Bedrock and Gold: The mysteries . . .

[Lanny in AB]

Do you love to chase the gold? Please join me--lots of gold hunting tips, stories of finds (successful and not), and prospecting poetry.

Nugget in the bedrock tip:

I had a visit with a mining buddy this past weekend, and he told me of an epic battle to get a nugget out of the bedrock, and of what he learned from the experience. I thought some of you might like to learn from his mistake.

While out detecting one day, he came across a large sheet of bare bedrock. The bedrock was exposed because the area had been blasted off with a water cannon (a monitor), by the old-timers! It was not fractured bedrock, in fact it was totally smooth.

He was not optimistic at all of the prospects of a nugget. But, for some reason (we've all been there) he decided to swing his detector over that bedrock. After a long time, just as he was about to give up on his crazy hunch, he got a signal, right out of that smooth bedrock.

There was no crevice, no sign of a crevice, nada! So, he had to go all the way back to camp to get a small sledge and a chisel. The signal in the rock intrigued him, but he still wasn't overly optimistic. For those of you that have chased signals in a similar situation, sometimes there's a patch of hot mineralization in the bedrock that sounds off, but this spot, according to him, was sharp and clear right in the middle of the signal, not just a general increase of the threshold like you get when you pass over a hot spot in the bedrock.

Anyway, he made it back to the spot and started to chisel his way into the bedrock. If any of you have tried this, it's an awful job, and you usually wind up with cut knuckles--at the least! Regardless, he kept fighting his way down, busting out chunks of bedrock. He kept checking the hole, and the signal remained very strong.

This only puzzled him all the more as he could clearly see that it was solid bedrock with no sign of any crevice. He finally quit at the end of the day, at a depth of about a foot, but still, nothing in the hole.

An experienced nugget shooting friend dropped by the next morning to see him, and asked him how the hunt was going. My buddy related his tale of the mysterious hole in the bedrock, and told the friend to go over and check it out, and see if he could solve the riddle.

Later in the day, the other nugget hunter returned. In his hand was a fine, fat, sassy nugget. It weighed in at about an ounce and a quarter! After my friend returned his eyeballs to their sockets and zapped his heart to start it again, he asked where the nugget had come from.

Imagine his surprise when he heard it came from the mystery hole!! He asked how deep the other guy had gone into the bedrock to get it. "Well, no deeper" was his reply.

So, here's the rest of the story as to what happened. When the successful nugget hunter got to the bedrock, he scanned the surface got the same strong signal as my buddy. He widened out the hole and scanned again. Still a solid tone. He widened the hole some more so he could get his coil in, and here's the key and the lesson in this story, he got a strong signal off the side of the hole, about six inches down, but set back another inch into the side of the bedrock!!

My unlucky friend, the true discoverer of the gorgeous nugget's resting place had gone deep past the signal while digging his hole!!

Now, of course, a good pinpointer would easily solve this problem. The problem was, my buddy didn't have one, so why would he widen the hole, right? Well, the other guy was the one with more experience, and that's why he did. It was a lot more work, but what a payoff!

So, my buddy's butt is still black and blue from where he kicked himself for the next week or so for having lost such an incredible prize.

Some nugget hunting lessons are harder than others to learn. . . .

All the best,

Lanny


P.S. When in gold country--check the bedrock, regardless of whether it looks likely or not! Mother Nature likes to play games sometimes.

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Thanks for once again taking me with you. I could see the butterflies and hummingbirds.

Thanks Terry! I hope you're taking advantage of your more environment-friendly detecting conditions. Things are still very white and frozen in the mountains here.

All the best,

Lanny

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Gold Snob continued:

After finding a few nice pieces on the unlikely looking flat bedrock, I decided that I’d have to get more serious about seeing what was possible in that old excavation. After all, being a gold snob really does restrict how a nugget shooter sees things; it generates a healthy case of selective blindness.



