of black bear in the area and we see them on occasion but they haven’t bothered us much. We all had a couple of beers and turned in for the night. Tomorrow will be a good day I am thinking. The gold should be there in abundance. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

[GhostMiner]

   September 13   2002     Part One     Dangerous Haul Road

 

   The weather this morning is cool and rainy. Jacob and Clay are already up on the mountain and Conor and I will clean up the concentrates. I woke up at 2:00 AM last night to the sound of gunshots. It seemed to be quite a distance from our camp but it went on for a good 15 minutes. Sometimes I think the longer we stay here the more chance there might be for trouble. The mountains seem to attract every kind of person from good to bad. I figure the first snow could take place in a few weeks as well but we will see. If that were to happen the steep haul road going up the mountain will turn to a death road of slick mud and ruts. There are several drop offs where a truck could roll right off the side and into one of the old hydraulic pits left by the old timers. Clay was already mentioning that after the rain he had started to cut ruts into the road base. We had spent very little time on getting the road ready and it was too late to worry about it now. We need to hit that big strike Jacob keeps talking about.

   Conor and I were working the cons when Clay came down the mountain with a heavy load of gravel. The rain had turned to a hard downpour with no sign of a let up. The temperature had dropped into the upper 40’s as well. I went over to where he was dumping material and asked him how the haul road was holding up. He shook his head and said it was getting slick up there in a few places. He told me not to worry and said he and Old Bulldog could handle it for now but  warned that if this weather kept up he might have to stop hauling. With that I watched him drive away. I could hear Old Bulldog straining to get up the old mountain road.   

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

[GhostMiner]

  September 13   2002     Part Two

 

   Around noon Conor and I were getting close to finishing the cleanup. Then I got a radio call from Clay. He said he had gotten hung up not too far from the dig site. He had also radioed Jacob but evidently Jacob didn’t hear him or had his walkie talkie turned down. I told him I’d drive up there with the skid steer and we’d get him going again.

   The rain was coming down even harder now and the haul road was turning to soup. Clay had cut deep ruts in on his deliveries and was struggling each time to make it back up the mountain. 

   When I got up there I could see Old Bulldog had slid sideways on a tight curve and was nearly crossways on the road. There was a drop off to his left side of nearly thirty feet. There was no way to get past him. I got out of the skid steer and walked a few hundred yards up the road and over to where Jacob was working. His radio had died so he never heard Clay calling him. 

   We took the excavator down to the dump truck and hooked a chain up to the back end. Jacob tugged away while Clay put the Mack in reverse. The Mack was empty and the road was slick enough to get the truck's back end turned at an angle so it was facing down the mountain instead of up. Clay said he would drive it down to the bottom of the mountain and park it until we figured out what to do about the road. That was the end of hauling gravel for the day.

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

[GhostMiner]

   September 13   2002     Part Three

 

   The four of us finished up the gold weigh as the downpour continued. There was a whopping 62.9 ounces in the cleanup which figured out close to 15 grams to the yard. Jacob is right, the gold is getting better as we go deeper in the cut. 

   I don’t know how much longer the rain is going to last but we will need to spend some time repairing the haul road. I will use the skid steer to scoop up coarse tailings and try to fill in and smooth out some of the worst areas the rain is washing out. It is not a quick or easy fix. I figure at least a day or two when the rain lets up. At least we have enough pay gravel stock piled so we run the tom while the road is being worked on.

   Despite the rain everyone is in a good mood. Seeing all the gold coming out of the mountain is keeping spirits high. I am confident that we will get back to hauling pay soon. For now we are all taking a rest this evening because tomorrow will be a busy day. 

   TO BE CONTINUED .............

[GhostMiner]

   September 14   2002     Part One     The Never Ending Rain

 

   It rained hard all night long and it is not letting up this morning. It would be a waste of time and effort trying to work on the haul road today so instead we will run gravel through the tom. There is enough stockpile for at least today and maybe a little longer.

   Yesterday Jacob had brought the excavator down to the tom in order to feed it while I was going to run the skid steer up the road to repair damaged areas. However, he will use it to feed the tom and if the rain stops I will take the skid steer up the haul road loaded with coarse tailings. We will have to see how the weather acts later today.

   I just keep thinking what a battle this season has been. I am learning a lesson on how difficult it is to make it as a gold miner. You need a will of iron and we are forced to constantly think on our feet as one thing after another comes at us. The mountain fights back almost every day.

   We stopped for lunch and everyone ate in my camper. To the crew's surprise the rain had actually gotten worse. We were watching the creek rise and begin to creep out of its banks and onto the floodplain flats. Jacob said he had never seen it rain like this back in his two years here. Clay told me that if it kept up we might need to evacuate camp. He was worried that Old Bulldog would get trapped down here and take flood damage. We worked the tom until 5:00 PM  and the water was starting to get close to camp now. We had managed to process 60 yards despite the conditions. Now we had a decision to make. Should we abandon camp?

