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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[delnorter]

My minds eye sure enjoy the movies Lanny.

Mike

 

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[Hoser John]

That first pic reminds me of our local Castle Crags monument and area akin to the Trinity Alps. Sure was fun to mine by chopper back in the flush days....Thanks much for the tag alongs-John

 

[TerryC]

Had to re-read for inspirational purposes! Never gets old. TTC

 

[Lanny in AB]

I borrowed this video from Johndoes post because there's some golden advice in it if you're willing to use enough patience to get to the gold that's there in what they're saying. When you start to watch the video, you'll see it's unscripted, not polished, there's interruptions, issues, etc. because it's rather more like raw footage, but the gold is there if you have the patience to get through it, and what they're saying is worth the effort. So, I'm giving their video a home here on this thread.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Sample Pan Dan]

Thanks Lanny

 

[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.

G-Bone, thanks so much for dropping in to have a read. I really appreciate your time and effort to leave some comments.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

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

Herb, I surely hope you get out to chase some of the good stuff this summer. You certainly live in some gorgeous country that's peppered with some great gold, and some spectacular scenery to boot.

All the best, and thanks for the compliment,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

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

John,

I hope things are well for you and yours, and I truly appreciate the words of friendship and the time you've taken to thank me for the writing.

As far as your stories go, if you ever decide to write a book, please let me know as I'm a true babe in the woods compared to you.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

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.

Jeff,

I really appreciate you likening the stories to campfire tales. I've listened to many a legend of lost gold while sitting around campfires in the lonely north country, and some of them are true heart-pumpers for sure. The other stories have been about all kinds of struggles others have shared with me about chasing the gold, or they've been funny tales of things gone terribly wrong, with no harm done.

All the best, and thanks for dropping in,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

That first pic reminds me of our local Castle Crags monument and area akin to the Trinity Alps. Sure was fun to mine by chopper back in the flush days....Thanks much for the tag alongs-John

John,

Mining by chopper must have been quite the adventure! I've got a friend that does that, but he's after rubies, not gold. However, knowing a bit about you, I'm sure you were into fantastic gold, and you've certainly gained the skill set to find it almost anywhere I'd imagine.

Thanks for dropping in John, and thanks for the memories you've shared with me.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

You take me there, every time.

Terry,

Thanks for you frequent visits, and for your encouragement and support.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

My minds eye sure enjoy the movies Lanny.

Mike

Mike,

It's so good to have you drop in again, and it's so nice to read your compliment about the stories!

Thanks for taking a moment to leave some kind words, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Had to re-read for inspirational purposes! Never gets old. TTC

Terry,

It's been quite a while. Great to hear from you again, and I'm glad you enjoy the stories.

Thanks, and all the best,

Lance

 

[Lanny in AB]

Thanks Lanny

No problem, and you're most welcome!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Little Peak, Part II:

Well, as the gold was fat and sassy up at the formation I'd named Little Peak, and as darkness had won the battle with daylight the day before, I just had to go back for a look the following day. Once again, the sky was that incredible mountain blue that stirs the heart, the air warm, and filled with the pungent smell of conifers. On this day, two tiny green hummingbirds were hard at war, chittering and squeaking as they fought a turf war over the flowery domain that lined the one side of the old excavation.



However, even though I hit the top of that Little Peak cut hard for the entire morning, I was only rewarded with a few small pieces, and I only recovered them as I'd forced myself to slow way down to thoroughly investigate every tiny break in the threshold. Sometimes, the breaks were caused by gold, but too often, the breaks were caused by tiny bits of blade and track, and of course, by some pesky hot-rocks that bedevil any VLF I've used so far. In fact, it seems like the tiny hot-rocks close to the surface are the worst; however, there were a couple of strange sounding rocks that were deeper, but larger, ones that pinned in the good zone and sounded sweet to boot. Those signals sped my heart up and had me thinking all kinds of golden thoughts, but they were generated by imposters, pieces of rock about a third the size of a golf ball, some stream-rounded, some angular, but imposters all.

Now, after pounding the top of that cut for so long, I'd worked up a powerful appetite, and a mighty big thirst, so I took my detector and my five-gallon bucket with my lunch and water and found a huge boulder that offered some shade. I angled my way under that broken off chunk of mountain and had the miner's lunch: beef jerky, bottled water, crackers, a handful of nuts, and a chocolate covered (real chocolate!) granola bar. Moreover, I actually enjoy it when I gear down for a bit: my ears get a break from the headphones, my arms and wrists get a break from running the pick and swinging the small sledge, and it's always great to lean up against something solid to give the back a break too. Furthermore, it gives my brain a break, and that might be the most valuable rest of all; I've found that the old noggin' needs a rest just as much if not more so than the muscles. The break offers my brain a chance to replay and review things I've seen earlier on other outings, a chance to rethink certain strategies, but often enough, a new thought will pop into my head about a spot I'd passed by that I really should check out, and that's what happened this day.



There was a trough off to one side of the main gut in the lowest section of the placer cut. But, it was filled with water! Well, my little Gold Bug Pro (the detector I was swinging that day) has a waterproof coil, so I thought I'd swim it through that trough, just for the heck of it. Now, I don't know how many of you have tried detecting underwater in hot ground littered with hot-rocks, and I'm sure there's more I need to learn about the process, but when that coil goes under the water, all kinds of strange sounds (wooh-oohs, beeps, snorts, grunts, splattery-sparks, boings, etc.) start to assail the headphones. Nevertheless, in the midst of those alien wailings, there were what sounded like some genuine, positive hits. So, there I was, standing looking down into a basin of water that was possibly hiding some nuggets (some of the signals pinned on the meter right hard!), but that water was a problem. How to get rid of it?

