The sun finally came out of it's slumber and graced us with a warm hug.

Our crew continued to explore and metal detect the surrounding site and unearthed more tailing piles and two more collapsed entrances. We found gold slivers in the ore, gold still attached to quartz and one flattened nugget. How this operation worked the ore is still a mystery but we have enough information to summarize our findings.

Bedrock Dreams has also been following this adventure into the past, you can read up on this at ..Bedrockdreams.com... miners-homework-pays-off-part-2. If your new to his site you will enjoy his wisdom as well as cold hard facts concerning gold Prospecting.

Here is what the floor of the mine looks like...enjoy

       

Ok Ok I know its  been some time since I posted but with the ban on dredging we had to change our prospecting habits. It's a hard winter in the hills but knowing where to go and what to expect really pays off. Here is an article that J.R. Author of BEDROCK DREAMS wrote up on our recent adventures.    http://goldbedrockgold.blogspot.com/2008/10/jr-gold-miner-in-residence.html

 The Bedrock Dreams site is one of the most informative sites I have ever encountered. His adventures and in depth studies of the   history of prospecting is highly informative. If you need information then this is the site you need to visit.  goldbedrockgold.blogspot.com


 

I cannot believe that this moron would ban dredging in California!.. This screws up my whole summer and all the trips that we had planned last winter. That prick just put thousands of people out of work who rely on us prospectors to buy there equipment, food, and gold camp outings and he did this with a thoughtless stroke of a pen!....What gets me is that dredging is banned even up to the Nevada/Calif line..as if there has been a salmon up that far in over a couple of million years! I'm reading about how the   The Karuk Tribe rely on the salmon and lamprey; an eel like fish as a food source.. Come on give me a break!  This is bullshit. Bet they have a MacDonald's  in there town.

Who are the Karuk?

This small Native American tribe lives in Siskiyou and Humboldt Counties in the northwest corner of California. Most members of the tribe live in the city of Happy Camp where they continue to practice their age old customs of hunting, basket making and fishing.  Hey what about me? I'm practicing an age old custom of prospecting. 

A LAW SUIT WAS FILED TODAY BY CA MINERS AGAINST THE SB 670 DREDGING BAN. THEY WILL PREVAIL. ONCE DONE, CA STATE WILL HAVE TO PAY HUGE DAMAGES TO THE 25,000 OWNERS OF UNPATENTED PLACER CLAIMS ON FEDERAL LAND IN CALIFORNIA. CLEARLY FEDERAL LAW OVER-RIDES STATE LAW.

As for all of us that paid for our permits for this year..guess what?  The state has a  screw you attitude and you will not get your fee's back! 
I'm so glad that this is Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger last term.

Ok Ok OK  I know I've neglected this site for sometime but hell that does not mean that I have stopped my quest for the GOLD!  Ken, Beth, and I have been traveling around the country side checking out some of our old haunts just to be sure we did not miss anything.. Hey sometimes you just have to go back because it will bother you forever. We have been planning and researching our Heaven's Gate Claim for we would hate to be bothered by Ranger Rick and his Possee. Things are looking great but now we have to wait till July 1st to put the dredge in. (Hate that law)  On our last outing Ken put on his wet suit and braved the cold waters and was rewarded with about 7 small nuggets and one thumbnail size gold pancake. These where all stuck into the bedrock in about 4 feet of water. This my friends is where we will drop the dredge in!  So until then may all your dreams be golden.

Can you recall your first Gold? Well, I sure can. I see it in my friends' eyes and face every time they see theirs. Just that little flake or small nugget can turn a crappy day into a beautiful day full of  sunshine and excitement. Nature took millions of years in the making, carving, moving and depositing that glowing piece of metal in such a vast part of earth just so you can discover it. Your first gold will always have a a certain comment attached to it. My comment was "OMG, it's a monster!" Scotsman's was "Ya gotta see this, Greg!" and Scotwoman's was "YAAAAHOOOO". But just recently I was introduced to another saying by my friend Gold Digger and that was----you ready?----"Ohhhhh, it's so cute!".. Hummm, I guess to each his/her own when the mood strikes you. I've posted the picture below just to point out the physical signs to look for. Notice the posture is stiff with excitement. Then there is the pointing of the finger (just in case nobody can see it). Then of course the ever present eyes laughing, teeth showing, and face-cracking smile. This effect is present in all of us, big or small, young or old, rich or poor. So get used to it, because you will remember it for the rest of your life.

May your Gold glow like a summer sunset.

