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]

The Bear-Alarm Camp

In relation to the screwdriver gold tale, here is a connected story.

One hot summer’s day, when there was an equipment breakdown that the welder had to mend, the same placer miner told me to hop on the Honda 400 to follow him in his truck. He was going to show me where there was some chunky gold shallow on bedrock.

We tore along the logging road, and all at once, the road took a sharp turn to the left and dove quickly down the mountain beside a steep gulch. When we bottomed out, we were on a flat beside where the river had once run, but the entire river had been diverted in the 1800’s (1870’s) when the Old-Timers were chasing the gold.

On the flat, there was a campsite, long abandoned, but ringing that campsite was a line of poly-twine hung with tin cans partially filled with rocks. It was a first-class mountain bear-alarm system. (If a bear tried to sneak into camp at night, it would hit the poly twine, rattling the tin cans so the miners could swing into action! And, there sure were a lot of bears in the area.)

Leaving the flat and climbing up the gulch we saw a long sluice trough made of wood that led to some exposed bedrock. My mining buddy took out his screwdriver and once again started popping pickers out of the bedrock. Furthermore, he explained that the bedrock was hosting a seam of pay that ran right-to-left across the gulch. And, the abandoned camp was home to a couple of bush(as in living in the bush, off the grid)miners that had found the seam and then dug out the gold while using the sluice section to shoot the gold down the gulch to the camp for processing--quite the slick little operation.

This place would also be a spot I’d love to visit with a premier light-weight VLF, as it’s mighty steep, and a heavy PI or hybrid would knock the fun out of getting that gold.

All the best,

Lanny

 

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[Lanny in AB]

A Blazing-Fast Bear Encounter

In the 1990’s, I was in the northern mountains of British Columbia searching an area known for coarse gold. My brother-in-law and his brother were with us as visitors in the gold camp. They’d made a thirty-hour trip to join us, and the next morning, we headed out for a river, one known to hold pickers and even nuggets in areas of exposed bedrock.

We worked some nice bedrock where the river had cut back on itself to produce a big suction eddy, large iron spikes and nails were cast up on the bank at that spot. The two rookies worked the bedrock, hit some nice crevices, and soon had not only pickers, but a couple of nice multi-gram nuggets. (You couldn’t pry the smiles off their faces with a crowbar.)

Having hot gold fever now, they wanted to work a fresh bedrock outcrop, so we headed upriver. The river forked, and they went left a short distance, and my mining partner and I went right, working our way upstream where we discovered a large area of brush growing on a flat. It was a nice spot to unload gear. We were just lowering our equipment to the cobbles when we heard a crashing sound. Looking up the opposite mountainside, we spotted a mother moose tearing madly through the trees. Crossing the river, she hit the flat and blew through the brush like a freight train, just missing us!

We had no idea what was going on but sure were happy to still be alive. (Getting smoked by a charging moose, pretty much fatal.)

The crashing up the mountainside continued, but this time there was as bawling sound. We looked upslope again and saw a juvenile moose (of the mother moose) ripping down the mountainside, a grizzly bear gripping the youngster’s rump in its claws. The trouble was, the slope was so steep, and the moose so terrified, nothing was stopping that moose, not even the grizzly bear’s claw-assisted brakes.

The young moose hurtled down the mountain, straight at us, following its mother’s path. My partner, far smarter than I in a moose, near-death, bear crisis, slammed his shovel against a boulder. The loud clang startled the bear so much he let go! The terrified moose raced onward. We dove out of the way. The bear, lightning fast, swapped ends and tore back up the mountain.

Our rookie gold camp guests heard the noise of the mother moose smashing through the brush and arrived just in time to see the bear’s fumbled attempt at stopping the moose.

Not the kind of excitement they were looking for when they left camp that day, but a blazing-fast bear encounter they’ll never forget.

All the best,


Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Thirsty Bear Invasion

While spending the summer with some full-time gold miners in the Omineca mining division of north-central British Columbia (an area known for chunky nuggets), they told me a true story about a rowdy bear.

One of the miners lived in a trailer parked near the site they were placer mining. In the trailer he had a 24-can flat of cola and 24 cans of beer.

A nosy bear came along while the crew was out mining and decided he wanted a personal tour of the trailer. (I guess he was upset he hadn't been given one earlier.)

He busted through the window and got inside. Then, he took every can, all 48, punched holes in them with his teeth and drained them dry.

At this point, extremely hammered and very sleepy, the bear crawled onto the bed and slept it off.