So, I took a look at where some of the placer channel was slumping into the excavation from an original channel wall. With my shovel, I removed the slump until I hit the bedrock, then I cut back to the aforementioned original wall. Whoever had excavated had cut down at a shallow angle, at the base of the wall, using the bucket of the excavator to scrape as much material as they could from the wall before they contacted the bedrock (and, in order to leave the wall stable). It took a while, and required lots of elbow grease, but I worked my way along that contact zone where the exposed bedrock met the placer channel. Using my pick, I carefully scraped the area until it was nicely cleared of obstructions so I could get the maximum penetration into the undisturbed material with the detector. I swept back and forth along that contact area and was rewarded with a whisper. Now, there’s lots of magnetite where I detect, and some of those little pieces will give a whisper like gold if you’re close to them until you remove enough dirt for the detector to get a clearer view of what its responding to. So, I removed material with the pick, then scanned again. The signal was now specific and solid. I watched the display, but it wasn’t reading any numbers yet, so I scraped off more dirt and was rewarded with a number of 40, the iron bars low.



As there’s so much native iron where I detect (magnetite, hematite, and deep red iron stain in the soil in places), I can’t rely on the iron bars as a specific guide. In fact, I’ve found nuggets on other outings that were resting on or beside pieces of magnetite, which makes sense, as the heavy gold and the magnetite love to drop in the same spots. Therefore, the iron meter in the past has show possible targets as iron, but the target meter has put up the right numbers for gold, so I now dig all targets when I get both responses. Sometimes, the iron bars will drop to nothing, but that’s more of an exception for me, and most of the nuggets I find with the Gold Bug Pro still indicate some as iron as well, which haunts me when I think of what I probably left behind while first learning the functions of the machine!

I scraped the target into my scoop, then started the sorting process to isolate it. There in the scoop was a gram nugget, nothing to light up the news on the forums, but fun nonetheless. I kept at the base of that wall (it’s hard work), and by the end of my digging, I had a nice collection of nuggets that totalled almost five grams.

Next, I decided I’d use the waterproof feature of the Bug Pro to snoop around in the seepage water that had drowned the lower places in the bedrock. I went at it carefully as I’ve slopped water into my boots before, and I hate numb toes and ankles. (The Polar Bears can enjoy every minute of that they can get!) I got a nice response up against a place where soft crumbly bedrock met iron-hard bedrock. The target was in a small portion of the friable stuff that had been left in place. Using a pry-bar, I worked the short plates of bedrock into my pan, then scanned the pan. The target was in the pan (when working in water, I always throw my diggings into a pan, and I always take more of the material than I think I need to due to past experiences when the target has dropped rapidly after disturbing the surrounding material). I used my detector to pinpoint the location of the target, then moved the material near it off to one side of the pan so I could scoop out the useless pieces of bedrock. I scanned the pan again to make sure I hadn’t removed the target (when working on bedrock, I always put any material I remove from the pan on a flat rock, or flat rock surface, if ones available, or on a clean [target free] area of bedrock, just in case I somehow remove the target from the pan or just in case there’s more than one target, that way I don’t have to try to guess where I tossed the original pan material). The target was still there, so I caught it in the scoop and sorted out a sassy two-gram beauty, one with lots of character. (The re-concentrated glacial channel gold I chase usually has three types of gold: flat hammered stuff, fragile crystalline gold, and knobby character gold.) I kept at my underwater tactics and garnered another 6.5 grams of the good stuff that would have been left for nature to eventually rebury. On a side note, working in the water while detecting is not easy practice for a beginner as I well remember my wasted efforts when I first started chasing targets in the water; there’s a stiff learning curve to know how to ensure a target is trapped for recovery when working under water.



All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Well, it's been a while since I posted any gold pictures, and I finally figured out what I needed to do for protecting photo information, so here's a few shots of some of the goodies I've been detecting the last couple of seasons:





















Some nice sassy gold has come my way!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Hi Lanny… I quite enjoyed the read and the great photos. Nice to be able to see and relate to the site where you were working. On that note, I laughed to see that we use identically designed day-trip-backpacks although mine is grey with dark accents, the same rockhammer and goldpans if those are Garretts, and your bearspray container with the white label is identical to mine.