Nightrider

Don't have much to report except we put in the dredge to warm it up for this summer. Found some gold and a couple of small nuggets for our effort. We are planning many outings for this season and we have done our homework and  researched the areas. This will be a great season!!!!!!


Nightrider, Gold Digger, and Scotswoman spending a day in the golden sun.

Felix Paydirt is giving out free samples of concentrates/samples. Thanks Felix!

http://felixpaydirt.com/     I received my packet yesterday and found two pickers! Check it out before he gets overwhelmed with orders. This did not cost me a cent! Not even a postage stamp! Enjoy and Merry Christmas to all.  

It's foggy as hell as I drove home from work at 2:00 am. Why, why, why, do I do this?! Lets see, I will be home at 3:00 am, sleep for 4 hours, then grab my gear and head up to Scotsman's place, which is one hour away, to meet up with his wife and our new friend, Rezonate. Well, the excitement and the unknown will probably get me through this one I hope.

Ok, so I was 30 minutes late, but everyone else was ready to go, and go we did. Off to check out some more of the La Grange area with our metal detectors. We checked out an opening to one shaft that had opened up by cave in. Looks like they were following a placer run down a small run-off or creek and there was a lot of old style foundations. There was also another person swinging his detector.

This area was pretty well picked over, so we turned our attention to the hillside and its hidden tailings. Thanks to Rezonate's knowledge on minerals, we determined that they were mining serpentine--hummm maybe that's why we were following Serpentine Road -- Go figure, huh? Having our fill of lead and cans, we then took our outfits to an area that the hill floods have ripped the creeks to bedrock. The fury of nature when it is outraged is always amazing to me, for this creek was ripped to bedrock and clean of debris! Just getting concentrates was a chore in itself. Having found some old coins and more lead, we called it a day and beat feet out of there before nightfall crashed down on us. Finding information and meeting a new friend was my lucky find for the day, so with our tired old bodies back in our trucks, we said farewell till next time. 

What do you do on a day off without your dredge? Ya go prospecting for new places! The weather was oh so perfect and the trip was....well fantastic! Jimmy, who is my daughter's boyfriend, arrived with his white 4X4 to give me a little tour of the surrounding sites. I'm damned glad he did for some of the areas would have punked out my little CRV. His information about the mining history of this area was absorbed and filed away for my winter trips.  Our first stop was the Serpentine Loop off of Red Rock Road. The mine we visited was a shallow one with the opening slightly obstructed with layers of garbage, old garbage (hummmmmm). You could see were these old miners were following an old creek bed probably for placer gold. From this area, I could see other mines on the hillside with huge tailings of quartz rocks jutting out of the hillside like snow patches in the summer. I felt my Spectrum Detector start to quiver in my hands, but decided I would learn more from this cowboy guide before I disappeared before his eyes. We drove to another site about 5 miles down the road and my guide pointed out a dirt road explaining to me that it cuts through the five hills surrounding the area.  Well, that did it! Poof! I was gone and hiked in there after saying goodbye to Jimmy. Being that it was late, only samples were taken and a quick scout of a creek bed that was torn down to bedrock due to flash floods. I noticed that all the creeks in that area ended way on the bottom of the valley, so I am making plans to visit that spot soon. Pictures up on my site under La Grange.

 

I'm back from vacation after a week of fishing. Nothing like Mexico to calm you down and lift your spirits. It turned into an adventure when we got hit by Hurricane Norbert. Damn, I wish I had brought along my metal detector for the beaches were torn up! Now I'm back and can't wait to get back into the hills. Too much sun and not enough trees seem to make me feel ......lost. To be able to climb a mountain or drink out of a cold stream makes this mountain man smile. Funny how the stress of work can fade but really never goes away. The vacation always ends too soon and your job seems forever. You look forward to this interruption all year, and then it's over in a flash.

Now, prospecting or exploring is in a different class of its own. There are always the weekends to look forward to all year long (when you're not working them) even if it's just one day. When you're in the mountains looking for gold, it does not matter if you find it or not, because just seeing the sun rise above the mountain peaks with the morning breeze carrying the music of nature just waking up...Hell, that's the best treasure anybody could find! Don't get me wrong, vacations are great, but that is just one or two weeks out of the year. Now, when you're a prospector, you can count on 52 weekends a year, with some of those weekends lasting for three days! Damn, that figures out to be over 104 days in a year that you can plan a mini-vacation doing what you love. Crap, I'm feeling pretty good right about now...how about you?

Day or night, gold always shines.
nightrider




      Son Delando fighting Hurricane Norbert