Gold at Quartzsite!

[TerryC]

I found this small nuggie outside of Quartzsite. Including the quartz, .22 grams.


This is a topo of the area. All the orange spots are mines/adits/prospects in the area. I found this nugget up in the large orange area up the gulch.... a Quartzsite Metal Detecting Club claim. I am a member.


I take minimal equipment when detecting. GB2 w/Grey Ghost ears, Calvin Bunker digger (I shortened it) and a scooper. And water that tastes like plastic!


This is my traveling setup..... the BUBBLE.


Hurry! I need a princess.... again!


And last...... NEVER!
╦╦Ç

 

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[Reed Lukens]

Weaver sure doesn't look open but their claims are still valid from what I've seen. I went to the RR bash today, had a blast and joined the group myself after looking at all of their claims. It's definitely an eye opener and it looks like we are now full time residents of the area. Karen and I had a blast at the dig today because it was full of good people

 

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[TerryC]

Weaver sure doesn't look open but their claims are still valid from what I've seen. I went to the RR bash today, had a blast and joined the group myself after looking at all of their claims. It's definitely an eye opener and it looks like we are now full time residents of the area. Karen and I had a blast at the dig today because it was full of good people

A call to their advertised number gets a recording that it is not assigned or is disconnected. ╦╦Ç

 

[TerryC]

Weaver sure doesn't look open but their claims are still valid from what I've seen. I went to the RR bash today, had a blast and joined the group myself after looking at all of their claims. It's definitely an eye opener and it looks like we are now full time residents of the area. Karen and I had a blast at the dig today because it was full of good people

Today, 3-8-18, I eye-balled the RR claims near Devil's Nest. The south end of Rich Hill. I'll bet if you stood on the north-most claim.... you could SPIT down to the south-most claim. They're stacked on top of each other! All those big rocks going up the hill. Gotta get the GPS out for a closer look. Spent 3 hours detecting the LDMA AZ-Gold #1, also. No luck. ╦╦Ç

 

[Reed Lukens]

Yea, we looked at the Devil's Nest claims the other day, looks like Sierra Blaster time but no explosives allowed on RR claims... Close and easy to get to is the Thomason claim, just take the road across from the house, drive down to the north west marker, go past a bit and walk down into the creek bed. To me, the West side looks best. The Az's look good and I have a couple spots picked out for next winter, but we've been thrown into caretaking the LDMA Blue Bucket Mine in Oregon, so we will be packing up this weekend and will head out Tuesday to get that property ready to open... But! We will be back home here in November

 

[TerryC]

Yea, we looked at the Devil's Nest claims the other day, looks like Sierra Blaster time but no explosives allowed on RR claims... Close and easy to get to is the Thomason claim, just take the road across from the house, drive down to the north west marker, go past a bit and walk down into the creek bed. To me, the West side looks best. The Az's look good and I have a couple spots picked out for next winter, but we've been thrown into caretaking the LDMA Blue Bucket Mine in Oregon, so we will be packing up this weekend and will head out Tuesday to get that property ready to open... But! We will be back home here in November

I was looking forward to meeting you and Karen. Well, next time around. Good luck up there. ╦╦Ç

 

[Goodyguy]

Hi Terry,

Here is a photo of the little (fetus) nugget I found during my trip to Quartzite, had to chisel it out of the foot of the caliche wall alongside of the wash.
This was at a GPAA claim west of town along the interstate.






GG~

 

[Goodyguy]

Was the huge trommel still parked in Quartzite?
And did you visit Gem World while you were in town?

 

[TerryC]

Was the huge trommel still parked in Quartzite?
And did you visit Gem World while you were in town?

View attachment 1561489

I did not see the trommel. I don't know if I went to Gem World or not. I went to EVERY business along The Strip, to see all the things there. They do the rock and mineral thing for all of Feb. and some of Jan. and Mar. I was there the weekend of Super Bowl. The GPAA claim west of town I THINK is the Flat Foot. NE 1/4 of sec. 34. Just west of that one is the Happy Jack. NW 1/4. I don't remember if that one is QMDC or Road Runner. According to Melchiorre, the Happy Jack and Flat Foot are part of the pediment field coming down from Middle Camp to the north. I detected FF a little but no luck. I will spend more time there next time in town! It would probably work good for a re-circulator set up. Mostly kind of flat save for the wash going through it. Good to see the nugget you dug out! I'll be there some during April. Thanks for the pics. Take care, my friend. ╦╦Ç

 

[Goodyguy]

I really enjoyed Quartzsite,


Met lots of nice folks and Victor from Gem World was one of them, a genuine sourdough who knows the area inside out and is an expert geologist and professor of physics.

When I was there the La Posa recreation area was closed (all 11,000 acres of it) due to the idiots in Washington DC shutting the Government down. Anyway, after talking to the owner of the local prospecting shop it was decided that my time would be well spent out at the GPAA claim just outside of town.