Lots of gold displayed here and in your post immediately below. Congratulations on those extraordinary results, I’m sure a lot of skill, determination and elbow grease produced them.

Jim.

PS: Finished reading Gold Rush again after many years, it has oodles of appeal… floating down the Yukon River looks to be a real adventure on its own merit. Thou' if you ever want to go with me... we're definitely taking the highway!!! Thanks again!

 

[IMPDLN]

Hey Lanny, very nice to see some of that sassy gold you been getting up your way. I haven't been posting much myself until just here lately. Been too busy with home projects and been lazy in between. I haven't forgot I still owe you a story and some pics, just haven't had the time to devote to it yet. I promise I will try to put something together soon. Nice sassy gold you got there, and as usual an awesome story to go with them. Keep up the good work. Dennis

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hi Lanny… I quite enjoyed the read and the great photos. Nice to be able to see and relate to the site where you were working. On that note, I laughed to see that we use identically designed day-trip-backpacks although mine is grey with dark accents, the same rockhammer and goldpans if those are Garretts, and your bearspray container with the white label is identical to mine.

Lots of gold displayed here and in your post immediately below. Congratulations on those extraordinary results, I’m sure a lot of skill, determination and elbow grease produced them.

Jim.

PS: Finished reading Gold Rush again after many years, it has oodles of appeal… floating down the Yukon River looks to be a real adventure on its own merit. Thou' if you ever want to go with me... we're definitely taking the highway!!! Thanks again!

Jim,

Always great to hear from you, and I'm glad you enjoyed reading the book, and I'm happy you enjoyed the post. Yes, lots of elbow grease to get that gold, and I still have other pictures of gold I've yet to post. It's curious that you and I have some of the same equipment, but I guess nugget shooters (whether after silver or gold) may have similar tastes.

I went back and added more photos of the adits to the story about the old-timer tunnels on page 160 to display some of their characteristics.

Thanks for your continuing support and appreciation, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hey Lanny, very nice to see some of that sassy gold you been getting up your way. I haven't been posting much myself until just here lately. Been too busy with home projects and been lazy in between. I haven't forgot I still owe you a story and some pics, just haven't had the time to devote to it yet. I promise I will try to put something together soon. Nice sassy gold you got there, and as usual an awesome story to go with them. Keep up the good work. Dennis

Dennis, so good to know you're still at it, but I also understand very well how life gets in the way of chasing the gold.

I really am looking forward to a story from you, as I'm sure others are as well.

Chasing the gold is a reflective, regenerative, recursive exercise, one I constantly spar with, but one I'm sure I'll never truly master, but that's what keeps it interesting too.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Jeff95531]

"PS: Finished reading Gold Rush again after many years,"

Gold Rush

 

[Lanny in AB]

"PS: Finished reading Gold Rush again after many years,"

Gold Rush

Hi Jeff,

"Gold Rush" is a book by Ian and Sally Wilson, a couple that took a year to relive the adventure of recreating the gold stampede to the Klondike gold-fields, hiked the Chilkoot pass, travelled by horseback, snowshoed, built a boat and floated the Yukon river, found gold with pans, rockers, and sluices through lots of pick and shovel work. ISBN # 0-919574-59-9

That's what he's referring to.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[arizau]

Hi Jeff,

"Gold Rush" is a book by Ian and Sally Wilson, a couple that took a year to relive the adventure of recreating the gold stampede to the Klondike gold-fields, hiked the Chilkoot pass, travelled by horseback, snowshoed, built a boat and floated the Yukon river, found gold with pans, rockers, and sluices through lots of pick and shovel work. ISBN # 0-919574-59-9

That's what he's referring to.

