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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[blazintowers]

some of the best reads ever! thank you so much for sharing this "Hands on Knowledge" that is what is so priceless...for a beginner like me! beautiful pics and writings...again thank you,,, too new for me to say anything but to keep quite, read and learn...

sincerely Todd from SoCal.

 

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[Lanny in AB]

some of the best reads ever! thank you so much for sharing this "Hands on Knowledge" that is what is so priceless...for a beginner like me! beautiful pics and writings...again thank you,,, too new for me to say anything but to keep quite, read and learn...

sincerely Todd from SoCal.

Todd--thanks for dropping in, and I hope you soon start finding some of that fun yellow metal!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

I'm with Herb and Todd. There is nothing I'd rather read than your wonderfully descriptive accounts of gold hunting in the northwest. Of course the photos only add to the rugged, northern flavour... sauce for the goose.

Jim.

 

[trsrseeker]

Enjoying the read Lanny . . .

 

[Lanny in AB]

Enjoying the read Lanny . . .

Thanks for taking the time to say so--it really means a lot!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[geezerdb]

I sure enjoy your thread Lanny! I have been really 'going to school' on your experiences!

 

[Lanny in AB]

I sure enjoy your thread Lanny! I have been really 'going to school' on your experiences!

Thanks so much for your kind comments, and let me give you a big welcome to the forum!

Hopefully in the next little while I'll be able to carve out some more time to fashion another piece of the "Far From Government Gulch" tale.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Far from Government Gulch

Well, now that I’m back at it, it’s time for a few more details about the area before I head back into the main body of my story. An interesting aspect of this particular place is that down at the river proper, which was visible from where we were detecting, but quite a distance removed, there was evidence everywhere that the Oldtimers had hand-mined the area heavily.

In fact, it was very clear that they had diverted an entire section of the river to work the bedrock proper of the original stream. Moreover, in that diverted section, the wing-dam posts were still in place all along the stranded channel. The wing-damming must have proved the ground to be very rich--thus the diversion.

It was a serious stretch of stream, about four hundred yards long, yet the Sourdoughs had left it high and dry, having diverted the water way back in the 1800’s forever. Furthermore, about fifty yards to the south, the current river was still running in its artificial course, and I can only imagine how much hard work and man-hours were required to originally divert that channel.

Now, here’s the interesting part. What we should have done was invested a little time in that stranded channel, digging around to clear cobbles to get down to the bedrock all along those wing-dams. That would have given us an excellent chance to get the coils right on the bedrock. When I return one day, I’m quite optimistic that a little work will reward me with some sassy nuggets that are still trapped in that old streambed—nuggets those old boys left behind. Always remember this--they never got it all. A quality gold detector is an edge they never had.

Just imagine, a long stretch of streambed like that—one never detected after it was cleaned by hand—it sure fires the imagination.

This was our gray "mule" on the expedition:

More as time permits.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Yes it sure does fire the imagination Lanny!!! Thanks for another segment of the continuing saga!! Your episodes remind me of watching the Lone Ranger each Saturday morning when we were small children. It was great but there was never enough!!

I was told by the Gold Commissioner's office in Atlin that the upper portion of the famous Spruce Creek had occupied four (4) different channels since the area's first gold rush days.

It also brings a question to mind that has probably been asked before. I know you've mentioned in the past about the bedrock being so terribly mineralized in some areas that VLF units were practically useless. Do you use VLF units on the bedrock for the tiny stuff when possible?

Jim.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Far from Government Gulch

You’re probably wondering how we got permission to go wherever we wanted in that goldfield. Well, it’s a bit of a story, but I’ll shorten it up for you. One day I was visiting a family in my community, as our sons were good friends. This boy’s mother knew I was a gold prospector, and she said her adult daughter, one I had never met, was visiting for a few days and that she’d like to talk to me.

Well, the daughter came upstairs a while later, we were introduced, and she told me her mother had mentioned that I liked to chase the gold. Of course, that started a conversation. However, what came next was totally unexpected. She told me that her husband was a large-scale placer miner, and that he was currently working in the goldfields.

