Eastern Oregon Mountaineer

[Mountaineer2020]

Well after reading MyTimetoShine's adventures I thought might be fun to post some of mine as well. Not much gold to post at this point except the one little chunk that got me hooked. It was a really wet spring, logging was near impossible and the prices at the mill were so low in our area it was pointless anyways. My father-in-law, a gold hound, was mentioning that with the flooding we were having some new material would be stirred up and sent down the creek. So on an absolutely miserable rainy day about 50 degrees I grabbed a raincoat and a pan and a detector and headed up gold bearing creek that hadn't been claimed up. Took about 5 pokes over a 1/2 mile testing some slowspots, some inside bends then I came upon a huge boulder right in the middle of the creek. Not a speck of color, some lead shot though. Most of the area had been dredged with a doodlebug but that rock looked like it might not have been moved. Dug as deep as I could and filled a pan. I didn't have a classifier so I was chucking out the bigger rocks when I spotted the glimmer off the one in the picture. Heart started racing and I was hooked. It's a bad picture and there really isn't much gold in it but it was enough for me!

 

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[Jim in Idaho]

I'd consider that a great day! Nice find.
Jim

 

[shovelready]

I would be willing to find those all day. Well done.

 

[Johnnybravo300]

Wow cool. Nice work!

 

[bowwinkles]

Well after reading MyTimetoShine's adventures I thought might be fun to post some of mine as well. Not much gold to post at this point except the one little chunk that got me hooked. It was a really wet spring, logging was near impossible and the prices at the mill were so low in our area it was pointless anyways. My father-in-law, a gold hound, was mentioning that with the flooding we were having some new material would be stirred up and sent down the creek. So on an absolutely miserable rainy day about 50 degrees I grabbed a raincoat and a pan and a detector and headed up gold bearing creek that hadn't been claimed up. Took about 5 pokes over a 1/2 mile testing some slowspots, some inside bends then I came upon a huge boulder right in the middle of the creek. Not a speck of color, some lead shot though. Most of the area had been dredged with a doodlebug but that rock looked like it might not have been moved. Dug as deep as I could and filled a pan. I didn't have a classifier so I was chucking out the bigger rocks when I spotted the glimmer off the one in the picture. Heart started racing and I was hooked. It's a bad picture and there really isn't much gold in it but it was enough for me!View attachment 1900771

Eastern Oregon is a big place, could you possibly narrow it down a tad? I was born and raised in the Baker county area in the gold country.

 

[Mountaineer2020]

I'm the other side of the Elkhorns from you. Been working the Granite, Greenhorn Cracker Creek and Susanville districts. That chunk came out of Susanville, probably rolled down the creek from the hard rock claim above it.

 

[Mountaineer2020]

Here's a more typical outing in January. Found a nice adit probably dug around 1900. Figure if it hasn't caved in 100 years probably not going to now if I step softly. Got the air quality monitor on and accidently tested it by breathing on it. The little monster shrieks as I fumble around trying to shut it off. Heading into the portal looking for what the old timers were trying to get at. There is a darker vein about 4 inches wide that runs vertical in the direction of the tunnel but I figure it's too narrow to justify drifting on unless there were some really good specimens or insane values. Past a dogleg the tunnel stops following the vein then I hit a hammerhead ending at about 450' in. It looks like the start of drift on a 12" to 24" vein of quartz in agrillite! There's a clearly defined headwall dipping at about 60 degrees. Certainly if they crosscut 450' to get to this there must be some gold! I take a sample across the vein fill up 1/2 a 5 gallon bucket of the stuff and head back out. Pretty rocks is what they turned out to be after crushing and panning the only shiney in there was the metal flakes from the chain flail crusher! Got about 15 more stories identical to that one. Lots of fun but no gold.