All the best,

Lanny

Available on Amazon....see here. https://www.google.com/webhp?source...q=gold+rush:+north+to+alaska+and+the+klondike

 

[63bkpkr]

AH the yellow metal

Ah, the lure of the yellow metal! I spent a few years just hiking, fishing, camping, exploring in the Cali gold fields along the North Fork of the American river without even considering there could be gold there. One trip with my buddy Jim in his CJ-5 took us down to a working gold mine, hard-rock and placer. The mine supervisor allowed us to turn around on company property but then decided to invite us into the Mine Office. We had a nice talk while sipping some of his coffee and then he pulled out a pint bottle half full of small to large (thumb size) nuggets - Like WOW! Then he shared a story - one day an old man walked down that long jeep road into the mine property, he was hand wheeling a wheel barrow and a shovel. He asked permission to prospect in the creek that crossed the jeep road and then dropped into the canyon. It was a very small section of water covered ground that he could get at, only as long as the width of that jeep road. The mine owner and foreman were there at the time and the owner gave him permission to prospect that little patch and to KEEP whatever he might find. Some time later that day they noticed the old prospector walking back up the jeep road without his tools, fearing he was injured they caught up with him. When asked if he was ok the man said he was fine. Then the man reached into his coverall pocket to pull out a well worn and stained handkerchief (the nose blowing type). As he unfolded the hanky he explained that he knew the owner had told him he could keep whatever he found but he was unsure of how far that agreement would go. There in his hand was a thick nugget that covered the old mans palm. The owner assured him that his offer was fully intact, offered to take him and his tools back into town, the elderly fellow thanked him for his kindness but wanted to walk his way out. He left his tools for the mine operators to keep.

After that kind hearted conversation and display of gold nuggets my friend and I became more interested in what we were walking over and around. My best buddy did not keep up with that adventure as he quickly became involved in upper management and raising his lovely family and having other unique adventures out around Volcanoville. I on the other hand so love the back country that I've stayed involved with it in oh so many ways. I became a man while exploring the mountains and rivers in 'The Mother Load' country, I also stretched myself in many ways of mountain climbing, river rafting, exploring the extreme rugged really far out back locations and enjoying all of it. Well almost all, there were some that were interesting, like staying alive while having put myself into a very bad spot overnight without any gear however the learning that came from all of these adventures, including hiking out on a broken leg and a severely sprained ankle. So much learning, experiencing, seeing and doing so many exciting things while out in such beauty as well as sharing this with my children. I can not imagine trading any of that for anything! Keep at it Lanny and thanks again for sharing with all of us. I will be back out there later this year...................63bkpkr

 

[Lanny in AB]

Ah, the lure of the yellow metal! I spent a few years just hiking, fishing, camping, exploring in the Cali gold fields along the North Fork of the American river without even considering there could be gold there. One trip with my buddy Jim in his CJ-5 took us down to a working gold mine, hard-rock and placer. The mine supervisor allowed us to turn around on company property but then decided to invite us into the Mine Office. We had a nice talk while sipping some of his coffee and then he pulled out a pint bottle half full of small to large (thumb size) nuggets - Like WOW! Then he shared a story - one day an old man walked down that long jeep road into the mine property, he was hand wheeling a wheel barrow and a shovel. He asked permission to prospect in the creek that crossed the jeep road and then dropped into the canyon. It was a very small section of water covered ground that he could get at, only as long as the width of that jeep road. The mine owner and foreman were there at the time and the owner gave him permission to prospect that little patch and to KEEP whatever he might find. Some time later that day they noticed the old prospector walking back up the jeep road without his tools, fearing he was injured they caught up with him. When asked if he was ok the man said he was fine. Then the man reached into his coverall pocket to pull out a well worn and stained handkerchief (the nose blowing type). As he unfolded the hanky he explained that he knew the owner had told him he could keep whatever he found but he was unsure of how far that agreement would go. There in his hand was a thick nugget that covered the old mans palm. The owner assured him that his offer was fully intact, offered to take him and his tools back into town, the elderly fellow thanked him for his kindness but wanted to walk his way out. He left his tools for the mine operators to keep.