She then asked me if I’d like to see some of the gold. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never turned down the chance to see gold from an unfamiliar placer deposit. But when she brought out the gold, my jaw hit the floor. It was coarse, bumpy, character gold—every single nugget—and they were all nuggets! The gold looked nothing like the nuggets we’d been chasing, for that gold was very flat and every bit of character had been hammered out of it eons ago. The gold that she had in her bottle, and around her neck on a necklace, and on her wrist in a bracelet, was unlike anything I’d seen before. I was very impressed with its character, and I told her so.

What she did next totally shocked me—she invited me to head up to the mine whenever I wanted—it was an open invitation for whenever I was ready; moreover, she gave me permission to go wherever I wanted on their leases and claims!

Now, we’re not talking about permission to explore a small area, but when it comes to the special placer leases that they were working, we’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of acres of bundled claims within those leases, and then there were separate claims outside of the leases as well.

It was like Christmas morning that spring day, and that’s how my adventures located sixteen hours north and west of where I currently live, began.

This shot shows some flake gold (one I've posted before), but more importantly, it shows the character of the knobby gold that proliferates the area.

All the best,

Lanny

More as time permits.

P.S. Just a side note--we had the original permission to detect the miners' leases and claims, but when we arrived in the area, as there's only a small local population, we went out of our way to introduce ourselves to as many of the local people as we could. Yes, this takes time, but we wanted everyone to know who we were, and why we were there.

Well, in small communities, word travels fast, and soon others were dropping in at camp to introduce themselves. After a few weeks, we had met most of the people.

As we were straight shooters and never set foot on any ground we didn't have permission to work, people soon knew they could trust us, and we gained the respect of the community. In short order, we were invited to use our detectors on hundreds more acres of claims--just like that!

On an interesting connected issue, many of the claim owners had seen quite a few nugget shooters show up in the area only to get severely skunked, because the bedrock was insanely hot. So, to them, it was like a challenge to see if we really could find any nuggets or not with our electronic "toys".

They were extremely curious to see if anyone could actually succeed. It was an issue of, "Go anywhere you want, but I'll bet you can't find a thing with your beeper--everyone else has never been able to make it work." The only caveat was that we had to show anyone that let us on their claims any gold we found.

Well, when we started to show them the nuggets, and they put their eyeballs back in their heads, they became fast and firm believers in the abilities of a good PI to work extreme ground!

 

[Lanny in AB]

I'm currently without a premier VLF machine Jim. I don't know if I'll purchase one or not. But, I have seen some good things lately about the Gold Bug Pro which make me wonder if I should dive in or not.

I'm currently set up with a little sniper coil on the 5000 which finds tiny flakes, but I'm sure it won't hit the tiny stuff the VLF's will. The area I'm currently working has a variety of bedrock types, and some of them will allow hunting with VLF's, and I've seen some of the fly speck sized gold the local boys find with their detectors.

All the best Jim,

Lanny

 

[63bkpkr]

Hi Jim,
To butt in on your question to Lanny - I've used my GMT over bedrock to find gold and it does! The area has some very iron rich bedrock and yet the GMT still finds gold in the bedrock aka Lanny's thread on gold in the bedrock.

Lanny,
2012 was a very limited year with getting out into the hills and both times I got out, in case you missed that I got out twice/two times, I found no gold this year.

I'm wrapping up my research into having my shoulder('s) operated upon, should be complete 01Feb about 11 AM and will then proceed with the first one shortly thereafter. 2013 will be a year of surgeries for me with the end of the year being exercise & physical therapy. 2014 will be more of the same into August and then as long as I've been a good little boy I could be ready to go into the hills. So no backpacking or prospecting in 2013 at all though I'm hopeful for some in 2014.

I may not be getting out into the field but my convalescence could give me time to go through a bunch of historical computer records that might just give me one or two bits I could offer up as reading material while we are each holed up in our unique winter holes. We'll see. Wild back country where the trail was at most six inches wide before I started cutting it noting with each cut how oily the bushes were from the passing of animals like bears.

Enjoy the snow.............63bkpkr

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hi Jim,
To butt in on your question to Lanny - I've used my GMT over bedrock to find gold and it does! The area has some very iron rich bedrock and yet the GMT still finds gold in the bedrock aka Lanny's thread on gold in the bedrock.

Lanny,
2012 was a very limited year with getting out into the hills and both times I got out, in case you missed that I got out twice/two times, I found no gold this year.