 

[Mountaineer2020]

Snow is melting! Made it out to the river last week and decided to pan where there had been some hydraulicing in the past. Come up with 2 flakes and about 8 colors so I figured might be worth setting up the sluice. Had a bit of a time finding a spot with enough drop to get the sluice to flow right. The tail end had quite a bit of backpressure and tended to fill above the riffles. But I figured most of what I wanted should be in the top 1/2 anyways right? Spent about 5 hours getting things figured out and ran a few buckets trying to classify them on the bank by shaking without water. NOT the way to do it. The soil was wet and heavy my wife got 20,000 steps that day on her fitbit! Finally figured out just take the bucket to the water and classify it there and things went alot smoother. Not a great showing but considering the learning curve of the noob on the sluice and the fact that any gold is good I had a good time!

 

[mytimetoshine]

Nice gold!

 

[islamoradamark]

YOU got gold and it sure looks good

 

[ArfieBoy]

Congratulations Mountaineer2020! Enjoy the stories of your adventure in our mountains here in northeastern Oregon! I'm in La Grande. Back in the 70's and 80's I did a lot of cruising around the old gold camps and mines where you have been working. I panned a little in a few places, but never got serious about it... to many other interests. Found a lot of relics from those areas and up north of Baker City, too. Hope to hear more of your tales and adventures! In my mid-70's I still make an occasional visit to some of those old ghosts!

 

[Mountaineer2020]

Congratulations Mountaineer2020! Enjoy the stories of your adventure in our mountains here in northeastern Oregon! I'm in La Grande. Back in the 70's and 80's I did a lot of cruising around the old gold camps and mines where you have been working. I panned a little in a few places, but never got serious about it... to many other interests. Found a lot of relics from those areas and up north of Baker City, too. Hope to hear more of your tales and adventures! In my mid-70's I still make an occasional visit to some of those old ghosts!

Would like to see some of the relics you found! I worked in land surveying in LaGrande area for 4 years back in 2000. Stomped all over that area from Joseph to Elgin to Sammyville Union etc. Beautiful area! If you head this way send me a message we'll check out some of the ghosts and mining camps.

 

[Mountaineer2020]

I was on a parts run to Pendleton and on the way back I just remembered my gold pan was in the back of the truck! There was no way I was going to make it across the North Fork bridge without getting that pan wet. Zoomed down to the river which was green and murky as the spring melt is on. COLD bone numbing cold. Neoprene gloves were not in the truck. The spot where we sluiced just a week earlier was 2 feet under water and all evidence had been washed downstream. Ran about 5 pans and came up with what's in the picture. Not a great amount of gold but for an hour detour listening to the river talk the smells of wet moss, pine and fir a good end to the day!

 

[Mountaineer2020]

Took a group of foreign exchange kids to the John Day River for some gold panning. They all seemed excited about the historical and American aspect of it. We had 2 Koreans, one from Hong Kong and one from Germany. The Hong Kong kid made the wise crack that we could all pretend we were Egyptian Slaves. He has a good but odd sense of humor. After a quick panning class the 3 boys lost interest, 2 started building a fire which was on their bucket list, and one was thinking of doing the polar bear plunge. The water temp was around 40 I would guess. Hands instantly ache. The only potential miner in the bunch was the Korean girl she panned and got that gold all sparkly clean! All in all a fun day and I sure am going to miss those kids when they have to go home.

 

[mikep691]

Took a group of foreign exchange kids to the John Day River for some gold panning. They all seemed excited about the historical and American aspect of it. We had 2 Koreans, one from Hong Kong and one from Germany. The Hong Kong kid made the wise crack that we could all pretend we were Egyptian Slaves. He has a good but odd sense of humor. After a quick panning class the 3 boys lost interest, 2 started building a fire which was on their bucket list, and one was thinking of doing the polar bear plunge. The water temp was around 40 I would guess. Hands instantly ache. The only potential miner in the bunch was the Korean girl she panned and got that gold all sparkly clean! All in all a fun day and I sure am going to miss those kids when they have to go home. View attachment 1917587

I do a summertime gig at a "Dude Ranch" teaching kids to pan for gold. After all, we're in the Northern Mother Lode Belt of the Sierras and there is mining History here. I jumped into this gig by accident, and then my truck disagreed and the fires hit. Everything together killed my season and my part time gig. The resort had to shut down and evacuate, my truck wasn't playing fair, and the fire got my claim. I hope to be doing both mining and teaching again this summer.