After that kind hearted conversation and display of gold nuggets my friend and I became more interested in what we were walking over and around. My best buddy did not keep up with that adventure as he quickly became involved in upper management and raising his lovely family and having other unique adventures out around Volcanoville. I on the other hand so love the back country that I've stayed involved with it in oh so many ways. I became a man while exploring the mountains and rivers in 'The Mother Load' country, I also stretched myself in many ways of mountain climbing, river rafting, exploring the extreme rugged really far out back locations and enjoying all of it. Well almost all, there were some that were interesting, like staying alive while having put myself into a very bad spot overnight without any gear however the learning that came from all of these adventures, including hiking out on a broken leg and a severely sprained ankle. So much learning, experiencing, seeing and doing so many exciting things while out in such beauty as well as sharing this with my children. I can not imagine trading any of that for anything! Keep at it Lanny and thanks again for sharing with all of us. I will be back out there later this year...................63bkpkr

Herb,

It's so good you're posting again! I'm glad you're going to get the chance to get out in that beautiful country of yours again. Your stories have inspired me and made me appreciate how I need to be more cautious about some of my planning from now on. I enjoyed your story about meeting the gold miners and getting a look at a good concentration of nice gold; that's a fantastic way to light the fire for life!!

Getting bit by the beauty of the backcountry is probably as bad as a healthy case of gold fever, and on many of my outings, I don't know which I enjoy the most on certain days, as they are both deeply rooted and almost inseparable in my nugget chasing experiences.

All the best, and thanks for your ongoing contributions,

Lanny

 

[G-bone]

OMG!! too cool - great GOLD and great read too boot.
Man I have got to get out of So Cal....

Thank you Lanny in AB - My fever has grown again.

 

[Lanny in AB]

OMG!! too cool - great GOLD and great read too boot.
Man I have got to get out of So Cal....

Thank you Lanny in AB - My fever has grown again.

Many thanks for dropping in, and many thanks for letting me know you enjoy the thread!

As for your gold fever, there's nothing better than a healthy case of the fever to get a person out and about to fill those golden dreams.

All the best, and thanks again,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Rivulets of Nuggets:

Well, last summer, I dropped into an abandoned placer excavation (with permission of course as claim owners are mighty touchy about such things, and for good reason; however, I've spent years making lasting connections). It was a great looking spot as the bedrock stepped down in a series of terraces to where the ancient channel bottomed out in a large trough. In the bottom of that trough, the Oldtimers from the 1800's had been very, very busy. The signs of old tunnels were ghostly images for the trained eye, but those signs were everywhere.

Now those old boys had drifted up from the river below which was, and still is, a long way downhill from where the Sourdoughs of the 1800's tunnelled into the good stuff, so I certainly admire their determination and efforts to chase the gold all the way to that trough as they did. The work required, all done by hand, boggles my mind! There were large boulders everywhere down in that gut (this makes sense, as the super-heavies were concentrating in that low spot as that's where the gut of the stream would have been roaring while the dinosaurs tip-toed across the stream).

A little more about the work they did, well, those tunnels were all driven using pick and shovel, all of the timbers hand-cut and all of the joints done by axe-work, with no nails. That's right, no nails! Now, I've detected other old placer excavations where the modern miners tore through the old workings to get to the bedrock, thus disturbing many old tunnels, but those sites were then left littered with square nails (not so much fun when you're looking for nuggets with a detector), so I'm thinking the spot I was detecting last summer was old indeed, and perhaps those old miners were mighty early to the gold, so early that they had no nails available, as the iron to fashion them hadn't come up the trail and over the mountains by mule-trains yet.