I'm wrapping up my research into having my shoulder('s) operated upon, should be complete 01Feb about 11 AM and will then proceed with the first one shortly thereafter. 2013 will be a year of surgeries for me with the end of the year being exercise & physical therapy. 2014 will be more of the same into August and then as long as I've been a good little boy I could be ready to go into the hills. So no backpacking or prospecting in 2013 at all though I'm hopeful for some in 2014.

I may not be getting out into the field but my convalescence could give me time to go through a bunch of historical computer records that might just give me one or two bits I could offer up as reading material while we are each holed up in our unique winter holes. We'll see. Wild back country where the trail was at most six inches wide before I started cutting it noting with each cut how oily the bushes were from the passing of animals like bears.

Enjoy the snow.............63bkpkr

I hope the surgery thing works out for you Herb--I know how you love to be active. So, if you continue your research while you're on the mend, you'll be ready to have at it in 2014. And at least, that gives you something to look forward to. Oily bushes--that's a little spooky, and a six-inch trail presents the perfect ambush opportunity, but as I recall, you always pack your little friend for quick wilderness protection, as there's be no room to swing a defender style shotgun in growth that thick.

I'm getting cabin fever Herb, and I hate being snow bound, so I'm writing some of my memoirs, organizing my pictures, and gathering video from Youtube to help me pass the time.

All the best my friend,

Lanny

 

[Hemisteve]

Hi Lanny,
Your thread keeps getting better and better.
I ran across a spot on a creek that feeds the American river back in the 80's that is similar to the one you described. The old timers diverted 1000 feet or more of the original creek bed to dig to the bedrock. Not an easy task given the amount of rock they had to bust through to create the new channel.
I wish I had a metal detector back then. It would have been a great spot to hunt at. Still was fun to spend some time exploring and learning how the old timers did it.

Thanks again
Steve

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hi Lanny,
Your thread keeps getting better and better.
I ran across a spot on a creek that feeds the American river back in the 80's that is similar to the one you described. The old timers diverted 1000 feet or more of the original creek bed to dig to the bedrock. Not an easy task given the amount of rock they had to bust through to create the new channel.
I wish I had a metal detector back then. It would have been a great spot to hunt at. Still was fun to spend some time exploring and learning how the old timers did it.

Thanks again
Steve

Thanks for dropping in Steve, and thanks for your kind words--they're much appreciated.

It's cool you saw a spot like that, and I hear you on how you wish you'd have had a metal detector--it most likely been a party!

Thanks again, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[H-2 CHARLIE]

HEY GUYS can one MD when the ground is damp or wet ? say a GMT or Gold bug pro ?

 

[Lanny in AB]

You may find that your detection signal is enhanced when the ground is wet.

You're not asking if you can detect in the water are you? That's a different issue, depending on if your coil is waterproof, or if you're up to the box, if the box is waterproof. Not all coils or boxes are--so you need to check with the manufacturer.

However, if you're only talking about wet or damp soil, the answer is yes, and I've done that many, many times. It's never been a problem.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[oldbrundogg]

Lanny thank you so much for this thread it's a fun read and the interaction with the readers is so helpful.

I haven't even swung a md except a couple times with my cheap bounty hunter so it gives a newbie like myself so much to chew on.

Thanks again and please keep the sassy stories coming.

OBD

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lanny thank you so much for this thread it's a fun read and the interaction with the readers is so helpful.

I haven't even swung a md except a couple times with my cheap bounty hunter so it gives a newbie like myself so much to chew on.

Thanks again and please keep the sassy stories coming.

OBD

OBD--I'm at the point in my life where I'd rather keep sharing the information, hoping in some way to help others enjoy the thrill of finding some of that sassy gold. To me, there's nothing that matches the adrenaline boost that comes when you scrape away the dirt to reveal a completely unique, magnificent creation of nature that has been hidden for untold eons of time. I guess it's the realization that you're the first person to ever gaze at something so incredibly beautiful. I mean, when I go coin shooting, it's fun to find something someone lost, but many people most likely saw the original object before it disappeared. Not so with nuggets--when you find your first one OBD in it original setting, you'll be the first person that ever laid eyes on it, and let me tell you, that's quite the realization.

All the best, and thanks for the compliments and for taking the time to express them,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Far From Government Gulch

Well, after poking around the stranded channel for a bit, and after examining a monster boulder that the Oldtimer’s had undermined—the large cross-cut log supports were still visible under the belly of the beast—we headed back across the flat and up the hill to the little camp we’d stumbled across.