 

[Mountaineer2020]

Ouch man that's some hard knocks. Hope you find a good gig!

 

[Mountaineer2020]

Finally got away for a couple WEEKS to do some prospecting! Man I tried it all, did a little panning found a couple fly specks, did some metal detecting found alot of lead apparently the area I am in was owned by a gun freak at some point, did some hard rockin and assaying. For the placer I tried to get down to bedrock on a known gold bearing creek. The old time notes said the bedrock was 10-15 feet down and they didn't have the technology to get there at that time at least profitably. Figured if they didn't get it it's still there! Well. It's still there but I didn't get it either. Made it down 7 feet and the mini-ex ran out of arm travel. The hole filled up with water so I couldn't bench in and get down there unless I started pumping out while digging. Of course I left the plug for the honda trash pump at home and nothing fits those except another Honda plug or a rubber soft plug neither of which I had. So I figured time to road on over and open a adit that hasn't been opened since around 1910. Things were going pretty well dug our way in towards the blockage and bam! Busted a track. About now I'm totalling all the time and money I'm spending getting nothing accomplished and getting more than a little frustrated. But! This is a long term project so tarry on. Grabbed 350 feet of orange 2" fiber optic conduit and proceeded to assault a birch thicket with a chainsaw and haul that stiff slinky stuff uphill through the brush trying to get some gravity fall and pressure for my placer operations. Plunked a 50 gallon barrel off of a spring as a collecter and piped my horribly uncooperative orange demon pipe in and walla! A... insubstantial trickle down at the bottom. Airlock?! Rearrange pipe 3 times bury it under the road and finally some decent pressure. Great! So after some scrounging around found a 2" barbed fitting so I could downsize from my horrible nemesis the conduit to some dredge hose. Misplaced the dawn dishsoap so what can I use? Hmmmm..... Hard to work up 2" diameter of spit didn't have any chew on hand. I did have some vaseline though! Put that on the barbed fitting (HIndsight 20-20 I realize now this was really stupid) and jammed it in with minimal cussing. So at this point I figured I would pan some crushed material I had collected from a dump at an old shaft using my new gravity pressure system I filled up my panning tub noting that the water was a little warm from the solar gain on the pipes. Well that sure beats freezing my hands in the mountain creek. Put the pan in and start a mixing and whoa.... What's this silvery sheen of slime floating to the top of my pan? Hmmmm.... Oil, gold, uh right vaseline in my system floating my flippin gold out!? Argh. At the end of the trip no gold. Alot of things accomplished most not right and some costly but it's still fun! Pic of my son working the small crusher for an assay test and my other son levitating the mini-ex out of the dump trailer. (I forgot the ramps) I did find 2 ore dumps and 2 veins with assays ranging from 0.8 opt to 2.8 opt but there was alot of silver and I didn't have nitric acid to seperate out so not to sure what the actual values are. Will find out later.

 

[Mountaineer2020]

Snow's too deep where my claims are so getting prepped. In the process of building a shed around my mill just to house the mill head. Plan is to make a bunch of timbers to haul to the mine come melt time. Got a nice 12x12x16 sitting on the rails in the pic.

 

[Mountaineer2020]

With one of my mining claims came an old custom made trommel. She probably hadn't run in about 10 years or so but looked to be well used at some point in her life. The 5hp Briggs actually fired up after some fresh gas and an oil change! Greased some zercs blew some rust and leaves out of the lines and intake. End of the day she works! Probably ran a yard of material through the old girl. It was just a test run and didn't have hardly any gold in it and I probably lost alot from not having the sluice set at the right angle, a recurring clogging spray bar and other problems but it's getting there. Heres the video of her running.

 

[Reed Lukens]

I'd throw a ball valve on the end of the spray bar for quick cleaning, but it looks like a great little tromel over all. Great job 😃