From the historical records, I know that the first miners in the area to spend that first winter were in serious trouble as the snow closed all of the passes extra-early, and food was extremely short. The smarter miners high-tailed it out of the valleys at the first sign of Old Man Winter getting cranky. However, the miners that remained spent a brutal winter eating food made from mouldy flour which, if it could be bought, was insanely expensive, and every game animal within many miles had long since fled. Moreover, the only reason any of them made it through at all is that an enterprising packer made it through during a Chinook (a warm wind that rapidly increases the winter temperatures for a short time) and delivered enough supplies to stop the starvation (He made his own fortune form his efforts to pack those supplies in that winter without ever dipping a pan!), and as the grateful miners were loaded with gold, which they couldn't eat, they were only too happy to trade. Right after he made it in, then skedaddled back out, winter's iron fist smashed and pounded the passes shut yet again until the spring thaw.

So, there I was, down in that ancient trough, broken bedrock all about, the faint traces of the drift mines ghostly-evident as the modern equipment had done an efficient job of almost erasing every detail of those early efforts. I detected for about an hour in that ancient stream gut and got only two small sub-gram nuggets (and those against walls), not the kind of day I'd been hoping for, but the miners had taken up to six-feet of bedrock in their quest to clean-up what the Oldtimers had left behind, and the modern miners had done an efficient job for sure.

It was one of those lazy summer days where the odd puff of cloud drifted overhead at rare intervals. The sun was warm and friendly, not a blast furnace baking my brain as it had been a couple of weeks earlier. None of the leaves were turning colour yet (at the altitude I work, they turn right quick at the first sign of any flirtations from Dame Autumn), the pines, larch (tamarack) and fir were dressed in their glorious mountain greens all arranged in soldierly formations up the canyon's slopes, standing at perfect attention with no wind to deform their perfect ranks. A Bald Eagle had been keeping an eye on me for quite a while as he rode the invisible thermals far above me, looking for all the world as if he had the perfect life of leisure set off as he was against that cobalt blue dome of pristine mountain air. A succession of honey bees buzzed their way past my ear to stop at a little seep for a bit of water, only to hurry off after their drink to get back to the golden business of honey-making for their winter larder. As well, tiny orange butterflies with blue spots were watering at the seep as they folded and unfolded their delicate wings.



Because the bedrock in the gut was so clean of gold, I grabbed my five-gallon plastic bucket of grub, water, and various smaller mining and sniping tools, then headed up slope. I found a spot where the excavators with their buckets had scraped across some patches of iron-hard bedrock, leaving small sections of other bedrock in between: some of it soft, some of it hard. I limbered up my Gold Bug Pro and got to it.

After a couple of sweeps, I heard a target. I checked the display and it was reading iron, but I've found from experience a reading like that can still mean a nugget, especially if there's a nugget under or surrounded by chunks of ironstone (magnetite). Furthermore, I'd already seen some rounded pieces of magnetite the size of strawberries. So, I extended my magnetic wand and scrubbed the area where the target was. Right quick a curled chunk of bucket or blade jumped to the super-magnet. I scanned the area again, but no remaining signal. I started swinging the coil again and hadn't moved far when I got a solid hit, iron bars low, meter pinning in the good. golden zone. I scraped the spot with my plastic scoop, then scanned again: target louder, meter solidly pinned, iron bars low. The previous succession of readings is always a heart-pumper. After a bit more work, I had a nice multi-gram nugget in the poke (I have a little plastic bottle about an inch and a half high I got at a craft store, one in clear plastic with a tight snap-on lid made of white soft plastic; it's a nugget-holding dream as it has a wide top.). I scanned the area again and was rewarded with a softer signal. After some more cleaning, I had another nugget in the poke, one just over a gram. I moved over a bit and got a string of signals, that's right, a string.