It's a 160 acre claim that has many dry washes running through it and after a few hours of digging the usual trash targets I came upon a wash that had cut through the side of a hill exposing a 14 foot high wall of very hard packed caliche. Wouldn't you know that about 3 feet up from the bottom of the wall on a shelf I would receive a faint but promising zip zip with no indication of iron showing up on the display.

All I had with me at the time was my detector and a short handled pick. After what seemed like an hour hacking away at the concreted cobbles I had only gone a few inches down and my sweat soaked hat along with sore, soon to be blistered palms and the fact that the signal was getting stronger told me that I needed gloves and a larger pick or dynamite or a jack hammer or something that would do a better job than the tool I was working with.

As it was now getting dark I took my bearings ( a tall cactus and a mountain in the background) and headed back to camp to figure what tool in my limited arsenal would best do the job. Next morning I headed out with my detector, leather gloves, a backpack filled with water, my camera, a short handled crack hammer, and an assortment of cold chisels, and a 4' long pointed prybar, along with my pinpointer.

After about an hour of using the hammer and chisel method the hole was getting wider and about 8" deep when I decided to turn the coil straight up and down and detect the sides of the hole (the pin pointer was useless) turns out the target was another 2-3 inches into the side of the hole and not straight down like I had been digging so I had chiseled 4" deeper than was necessary.

It was a nice little nugget and sort of looks like a fetus from the side.
After celebrating back at camp it was time to get a good nights sleep before heading to Calif early the next morning.

Wish I could have spent more time picking Victors brain at Gem World but I had to meet up with a friend outside San Diego to go to his gold mine high in the Sierra Nevadas east of Sacramento near Railroad Flats . But that's another story.....


Go for the Gold
GG~

 

[Goodyguy]

Yes I did. Laurel, the phone person talked to me. She also told me that Weaver Mining District Club is probably defunct. Hopefully Roadrunner picked up their claims as they did very good for me. I'm sure we will meet soon, Reed. Terry


It would be great to get some Rich Hill dirt in the claims!

Sorry to hear about the Weaver Club, I purchased a two week membership back in 2014 and had a great time helping a full time member exploit an ancient river channel that he had discovered 10 feet underground on the Weaver claims below Rich Hill.

Hated to have to leave after two weeks to return to Indiana as the flakes were getting bigger and more plentiful the deeper we dug.
He stayed on working the prospect single handed after I left.

Here are some photos .........

My campsite


Tailings pile from mucking the settling tubs. We were running a small trommel.




The hole we dug chasing the gold.
Widow makers were secured by chain but still scary. I felt lucky there were no mishaps.

We took turns working the hole or feeding the trommel
One would fill and send buckets up to fill the wagon and the other would fill and pull the wagon over to and feed the trommel and muck the tubs.

Lots of work but the gold was worth it. We worked from sun up to sun down 7 days a week.



Go for the Gold
GG~

 

[jair]

Buddy your messages are full and can not receive any more until you clear them .

 

[TerryC]

Sorry to hear about the Weaver Club, I purchased a two week membership back in 2014 and had a great time helping a full time member exploit an ancient river channel that he had discovered 10 feet underground on the Weaver claims below Rich Hill.

Hated to have to leave after two weeks to return to Indiana as the flakes were getting bigger and more plentiful the deeper we dug.
He stayed on working the prospect single handed after I left.

Here are some photos .........

View attachment 1562825My campsite


View attachment 1562818 Tailings pile from mucking the settling tubs. We were running a small trommel.




View attachment 1562819 The hole we dug chasing the gold.
Widow makers were secured by chain but still scary. I felt lucky there were no mishaps.

We took turns working the hole or feeding the trommel
One would fill and send buckets up to fill the wagon and the other would fill and pull the wagon over to and feed the trommel and muck the tubs.

Lots of work but the gold was worth it. We worked from sun up to sun down 7 days a week.



Go for the Gold
GG~

Nice post, GG! I dug a similar hole when a Weaver member. You could see the hole on satellite pics. I posted the pic here back then. We worked gold down to the clay line and it pooped out. Those were good claims! I wonder who picked them up. I have to check with "Mooch". the current caretaker of Italian Bar. He owned a claim north of Rich Hill that was highly mineralized. I detected a piece of quartz with large amounts of iron in it. My heart tried to jump out of my chest 'til I found out it was just iron. I will go back and detect that claim but I don't know who has it now. That is to say, I know a gem club has it and I need to know from Mooch what the name of the club is. Now that I have a PI machine, I will again work that claim.... I hope. ╦╦Ç

 

[63bkpkr]

TerryC, Just curious what are your impressions of using your pulse TDI machine - learning curve, comparisons to what it will find that a VLF will not, types of ground that the TDI can work the VLF will not and such...........63bkpkr

 

[63bkpkr]

TerryC, Just curious what are your impressions of using your pulse TDI machine - learning curve, comparisons to what it will find that a VLF will not, types of ground that the TDI can work the VLF will not and such...........63bkpkr

Also, that hole you dug looks like it would have worked a person near to death. Quite a find!