When he woke up, he just couldn't remember how he’d gotten in, so he smashed through the door and let himself out.

When the thirsty miners got home that night, it was to a dry camp!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Old-Timer’s Did Not Get It All
(From my notes, May 25, 1998)

I wanted my son to have a good experience gold panning, to find gold big enough to see, and to hear it hit the pan when he dropped it back in. (There's something about that sound that never gets old.)

We drove up a logging road through thick stands of pine and spruce, then down a steep slope to a spot where the river cut through some black bedrock narrows. The old-timers worked this place hard and cleaned off the bedrock at river level, as well as high above the current stream which held an ancient channel. We picked a place far above the stream and started to snoop around. (In fairness, I’d snooped earlier in the week to know we wouldn’t get skunked.) There were hand-mined stacks of boulders and large cobbles all over. (Nearby lay the ruins of an old steam powered winch, one used to pull freight and ferry goods across the river in the 1800’s.)

At every ancient gulch and pinch point in the bedrock, all the rock was stacked to get at the coarse gold on and in the slate. This hard work made me think, what if some of the miners were tired, homesick, were in a rush to get to the next gold strike, hated their boss or were forced to work for someone else? If that was the case, they might have done a poor job cleaning the bedrock.

So, my son and I moved a bunch of rocks and began to look closer. We found places where the old-timers had left small patches of virgin dirt! This was the stuff that could produce good gold.

However, the spots were small, cup-sized and smaller. (But small volume can still hold coarse gold for exciting finds.) The missed dirt was easy to identify by the material it held. If we found a little depression or crevice in the rock and the material was tightly wedged in place (packed clay with sand, little rounded stones of various sizes and often accompanied by a red, orange or bluish or purplish stain) we carefully removed every bit of it. (Stuff that had already been worked was loose with numerous gaps, usually had lots of powdery clay with decayed vegetable matter, sharp broken pieces of bedrock, etc., as well as randomly placed rounded stones of all sizes.) We spent about an hour and a half gathering the material with small sniping tools. It partially filled three pans with material, then we made our way down to the river to pan.

We panned out nine chunky pieces that each made a sweet sound when dropped in the pan.

Did we get rich? If the only concern is a dollar value, then no. But who can put a value on one-on-one time spent with my seventeen-year-old son? Furthermore, searching for missed virgin ground taught us valuable lessons that paid off handsomely the next summer we went mining.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Sniping Black Bedrock
(Taken from my notes, summer of 1997)

Prospecting has been a hobby of mine for many years. My son and I spent the past two summers working with some large-scale placer miners (we help them, they help us) on their claims in the far Boreal forests. Two summers ago, I located an ancient channel for them. In gratitude last summer, they left a small area of the mined Tertiary channel’s bedrock open for my son and I to snipe (the overburden of heavy, clay peppered with boulders, ran about 20 feet in depth).

Sniping virgin bedrock was new to both my son and I, and I’d only sniped existing stream bedrock before, with limited success. So, we tried to remember all the pointers we had read or heard from others about trying to find a virgin crack or crevice, one filled with tightly packed, intact material, often darkly stained (red/orange/purple) The intact crevice would then need to be cleaned out, then broken open for a deeper cleaning. Then, looking carefully, we saw a bedrock fold that ran perpendicular to the ancient stream’s flow.

I told my son to sample it, and he returned with material scraped from the fold and once panned, he had some nice, small, rounded pieces of gold. I told him to check the base of the fold to see if it hid a crevice. After some more scraping and cleaning, he called me over and showed me a narrow crack about half an inch wide, by about a foot long. That crack was filled with tightly packed material, little stones, clay etc., and it was hard to see because the covering surface material was black, just like the bedrock).

I told him to get the pry bars, a small sledge hammer, screwdrivers (one bent with an L-shaped end), and an old stainless-steel tablespoon to work the crevice, and a whisk broom and dust pan to use to carefully gather all of the material.

Leaving him to it, I worked the bedrock downslope, and about twenty minutes later, I heard someone hoofing it over the stones to where I was. I turned and saw my son, carefully carrying his green gold pan. To my surprise, his mouth moved, but the only sounds he made were like he was having trouble breathing, and every step closer, he kept pointing at his pan and breathing harder. So, I sprinted over to have a look.

There in the bottom of his pan were six nuggets (all multi-gram-nuggets), along with a pile of smaller chunks. No wonder he couldn't breathe!

My goodness was he happy, and boy was I proud! Needless to say, that electrified me to keep looking, and after a lot of hard searching, I found a crevice about half as long as his, and it held two smaller multi-gram nuggets along with some nice pickers.