So, of course, my brain is telling me I've hit a spot where the bucket shaved off more steel filings as it clawed its way across the bedrock. So, out with the magnet, but no friends! I scanned again, same results. I took out a little pick I use when detecting, and used the blade/chisel end to scrape the bedrock, and right away, the scraping revealed softer material trapped in a crooked little run in the bedrock. After using the other end of the pick to get into the run, I cleaned out the material and drug it all into my scoop, then dropped it in my gold pan. I kept detecting and was soon rewarded with a similar repeating series of sounds, performed the same check with the magnetic wand, negative results again, and cleaned the little rivulet with the pick putting the contents in the pan as well. (While I'm out detecting, I save time when I hit a good spot by taking the information from the meters as good data to pile material in the pan to check later, so I can cover as much ground as possible, not losing time to sorting, as darkness is usually my limiting factor because there's no way I'm detecting in the dark with all of the grizzlies and cougars that frequent the area.) Well, all I can say is that in between those domes of iron hard rock, nestled in those little patches of bedrock sheltered in between, I hit multiple rivulets of gold! It's probably the most fun I've had detecting in a long, long time. I just kept getting hit after hit. Sure, sometimes there were steel shavings, but the magnet made short work of them, and with the time I saved using the gold pan accumulation method, I really hit those spots hard until the darkness crept up to shut me down. Needless to say, before it was too dark, I took the pan to some standing water. Just for fun, I scanned the pan with the detector: talk about a lively golden tune! When I finally worked the contents down, and I didn't get very far, my heart almost stopped; nuggets were poking out everywhere, truly!



In some of the pictures posted above (scroll up or click back a page or two), you'll see some of the nuggets taken from the bedrock where they were deposited eons ago. I have never found a place so generously laced with golden rivulets. Detecting that spot was what an old miner I knew would have called, "having a heyday". It's days like those that keep the dream alive, the fires of the fever stoked, and the imagination primed throughout our long northland season. However, Old Man Winter's grip is slackening as the maiden of spring uses her wiles to flirt with his icy personality, convincing him yet again to return to his Arctic stronghold, and then, the high mountain passes will open once more allowing me to chase the gold for another season.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[63bkpkr]

Lanny, that is just beautiful the words as well as the pictures. Truly an enjoyable read................63bkpkr

 

[Hoser John]

This thread is like returning to a old safe haven and your friendship/stories/pics most cherished-tons a au 2 u 2-John

 

[Jeff95531]

This thread is like returning to a old safe haven and your friendship/stories/pics most cherished-tons a au 2 u 2-John

Yep. For me, it's just like sitting around the campfire with good friends. Stars overhead, mountains surrounding you and stories both old and new going round the circle.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Little Peak:

So, I went back to the same spot the next day, but I wasn't able to get in until way late in the afternoon, early evening actually, but up here in the north country, the sun goes down mighty late, so a person can chase the gold when people far to the southern lattitudes have long since had to call it quits. It's one of the few benefits of chasing the gold above the 49th parallel, as the bugs I've mentioned numerous times, are in no way a benefit, and the short season to chase the gold due to the ice and snow shutting things down isn't always a party either.



However, I've wandered from my story yet again, but that's nothing new in my writings either. So, I'd better get to it.

Now, the reason I've called this story "Little Peak" is because of a peculiar formation located on the uppermost terrace in that old placer pit. The pay layer that high up against the wall was mighty thin, but whoever had cleaned the bedrock with the excavator had had themselves quite the time. There was iron-hard bedrock with bull quartz, then there was soft, decomposed black bedrock, then a contact zone between a hard tan bedrock that butted up against a bright red bedrock. Now, what was curiously left intact by the placer miners was this one chunk of bedrock that rose up sharply, just like a little mountain; in fact, it looked so much like a mountain that I named it Little Peak. The super hard bedrock around the tiny mountain had sure been worked by the excavator bucket, tearing the surrounding bedrock down as much as they could, which wasn't much, but the little peak was in an exclusion zone for some reason, only scraped down. For whatever reason, they hadn't tried to flatten it.