I didn't have a pump with me, and it was a heck of a trek back to the ATV, then a stiff ride back to camp, so I had to engage my brain in some creative thinking. Well, I always go out with two gold pans, and I never use little pans, only the full-sized ones (all of my gold pictures are shot in those big pans), so I figured I might as well start bailing. Now, I don't know how much bailing you've done, but using a gold pan is mighty slow work, especially when a mountain spring keeps feeding fresh water into the works.



After bailing myself into oblivion with the gold pan, and after not winning the race to see the bottom of the trough, another thought hit me. I had my five-gallon bucket, so why not use it to vastly multiply my bailing options? Well, I emptied all of the contents onto a dry bedrock shelf, then I set to work. Any old pirate that ever had to bail out a leaky Pinnace would have been proud! The water sure flew, and I could even see by the wet mark against the wall that I was making progress, so being encouraged, I kept the water flying. Although it took quite a bit of elbow grease, and a ton of one-man-mining horsepower, I eventually got down to where I was staying ahead of the mountain spring.

A shallow saddle poked up from the gloom, so I quickly grabbed my detector and made some quick passes and the headphones rocked with a solid hit, the meter pinning, the sound a sweet growl. Working quickly, I isolated the target, a nice 2.5 gram nugget! Well, this was encouraging, but the water was winning again, so I had to go back to the drawing board. I trailed the spring's outlet uphill a bit, took my pick and a small shovel, found some sticky clay, and made myself a diversion. Of course my barrier it wasn't stopping all of the flow as some of the water was running between plates of bedrock, then seeping back into the trough, but I did slow it down considerably, enough so in fact that when I went back to bailing, I noticed I was winning at a faster rate.

The water dropped enough with that second assault that the saddle was left high and dry. I scanned it carefully and very slowly and pulled out two more nuggets that were on edge in the bedrock under the clay, neither one much over a gram, but the gold was a nice buttery yellow colour, the colour of gold that really warms the heart of nugget shooters everywhere.



The mystery remained. What was in the bottom of that trough? So, I waded in with my mining boots and set to making the water fly again. When I finally saw the bottom cropping up, I got my pan and finished the job. The bailing routine would buy me about five minutes before the inexorable hydraulic nature of seeping water started to fill the bedrock trough again. But, that five minutes gained was worth all the effort. I started right in the gut of the stream and got a solid hit below a rock about the size of a football jammed solidly into the clay covering the bedrock. The signal was a sassy three gram nugget that had taken to hiding just under the edge of that fat cobble. I kept scanning the gut and got several more hits, but all of the nuggets were less than three grams, but greater than one. At the one end of the trough, the bedrock climbed steeply up what had obviously been a narrow, ancient watercourse.



Well, that spot was a little bonanza that just kept on giving! Hit after hit in every little wrinkle of that bedrock, and I had to work hard with my little bar to winkle every one of them out from between those plates of bedrock, bedrock that had been hammered and worn down, rounded and pounded, but bedrock that still had enough edges to trap the nuggets and hold them tight.

By the time I'd finished with the little watercourse, the trough needed bailing again. This time when the water had receded, I scanned up the sides of the slopes, but I wasn't getting any hits. I slowed down a bit and looked at the vertical sidewall carefully, then saw some of the same recognizable edges of those hammered plates of bedrock peeking out, so I started scanning higher up, which is ironic considering all of the effort I'd put into lowering the water! Regardless, the nuggets were up in those plates as well.

By the time my nugget shooting was done down in that muddy trough, up the ancient little watercourse, and all across the higher sides of the vertical wall, my gold bottle really growled as I swirled the nuggets around inside it.



As for the strange sounds my detector makes when I submerge it in the water, it's really a moot point as the good sounds came through regardless, enough of them anyway to get me to bail out that trough to liberate those sassy nuggets from their bedrock prison.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

Another great story and beautiful yellow!

 

[delnorter]

A real fine retelling of chasing the gold and enjoying our beautiful natural world Lanny.

The country you roam reminds me a lot of where I'm at in Northern California. Not so much the redwood area here on the coast where I live, but just a few miles inland where the fir, pine, and many deciduous trees take over. Our mountains, like your's, are quite steep as well.

Is the telescoping rod with the round object on the end your long arm magnet? Rare earth? Great idea if so.

Thanks Lanny for taking the time to take us along.

Mike

 

[Lanny in AB]

Another great story and beautiful yellow!

Thanks Terry, always good to have the feedback.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

A real fine retelling of chasing the gold and enjoying our beautiful natural world Lanny.

The country you roam reminds me a lot of where I'm at in Northern California. Not so much the redwood area here on the coast where I live, but just a few miles inland where the fir, pine, and many deciduous trees take over. Our mountains, like your's, are quite steep as well.

Is the telescoping rod with the round object on the end your long arm magnet? Rare earth? Great idea if so.

Thanks Lanny for taking the time to take us along.

Mike

Mike, I've only ever been to Northern California twice, but loved it both times, incredibly beautiful. As for the telescoping rod, yes the telescoping rod has a rare earth/super-magnet on it. It saves a ton of time by eliminating ferrous when searching for nuggets in trashy areas.

Thanks for your kind words, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[63bkpkr]

Lanny,
What a fine share!

I noticed that your new pan has a scrape or two, a dig here and there, a notch, a gouge, several fibers of plastic turned up nearly everywhere, a few different colors to it and in general it must have been new several years ago. Must have seen you through many an adventure! Thank you for the pictures as well as the words as well as the reminder of the prospectors repast that is always so appreciated............63bkpkr