Sorry, I tried deleting one of these but I could not get rid of it.

 

[Reed Lukens]

Nice post, GG! I dug a similar hole when a Weaver member. You could see the hole on satellite pics. I posted the pic here back then. We worked gold down to the clay line and it pooped out. Those were good claims! I wonder who picked them up. I have to check with "Mooch". the current caretaker of Italian Bar. He owned a claim north of Rich Hill that was highly mineralized. I detected a piece of quartz with large amounts of iron in it. My heart tried to jump out of my chest 'til I found out it was just iron. I will go back and detect that claim but I don't know who has it now. That is to say, I know a gem club has it and I need to know from Mooch what the name of the club is. Now that I have a PI machine, I will again work that claim.... I hope. ╦╦Ç

Mooch isn't at Italian Bar right now, medical problems, I believe... They really wanted Karen and I to go there, but then they lost the caretakers at Blue Bucket and Duisenburg due to health emergencies also. I told them that we didn't want to go back to California and they gave us our choice, Stanton, Italian Bar, Duisenburg, Blue Bucket and one other, Scott River, again in CA, whose caretakers are now moving to Italian Bar. The LDMA was in a pickle, so we volunteered to take over the Blue Bucket, we left Stanton yesterday, friends took over there, and we are boondocking at the old Chloride Mine shaft last night, so that we can cross the Hoover Dam in daylight my first time on I93
A view out the back window and it's sunrise finally

 

[TerryC]

Mooch isn't at Italian Bar right now, medical problems, I believe... They really wanted Karen and I to go there, but then they lost the caretakers at Blue Bucket and Duisenburg due to health emergencies also. I told them that we didn't want to go back to California and they gave us our choice, Stanton, Italian Bar, Duisenburg, Blue Bucket and one other, Scott River, again in CA, whose caretakers are now moving to Italian Bar. The LDMA was in a pickle, so we volunteered to take over the Blue Bucket, we left Stanton yesterday, friends took over there, and we are boondocking at the old Chloride Mine shaft last night, so that we can cross the Hoover Dam in daylight my first time on I93
A view out the back window and it's sunrise finally
View attachment 1564157

Maybe they got the Stanton caretakers. They suddenly left the day I detected the AZ-Gold 1. "Very Interesting!. Seems a big GROUP MOVE going on. All with health problems. ╦╦Ç

 

[Goodyguy]

Hey Reed did you explore around Chloride much while you were there?
View the wall paintings and such?

We camped at the old mine as well.

Old stone house nearby. Heard it was used as a brothel at one time.



Tree just across from the old mine shaft with my Sammy taking in some shade.



GG~

 

[TerryC]

TerryC, Just curious what are your impressions of using your pulse TDI machine - learning curve, comparisons to what it will find that a VLF will not, types of ground that the TDI can work the VLF will not and such...........63bkpkr

I have never used a PI for gold before. I will give you OBSERVATIONS but no conclusion yet. The TDI does, in fact, make hot rocks disappear! I DID find two that sounded off loudly in spite. I must investigate that. I have found pieces of staples with the TDI so I know it has sensitivity. Seems to have good depth but I only have 7.3 hours in the field so far so no summaries today. Tnx, GG. ╦╦Ç

EdiT: another observation.... by tipping the coil down, that is to say moving the closer edge of the coil to the shaft, the other edge (tip) works very well as a pinpointer on targets just under the surface.

(That's tnx 63!)

 

[Reed Lukens]

We drove the old Stanton caretakers to their new house outside Tuscon, then we were taking over but Karen ended up training some friends for there and we arrived at the Blue Bucket about 1pm today. It's a nice place
We didn't look around Chloride this time but plan on spending a week or so there in the fall. We made the death ride to Oregon... Lol

 

[TerryC]

We drove the old Stanton caretakers to their new house outside Tuscon, then we were taking over but Karen ended up training some friends for there and we arrived at the Blue Bucket about 1pm today. It's a nice place
We didn't look around Chloride this time but plan on spending a week or so there in the fall. We made the death ride to Oregon... Lol

I know the DEATH RIDE well! For years I did Titusville to Murphys with two nights in motels. Averaging 15 hours of driving a day. If I ate on the run and scooted, I could do it in about an hour less than Delorme says I can. When I was at Stanton, Robert was out, health, and Julie was visiting him. Nanette was at the office with her husband on the phone. Are those your friends? ╦╦Ç