Now, if you’ll remember, we’d found a section of sluice, but it was clear our ghost miners had never run any water in the area. The piles of cleaned rock that result from sluicing are an easy indicator of when someone’s had a sluice run going. There were none of those stacks or piles anywhere to be found.

So, we poked around a bit more, ranging farther from camp on each expansion of our search.

I mean, who sets up a camp, rings it with bear detection devices, lays in a store of firewood, carefully levels the site and removes the annoying rocks that proliferate the ground in such places to make a comfortable tenting site. I mean who goes to all that work and effort unless there’s ground worth working in the immediate area.

As I stated earlier, the camp had been abandoned for years, and it was clear that no one had revisited it since its abandonment. It was a pretty little spot—snug up against the base of the mountain, with one side largely protected by a reassuring shoulder of rock. However, now that I reflect on it, the camp may have been situated there because it made it impossible to see that particular location from anywhere upstream.

There’s a danger here that I’ll wander from this tale, as this reminds me of another story. As I’ve reflected, it reminds me that you never know about the motivation of a camp’s location with miners, as I’ve stumbled upon far too many camps that were cleverly situated, completely invisible unless you dropped in to them from exactly the right approach.

So, I also believe that a significant number of gold hunters intentionally choose stealthy sites for their camps as well. In fact, some of them are so well chosen, that when I’ve returned to find them at a later date, I have to take extra time to relocate them.

Nowadays, I’d GPS a site if I wanted to return, but for those places that I didn’t back then—it’s amazing at how difficult it is to rediscover them! No wonder people draw up treasure maps and then can’t find the cache when they return years later, even if they have a map! Or heaven forbid, if they’ve drawn a map for someone else that’s never been in the area.

Point in case—I stumbled across a miner’s cabin years ago, and that’s exactly what happened by the way. For, I was hiking along a bit of a razorback of bedrock, stumbled, and unwillingly started my tired body down a nasty incline.

When I found my brakes and halted my slide, I noticed an obvious area where the ground was sunken. Moreover, there should not have been a sunken area in that part of the woods for any reason. And, this sunken area was rather long, and that made it even more unnatural.

So I poked around a bit and things began to reveal themselves.

There were obvious signs of human workings—trenching, stacked cobbles heavily overgrown, and more telltale signs of sunken workings—the kinds of sinks you see when drifts have collapsed, for instance.

Well, when I came out of the brush along the edge of the largest sink—there it was. A miner’s cabin! You absolutely could not see it, from above, on the trail I’d been hiking. No way.

Here's one of the surviving shots into a window of that very cabin.

Daylight was rapidly retreating in that deep hollow, so I poked about as long as I could, and then fought my back up the mountainside and out. The fact that I’d noticed fresh, large bear scat (large-bore grizzly size!) on the way in hurried my exit as well.

A couple of years later, I decided I’d show the spot to my mining buddy.

Nope.

Not for the first while anyway. I’m sure he thought I’d made the whole secret drift mine cabin site up, or that I’d found some magic mushrooms on a previous trip and had only imagined the cabin or some such thing as that. . . .

Needless to say, it was very embarrassing for me. But, I knew I was in the right area; however, it took me about twenty minutes to locate the exact spot again, and that was after I’d walked right by it on that previously mentioned upper trail twice!

You just couldn’t see the spot from above—you had to know it was there so that you didn’t question yourself that it was indeed there. Moreover, I almost convinced myself that I was looking in the wrong place, and I knew I was in the only spot it could be.

Nevertheless, after a determined effort, of course it was still there—the mountain gods had not spirited it away to mess with me, and my partner and I took a bunch of pictures as proof, for we’d hit the spot at around midday, and there was lots of light in that deep cleft on the mountain side.

Now, my apologies, as I can see that I’ve wandered away from my original tale, but I find it helpful to write my stories in a somewhat connected manner. That is to say, that when I’m writing a story, and there’s a connection to another story, I’d rather write it down before it gets lost among the many stories I have rattling around in my brain.

So, if you’ll hang in there, I’ll get back to what we found after we’d finished snooping around the old camp that was located far from Government Gulch.

All the best,

Lanny

More when I find the time to write.

Here's a shot of the river, far below the site of the hidden cabin.