What amazed my son and I about this gold experience was how little material came out of those cracks and yet how much gold they held (that’s the beauty of sniping). Moreover, we found two other nuggets with our detectors and added more chunks (close to half an ounce gold take for the day) by sweeping and cleaning the surface of the bedrock.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Bedrock Tips, Part 1

How many of you have had the chance to work virgin bedrock?

By virgin, I mean bedrock exposed by modern mining, bedrock not seen since the dinosaurs ruled the earth or perhaps even earlier.

Furthermore, a chance to detect bedrock like this is a rare one as it needs previous, special connections with the large-scale placer miners to get access to such bedrock and claims, or knowledge acquired of former placer mined areas that now lie abandoned.

Moreover, it's downright expensive to remove forty to sixty feet of overburden from bedrock which financial output stops some miners from granting access. In addition, some miners simply won’t allow others on their virgin bedrock. Added to this are insurance and mining regulations which might result in a hard no even if there’s a personal relationship with the miners.

This makes the chances quite slim to none for access, unless a nugget shooter is lucky enough to find abandoned sites through research or word-of -mouth. But if such an opportunity pops up, for either scenario, there's a few things that will help find that bedrock gold.

First and foremost, ask lots of questions.

Find out where the heaviest run of gold was in the excavation. For example, was the gold deposit heavier in a dip in the bedrock, on at the start of a rise in the rock, heavier on a shelf, or at the bottom of a long drop before a steep rise, etc. As well, find out if there were certain colors in the dirt that indicated better pay: oranges, reds, grays, purples, blacks, etc.

With the answers to a few questions like these, you can improve your odds of checking the most-likely places in an open-pit excavation. For instance, you'll find areas that were barren by asking the right questions (areas of loose wash, glacial striations where gold was gouged out, smooth bedrock, heavy sand, sloping rock, etc.), and you'll locate areas that were hot spots for nuggets by asking enough questions to get some tips.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

Let's put the book together Lanny! You are a wealth of experience and knowledge, and you have a real talent for telling stories. I really enjoy reading your posts, and I know your book will be a huge hit!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Let's put the book together Lanny! You are a wealth of experience and knowledge, and you have a real talent for telling stories. I really enjoy reading your posts, and I know your book will be a huge hit!

Terry, you certainly are kind, and I appreciate your comments.

I actually have begun to put my prospecting and mining memoirs into print format, but it sure is taking a lot of time. Now I know why people that write books talk about the dedication and great expense of time required to get it done.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Bedrock Tips, Part 2

If you’re lucky enough to detect truly virgin bedrock, you'll need to carefully analyze the suggested answers to your questions (Part 1), plus you'll need to pay close attention to what the detector is telling you about the temperature of the rock you're hunting as well as that of any accompanying hot rocks. For example, racing into a cut while swinging your coil like a madman, to quickly cover as much ground as possible, is a bad idea. Why? Virgin bedrock demands consideration and respect due to the exceptional possibility of hidden gold. Moreover, it demands a slow approach while listening to the ground minerals and scrubbing the surface to obtain every bit of depth while listening carefully to the tiniest alterations in the threshold.

Plus, paying close attention to the mineralization helps you learn which coils will work best, including which sizes (or shapes) to use. (A variety of sizes and types helps get the job done right, and in extreme ground, the wrong coil type, or size, will waste your time.) Paying attention to the mineralization will often give you visual clues in a variety of colors which also help identify zones of the heavies that run with gold.

While working bedrock, you might try a tiny detector like the Falcon to find streaks and runs of fine gold that will elude your bigger detector's coils. It's surprising how much fine gold can be left riding on bedrock or caught in cracks and crevices. Several summers ago, I had my eyes opened wide to just how much gold gets left behind and just how much fun it is to use a tiny detector to chase pockets and streaks of fine gold, which add up in a hurry! (And, any gold detector will see gold hidden in cemented crevices, a great plus.)

On a different note, I now always use a one-two punch of a dedicated VLF gold machine, in concert with a dedicated PI or equivalent (for depth and to counter extreme mineralization). Working a large excavation in the summer heat is taxing work, so the VLF is easy to swing all day, and the additional higher-end tech sniffs out the leftovers.

