Mines, Panning Gold and Historical Exploring

[benevolance]

Don

Yeah thew scout would love that property... the wife would not drive it being a stick....I have a 67 4x4 long bed 350 v8 350 turbo automatic...She would drive it i suspect...It has power steering and Brakes

[benevolance]

no I hate the system...

What I want is a judgement that states I can do whatever I deem necessary to collect the money the court says is owed to me... If that means hanging em upside down and beating their head against the tree hoping money will fall out so be it...

I am self employed and relatively poor...when I get screwed it really hurts
takes me often a month  or more to overcome just one bad exchange

[glenn kangiser]

Well, I finally discovered gold.  Yup -- a genuwine never discovered by the old timers discovery of gold in hard rock.  I prospect a bit here and there every couple of nights after work or whenever I see something of interest.

I bought a rock crusher from an old miner and his son to make driveway rock, and since he was willing to share his knowledge I started trying to learn all I could from him.  Each time I get a chance to talk to him he teaches me something new -- tells me something I didn't know about mining, gold , formation of the earth and movement of gold by even our cyanide laced drinking water.  Not enough to hurt anybody -- it's natural -- about 12 PPM he says.  Cyanide dissolves gold and redeposits it under the right conditions.

If you have ever tried to learn about mining you will find that most miners keep it to themselves and knowledge is hard to come by.  If it hadn't been for things he taught me I never would have found it where I did.

The gold I found is just a little gold dust in quartz stringer veins, but still --- it's neat to think that I did something like the miners who rushed out here to settle the west.  Cool.  8-)

Not something to get rich on -- probably cost me $10 to find $.10 worth of gold, but still great fun -- kinda like fishing.

[MountainDon]

Well, at least ya don't have to worry about you getting so rich and becoming high-faluting and forgetting your friends here.  :-/

You may have found more than some of the 49'ers.

[PEG688]

 Congrats Glenn  8-) Little victories eh

[glenn kangiser]

I seriously doubt I'll get rich,  Don but it really is fun.  

Yeah, PEG.  After being fruitless for so long it was bound to happen if I kept trying,  I keep thinking it's like fishing -- you don't catch any fish if your line is not in the water.  An important thing is to be in a pond that has fish in it.  I live i the middle of it.  So I keep trying -- looking -- sampling --hiking,  crawling on my hands and knees through the poison oak.  Semi-determined - and look at the exercise I'm getting. :-/  John says the 49ers got the easy stuff but they didn't get 10% of what's there.

I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself it was fools gold or something was wrong with the crusher -- I couldn't have found it, but after Harry51 and I spent a few hours fooling around with it, we finally decided it really was real.  It's a really good feeling when you crush up a bunch of dirty rocks and for the first time see color shining in your pan.  I have panned some at the river so do know what I'm looking for.  I just didn't really think i'd ever see it.  It's like stepping back in history to the days of the 49ers.

Now -- more testing and sampling required.

[MountainDon]

A great feeling I imagine! Finding that wee bit of gold.  

In a way like the feeling I've had on occasion when finally scaling a theretofore unsurmountable rock "waterfall" with the Jeep. Many many attempts, $1.2K worth of locking diffs, $1.4K worth of underdrive auxiliary gearbox, $1K worth of new sticky gnarly tires, and some luck, and Voila! Up and over the top.  

A whole load of fun and a totally legal high!!  

[glenn kangiser]

I see I got off easy with the $10 for $.10 of gold.

[PEG688]

Funny the money those rich foriegners will spend eh Glenn  

So now you REALLY must have gold dust fever eh!

 

 Hey you two look sorta alike  

BTW that Yukon Cornelius.

 

[glenn kangiser]

I guess I may have been there with them a time or two.

Yukon Cornelius is a bit wild looking but better than the guy I've seen on the metal detector manual cover.  They show a guy wearing shorts out metal detecting.

In reality that is impractical around here if you think about it -- maybe OK in the wide open lawns etc, but out in the sticks, we crawl through poison oak -- spiny stickery brush, and we have rattlesnakes.  A pair of high top boots and pants could help to keep the snake from sinking his fangs into your shin or leg.

[MountainDon]

BTW that Yukon Cornelius.

I must have been living under that rock.  Had no idea who Yukon Cornelius was.  

"Yukon Cornelius - a prospector who leads audience to believe that he's searching for either gold or silver, but is actually seeking peppermint..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_the_Red-Nosed_Reindeer_(television_special)

Thanks for rounding out my education, Paul.  

[MountainDon]

Funny the money those rich foriegners will spend eh Glenn  

Rich guy?  :-?