   TO BE CONTINUED ..............

[GhostMiner]

   September 14   2002     Part Two

 

   The way the rain was coming down we knew the creek would get much worse. Water from the higher ground up on the mountain was sending water down the north to south running creek that emptied into the lower west to east running creek where our camp was located. There was a bridge that crossed that creek to get us back to the main road. It was old and could possibly get washed out. If that happened we would be trapped on the mountain with no way out and be forced to ride the storm out on any high ground we could find. We needed to get out and soon.

   Clay brought Old Bulldog over to camp where the water was starting to infiltrate now. We placed the tom and all the loose equipment including pumps on the old dump and told him to get across the bridge. Then he walked back over and helped us load up the cons and the rest of the camp supplies on our two pickup trucks.

   It was getting dark and the rain was torrential now. We hooked up two of the campers to the trucks and drove them across the bridge. I drove my truck over to the main road where there was a pull off area and dropped the camper. Then I went back for the third one. The water was now a foot deep and rising. I was able to get it out and over the bridge to the main road which was higher above the creek than where our camp was located. We figured we’d be ok here for the night but would have to keep an eye on the creek just to be safe.

   We all went into my camper and I turned on the lights and heater. The temperature was in the upper 40’s and we were all soaked. 

   Jacob said he was going into his camper and would be right back. When he came back in he had two bottles of Bushmills. He told me to get some cups and we all sat at my little table and proceeded to drink some good Irish whisky on a miserable night.   

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

[GhostMiner]

 

[GhostMiner]

 September 15   2002     Part One     Let’s Pan Gold

 

   When I woke up this morning I checked the weather. The rain had not stopped but had let up some. I walked over from where my camper was sitting and looked down at the creek. It was flowing hard and our camping area was under water. The excavator and skid steer had been pulled up to high ground on the haul road and were a good 40 feet above the flood. It was possible to get back across the creek using the bridge but then as the road dropped down it disappeared under several feet of hard running water. There was no way we could do much until the rain stopped completely and the flood waters receded. 

   It was just daylight and the rest of the crew was rousing out of their bunks. Clay looked like he was in rough shape. I think he downed half a bottle of whisky and who knows how many beers last night. I started cooking up a big breakfast of bacon and eggs with biscuits. Everyone came over to my camper and took a seat at the table. Jacob took one look at Clay and poured a shot of whisky in his coffee. Irish Coffee he called it.

   After breakfast we tried to decide what to do for the day. We finally decided to pan out the cons from the gravels we’d processed yesterday. I pulled out the awning on my camper and we set up two big tubs of water and started to work the cons. We could see the gold jumping out at us and that put everyone in a better mood.

   TO BE CONTINUED ..............

[GhostMiner]

  September 15   2002     Part Two     Old Habits

 

   We were working away at the cons all morning and didn’t get finished until 3:30 in the afternoon. Jacob brought out the scales and we weighed up the results of the 60 yards of gravel we had managed to process. Everyone had a big smile on their faces and I just couldn’t help but laugh. There were 38.7 ounces in the pan. This figured out to around 20 grams to the yard. I couldn’t believe it. Jacob was laughing and told us we still hadn’t seen the good stuff yet.  

   We hadn’t even stopped for lunch because all we wanted to see was the gold. We cooked up some canned hash which Jacob loved and I also heated up canned stew. We had some bread with our meal and now it was past 5:00 PM. Clay threw out a suggestion. He wanted to go into town and celebrate and relax from all the stress we’d been under. I looked at Jacob and Conor and they nodded in approval. So we secured everything and piled into my king cab truck. 

   The rain had completely stopped now but the creeks were swollen and overflowing their banks. When we pulled into the tavern parking lot we could see the place was packed. I was kind of surprised because it was Sunday night. 

   When we walked in we could see there were two large crews of loggers in there and a bunch of worthless hooligans as Jacob would call them. Evidently the bad weather meant no one was planning on getting up on Monday to go to work. Clay led the crew over to the bar where there were a couple of empty stools. All the tables were full. The juke box was blazing old country tunes and the room was completely filled with smoke to the point that it was hard to see from one side to the other.

   Jacob gave me a nudge and pointed down to the opposite end of the bar where two pretty well worn gals were sitting with their drinks. There were several rough looking loggers hanging all over them. I looked at him and shook my head no. Jacob took a stool and I told Conor to take the other one. Clay hollered over to the bartender who seemed to know him well and ordered rounds of double shots and four beers. He said he would get the first few rounds. I knew then it was going to be a long night. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ..................