As for non-electronic sniping, it's very important to visually study the rock carefully. Often when working virgin bedrock, clay is ubiquitous (seems to be everywhere). And, that clay is a great hider, and, or, robber of gold. Moreover, look at what's riding on top of or within the clay. Are there little stones of various sorts? Is it just slick clay (no inclusions)? As well, be meticulous about examining the surface of the bedrock. Sometimes what looks like perfectly level bedrock with a solid surface may have cracks and crevices perfectly camouflaged by the minerals that are running with the clay and its surrounding material, minerals that match perfectly the color of the host bedrock. Use a variety of tools to scrape and scratch at the surface. I've been stunned while sniping non-electronically to uncover rich, small cracks and crevices in this manner.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Bedrock Tips, Part 3

To add some last comments, if the bedrock is dry, get a good sledge hammer and hit the bedrock to see if any puffs of dust rise up in little fountains of fine particles. This signals a hidden crack or crevice somewhere in the bedrock. One of the wonders of bedrock is that a crack or crevice may be snapped shut tightly at the surface, but can widen below its mouth significantly. I remember the first time I found one of these: it had a pocket of small nuggets in it, and the nuggets were far too big to have found their way into the crevice opening left on the bedrock surface.

There are lots of theories as to how gold deposition in bedrock crevices and cracks happens, but the important thing to remember is that regardless of the specific process, it does happen.

Knowing some of the bedrock tips in the three parts of this write-up has helped me find sizeable nuggets when sniping without electronic backup as well.

What tools help with this process? For inexpensive alternatives, a blade screwdriver bent at a 90 degree angle; a wire brush; a stiff bristle brush; an awl; a pocket knife; a small metal gardening shovel; a variety of household spoons (teaspoon size to tablespoon--be sure to have sturdy ones that won't bend easily); a small sledge and a couple of cold chisels for widening cracks and crevices; if water is present, a suction gun of some kind; etc.

With virgin bedrock, you will have the chance of a lifetime to find gold in a place that no one else has ever looked, so take the time to do a thorough job, and the reward might be amazing.

To elaborate on the above comment, I've come behind others that have worked such places in a hurry and found some beautiful nuggets (larger than anything they found) because they tore across the bedrock in a mad rush to cover the entire area as quickly as possible. However, the sad truth is that if they'd have slowed down and paid that virgin bedrock the respect it deserved, they would have found the bigger gold they left for me.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Chilli]

Bedrock Tips, Part 3

To add some last comments, if the bedrock is dry, get a good sledge hammer and hit the bedrock to see if any puffs of dust rise up in little fountains of fine particles. This signals a hidden crack or crevice somewhere in the bedrock. One of the wonders of bedrock is that a crack or crevice may be snapped shut tightly at the surface, but can widen below its mouth significantly. I remember the first time I found one of these: it had a pocket of small nuggets in it, and the nuggets were far too big to have found their way into the crevice opening left on the bedrock surface.

There are lots of theories as to how gold deposition in bedrock crevices and cracks happens, but the important thing to remember is that regardless of the specific process, it does happen.

Knowing some of the bedrock tips in the three parts of this write-up has helped me find sizeable nuggets when sniping without electronic backup as well.

What tools help with this process? For inexpensive alternatives, a blade screwdriver bent at a 90 degree angle; a wire brush; a stiff bristle brush; an awl; a pocket knife; a small metal gardening shovel; a variety of household spoons (teaspoon size to tablespoon--be sure to have sturdy ones that won't bend easily); a small sledge and a couple of cold chisels for widening cracks and crevices; if water is present, a suction gun of some kind; etc.

With virgin bedrock, you will have the chance of a lifetime to find gold in a place that no one else has ever looked, so take the time to do a thorough job, and the reward might be amazing.

To elaborate on the above comment, I've come behind others that have worked such places in a hurry and found some beautiful nuggets (larger than anything they found) because they tore across the bedrock in a mad rush to cover the entire area as quickly as possible. However, the sad truth is that if they'd have slowed down and paid that virgin bedrock the respect it deserved, they would have found the bigger gold they left for me.

All the best,

Lanny

When the SD2000 from Minelab came out I went to a surfaced area from the 1800s here in OZ. It was surfaced to bedrock. But iv been around and had been around enough to know that even when the old timers took it all to bedrock that it went deeper into enclosed crevasses that had long since closed and now looked smooth, as if no crevace or crack ever existed.
Was a place called, very very famous here in Victoria, Daisy Hill.
People drove past actually laughing at me detecting surfaced ground bedrock. Laugh was on them. I had a ball. Signals cracking through the headphones in soft slate and sandstone type bedrock 😆
They drove past it all 😀
This, night here now and a bit crappy picture, but this bit which has 1/2 ounce in it was the very bit I was digging out as two guys in a 4wd yelled out to me what a , wont repeat what they said laughing, said to me there at Daisy Hill that I was. I have always kept it as a momento 😆
They were actually what they called me 😂
Was just 4 inches into soft bedrock. A screamer!