For my current small project I've been reduced to re-using lumber I originally made into fences and sunshade roofs 15 years ago!  :'(  Knots, splits and all.


I'll have to get a big can of wood filler and a new belt for the sander to make it all look good again.  

[glenn kangiser]

I didn't know about the Peppermint, Don and PEG.. but I can't find it on the above Wiki  link.  
//http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_the_Red-Nosed_Reindeer_(television_special)


Don't ask me why but somehow the forum software truncated part of the URL until I put it in URL brackets.  This one should work.

[PEG688]

I didn't know about the Peppermint, Don and PEG.. but I can't find it on the above Wiki  link.  

Just another of the small details the old writers of kids stuff would throw in to see , maybe , if the adults where paying attention , who knows really why they'd do stuff like that?


 And Mtn D a small fortune to climb a rock eh

[PEG688]

I didn't know about the Peppermint, Don and PEG.. but I can't find it on the above Wiki  link.  

quote]

Yukon Cornelius (voiced by Larry D. Mann) - a prospector who leads audience to believe that he's searching for either gold or silver, but is actually seeking peppermint as revealed at the end of the original version of the special. His greedy behavior inspires the song "Silver And Gold", sung by Ives and previously well-known in its own right. Yukon is a blustery but benign character and ends up helping not only Rudolph and Hermey, but an abominable snowman, or "bumble" (Yukon calls abominable snowmen "bumbles" because he has trouble pronouncing "abominable"), as well. Yukon Cornelius can be seen throughout the special tossing his pick ax into the air and tasting the end that contacts the snow or ice. The removal of the scene near the end of the special (for subsequent telecasts) in which Yukon Cornelius discovers a "peppermint mine" by that method near Santa's workshop left audiences assuming that he was attempting to find either silver or gold by taste alone. The scene was returned to the film in 1998 as well.

Link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_the_Red-Nosed_Reindeer_(television_special)

[glenn kangiser]

But PEG -- I don't have a TV  (have a small one - don't watch it-- )-- can't pollute my pristine little mind with all that stuff --- but I don't have an excuse for not looking it up.  You caught me not paying attention there. :-/

[PEG688]

 So you've never watched Rudolf the Red nosed reindeer??   That's just  

[glenn kangiser]

Nope, but I remember the song sung by some lady from the old days.

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose and if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows.   :-?

[MountainDon]

Gold!


I found yeller gold!!


It was just there beside the road!!


It was there all summer. I just never saw it until today!!




 This is along the highway up to our mountains before the elevation increases and you get into the Pine/Spruce/Fir forest.



This is what passes for a river in NM. Back home this would be a crick (creek).



Alongside the road closer to home. Lower elevation.

[PEG688]

Gold!


I found yeller gold!!

Isn't Glenn / Yukon lookin for peppermint    :-/   :-?  

Nice photo's Mtn. D , pretty spot , in it's own way 8-)

[glenn kangiser]

We had cricks in Oregon.    I lived on Widow Crick.

Nice pix, Don.

PEG -- Eureka -- I did find it, PEG.  Don't know how much yet or if there is more.  I rebuilt my little rock crusher the other day so it will make smaller chips.  Gets then to near 1/4 inch now.  Next I need to build something to get them down to powder to free the gold, then settle on a process to collect the gold dust from the powder.  Lugol's Iodine was a great way to do it, but for some reason DHS decided it was not for the public to have anymore.  Don't they know that B o m B-s can be made from gasoline also -- maybe they should take that away from the public too?  Bunch of idiots creating fake terr or.  Not having speeling problems -- they scan every word on the internet and I don't want to scare any of them.

[glenn kangiser]

Went prospecting a bit more today.  Looks like we may have found a bit more gold in an old hardrock mine near my place.

Hiked the mountain.  Crawled in the opening after checking for snakes and various other critters.



After getting inside  I started checking out the remains of the vein on the mine walls and ceiling.   Quartz veins in porphyry clay similar to my place.

I checked out a dark blob on the side of the wall and it jumped on my hand.

"What the..."

Oh -- it's you, my friend.



He said, "Come on in -- the water's fine."

I think I'll pass this time.

[MountainDon]

I checked out a dark blob on the side of the wall and it jumped on my hand.

That can give you a case of the heeby-jeebys.  


All we did was cut more trash trees, about a dozen and a half, plus a few that had to go for the benefit of the rest of the forest, about a half dozen. Gad, I sound like Hillary, "for the common good".   And we made the wood pile longer. And added some scrubby stuff, semi rotten deadfall to the burn pit. That's going to be a fine fire when/if we get some snow  

[glenn kangiser]

At least you had fun doing it.

[MountainDon]

As did you, I'm certain.