Well, I'd worked my way up the terraces (mute evidence of the titanic forces at work in the ancient river channel's flow where the massive boulders borne along had pounded, hammered, and ground their way downward in a series of steps, cutting into the various hardnesses of bedrock as they worked their way down to the gut of the stream where the tunnels I've mentioned in the previous story were located); I'd found nuggets on my way up every once in a while, but nothing like the golden rivulets about half way down that cut.

So, by the time I got to the flattened area around little peak, I was hoping for a change, but I was running out of daylight. The first spot I detected was the bull quartz. Man that bedrock formation was hard! I sniffed around with the detector for a while and after getting numerous signals, and with the help of the magnet, I'd soon created a metal hedgehog on the end of my wand! This was testimony that the miners had wanted to get as much of that bedrock as they could, as they'd severely tested the limits of their machine, but the bedrock wouldn't cooperate I guess.



After clearing off the obvious surface bits of track and blade, I slowed way down and started to listen for gentle breaks in the threshold, and soon enough, I heard one. I got out my small sledge that I carry in my five-gallon bucket, dug out my rock chisel, then I went to work. However, it was a zero on the fun scale. I'd chisel and chip, scan the spot to be sure it was a legitimate signal, then chisel and chip some more. I repeated this until I got to where there was a strong signal and the meter was finally pinning in the golden zone. A bit more chipping, and I had a nugget just over a gram. I kept at that bull quartz until there were no more signals, and I had myself a nice catch of small nuggets in the bottle.

All the while however, that little peak was in the back of my mind, intriguing me. I really didn't think there was much chance of finding anything in that spot, I mean, after all, the miners hadn't thought it was worth much as they'd left it standing.



Before I wandered over to check the place, I looked to the west. The sun was starting to sink below the mountain horizon, generating a gentle rosy-coloured warning that I was running out of time. Moreover, nature took this time to put on a performance: the robins were having a chirping contest, which usually means that clouds with a low-pressure system will be rolling in the next day. Huge blue, and green dragonflies were feasting on the last of the mosquitoes that were either brave or stupid enough to still be out, the dragonflies making short work of those flying vampires indeed, their iridescent wings a rainbow of magical colours through the fading golden shafts of sunlight, the rattle and hum of those remarkably flexible wings a marvel of impossible motions that modern man has yet to completely duplicate in any of his machines. Not to be left out, the mountain songbirds sang the summer sun off to its western slumber with a gentle lullaby. In fact, that small slice of the evening is one resplendent with some of nature's richest colours and her most beautiful sounds, a capstone of perfection that moves me to stop and reflect on the wonders of that short, magical time.



Knowing that daylight was abandoning me, I worked my way around the base of the miniature peak, and just as I moved the coil up the eastern slope, I got a rocking hit! And, right above that hit, there was another. Well, I checked the surface with a magnet, but there were no jumpers (with a super-magnet, the iron and steel really jump out of the dirt; there are no lazy bits and pieces of ferrous material when faced with such a superior attraction). Of course, my heart ticked up a few strokes. I made another pass with the same result. I carefully scraped the side and found a small depression, scanned again, and the sound was louder, the meter solidly pinned! Well, I worked the signal out of the hole and didn't need to sort any dirt as the target was clearly visible in the scoop: a nugget just under six grams! Holy jumpin' dynamite!! I scanned the spot slightly higher up, and the detector still squawked. So, I scraped, noticed another depression, scanned again, and the meter pinned in the golden zone. After cleaning out the little run, I had a nugget just over three grams in the scoop. Well, I sure went 'round the mountain I can tell you!

And you know what? There were nuggets all the way around! However, not one dang thing on the summit.

By the time darkness shut me down, I'd worked until there were no more signals, and man oh man, did I have a nice whack of meaty nuggets in the bottle. I sure made wages that day.



So, that's the story of Little Peak, one generated on the day that Mother Nature's songbirds serenaded me to the gold, I guess you could say, a day when the Grand Old Lady willingly shared a little of her golden treasure.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

You take me there, every time.