 

[Lanny in AB]

When the SD2000 from Minelab came out I went to a surfaced area from the 1800s here in OZ. It was surfaced to bedrock. But iv been around and had been around enough to know that even when the old timers took it all to bedrock that it went deeper into enclosed crevasses that had long since closed and now looked smooth, as if no crevace or crack ever existed.
Was a place called, very very famous here in Victoria, Daisy Hill.
People drove past actually laughing at me detecting surfaced ground bedrock. Laugh was on them. I had a ball. Signals cracking through the headphones in soft slate and sandstone type bedrock 😆
They drove past it all 😀
This, night here now and a bit crappy picture, but this bit which has 1/2 ounce in it was the very bit I was digging out as two guys in a 4wd yelled out to me what a , wont repeat what they said laughing, said to me there at Daisy Hill that I was. I have always kept it as a momento 😆
They were actually what they called me 😂
Was just 4 inches into soft bedrock. A screamer!


View attachment 2031823

What a gorgeous piece! Thanks for the picture, and along with you, I've also enjoyed working "played out" bedrock that others thought wasn't worth the time. Like you, I've had lots of fun getting the gold that was left trapped there.

Thanks for dropping in, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[Chilli]

What a gorgeous piece! Thanks for the picture, and along with you, I've also enjoyed working "played out" bedrock that others thought wasn't worth the time. Like you, I've had lots of fun getting the gold that was left trapped there.

Thanks for dropping in, and all the best,

Lanny

All good mate, thanks. I think id only part with that bit if desperate. It was such a perfect timing find getting mocked as I got it. Never forget it.
Keeper 😁
Good luck out there mate 👍

 

[Lanny in AB]

Finally got out to chase some gold.

Will hopefully post a picture soon.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Finally got out to chase some gold.

Will hopefully post a picture soon.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Vance in AK]

View attachment 2045438

Nice!!!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Merry Christmas to all!

 

[Lanny in AB]

(Annual Christmas Poetry)

Miner Mike

Out in the west, where yarns are told
There’s many spun about the gold.
But Christmas tales are mighty few
Where Santa types made dreams come true.

Yet here’s a tale about a gent
A Santa sort that really went
To find some gold to help out those
Down on their luck when trials arose.

Now, Miner Mike trekked to a spot
Where others worked, but flourished not.
Their kids were starved, the days were cold
No Christmas hopes were theirs to hold.

Well, Mike he saw that things were grim.
Such troubles truly bothered him.
He wracked his brain in mountain air
To find the gold a hidden there.

The ground looked wrong, yes Mike was sure.
No matter where their test pits were
The dirt they’d worked was wrong to pay,
In any sort of winning way.

So, Mike set off quite happily
To find just where that gold could be.
(His wits had always seen him through,
And Mike knew what he had to do.)

“I’ll find the sort of precious spot
Where gold once ran”, he wisely thought.
“An ancient place with stones all worn
Out hiding in a place forlorn.”

In lonesome haunts he stomped around,
Until he found that wondrous ground.
A long-lost place of rounded rock.
Then Mike received a golden shock.

For, in the cobbles nestled there
Were nuggets sassy, everywhere!
Right chunky ones those nuggets were
Big shiny lumps of fineness pure.

“An ancient channel I have found
Emerging from this lonely ground.”
Mike spread the word about that find.
A selfless deed, one mighty kind.

For with that strike, the folks around
All staked their claims on richest ground.
And that was how for Mike it was
His role of almost Santa Claus.

All the best, and Merry Christmas,

Lanny

 

[OwenT]

What a tale. A miner sharing his bonanza! It generally isn't in our nature but if we could all be a little more like Miner Mike I'm sure we'd all have more than enough "gold" in our lives.

I believe Mike was a miner not too unlike yourself, Lanny! Thanks for always sharing. Merry Christmas, to you and to all!

 

[russau]

I love reading these stories and first hand report's BUT the only thing I don't like is when a person gets old and beat up like me is remembering, all the great times and friends I came across and friendships that came to be and thinking that I can't do this anymore with these life time friend's ............BUT there again , I did have a GREAT TIME and life long friends and you just can't put a $$$$$ sign on that. PRICELESS TIME & FRIENDS !!!!