dustcap
Full Member
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2003
- Messages
- 137
- Reaction score
- 6
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Phoenix, AZ
- Detector(s) used
- Tesoro Lobo, Minelab Sovereign XS 2 Pro and Fisher 2 box
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
how to find the Lost Dutchman mine
Roy,
My theory is simple, stay focused on one mine for over ten years. Every waking moment, my thoughts are about 'when I get there'.
I thank Helen Corbin
for getting me started on this legend with “the Curse of the Dutchman’s Gold.”
I had become a member and served one year on the Board of directors of the Roadrunner Prospector’s Club. Not long after joining, Helen was our guest speaker at one of the meetings where I met her and her gracious husband Bob. New to Arizona, it wasn’t until later, my wife, who had been a long time resident here, told me of him being the former Atty Gen of AZ. I was impressed then, and still am, every time I meet him at the rendezvous.
All efforts to locate the mine were based on a little fact, and a lot of fiction, until the release of Google Earth. Up until that time the only folks with the capability to view terrain in profile were companies with deep pockets. The cost of the software was averaging around $4,000 and I was saving my pennies with the intent of a purchase. Google gave me a cheap version ( I mean the quality of the program not cost. You can’t beat free.) of what I wanted. Although not very accurate, it served the purpose to get me to the location that I had been searching for. Then step by step, day by day, clue by clue all were either proved or dispelled.
My wife has threatened me, scolded me and verbally abused my ego, but never succeeded in quenching my burning desire to stay glued to the computer screen night after night, sometimes until daylight, searching …for years.
Then Peter posted “100 Clues to the LDM.” 
I immediately printed them out and began the tedious task of sifting through them. Prior to that, I had them stored in my head and marked in various books in my library which was growing fast for a non-reader like me.
I have been close to my area of interest, close enough to get photos of the area but not on top of where I think the mine is located. After three attempts to put my feet on the mine and possibly get a sample, I feel my chances are fading as my body is disintegrating and my physical condition is deteriorating quickly.
I believe the timbers he used to hide the mine have probably rotted away and could easily give way with the weight of one 250 pound person, if they haven’t already. I always take a length of rope for the purpose of tying a safety line to a large rock nearby and hope that it isn’t part of his death trap. I want to be prepared to descend into the pit and have some training in SRT (Single Rope Technique), a method used in caving and potholing to descend and ascend vertical drops. However my being able to ascend the rope without assistance would be questionable of late.
How did he get to the bottom and back up? 
More rotten wood probably. This mine shaft is vertical with no mountain sheilding it from rain that would soak through a couple of feet of rocks and ‘dirt’. The dirt? Where did he get dirt? There is nothing there but rocks. Even the ‘dirt’ is tiny rocks. The rocks is another story. Where did he get the rocks that would blend in with the surrounding desert varnish covered rocks? Turn a rock over and it no longer blends. I have found another covered mine and the rocks used to cover it were all taken from above the mine. Soooo the area above the mine was devoid of almost all the rocks!
Sorry,
the photos I took of that mine have been swallowed by my new computer. I bought it brand new in November 2009 and now sits on my desk turned off until I can figure a way to recover some of my lost photos numbering between 4 and 5 thousand. 
It’s a beautiful 27 inch i-Mac OS X with Snow Lepord. It has only one cord exiting the back and that’s for power. Every thing connected to it is blue tooth wireless including the (after thought) 1 terra-byte Time Capsule.
Here I sit at 5:00 in the moring and I have to take my wife to a doctor app’t at 8. Will it never end? I just want to sleep.
Till next time,
Ken ‘dustcap’ Chichester
Oroblanco said:
Roy,My theory is simple, stay focused on one mine for over ten years. Every waking moment, my thoughts are about 'when I get there'.
I thank Helen Corbin
for getting me started on this legend with “the Curse of the Dutchman’s Gold.” I had become a member and served one year on the Board of directors of the Roadrunner Prospector’s Club. Not long after joining, Helen was our guest speaker at one of the meetings where I met her and her gracious husband Bob. New to Arizona, it wasn’t until later, my wife, who had been a long time resident here, told me of him being the former Atty Gen of AZ. I was impressed then, and still am, every time I meet him at the rendezvous.
All efforts to locate the mine were based on a little fact, and a lot of fiction, until the release of Google Earth. Up until that time the only folks with the capability to view terrain in profile were companies with deep pockets. The cost of the software was averaging around $4,000 and I was saving my pennies with the intent of a purchase. Google gave me a cheap version ( I mean the quality of the program not cost. You can’t beat free.) of what I wanted. Although not very accurate, it served the purpose to get me to the location that I had been searching for. Then step by step, day by day, clue by clue all were either proved or dispelled.
My wife has threatened me, scolded me and verbally abused my ego, but never succeeded in quenching my burning desire to stay glued to the computer screen night after night, sometimes until daylight, searching …for years.
Then Peter posted “100 Clues to the LDM.” I immediately printed them out and began the tedious task of sifting through them. Prior to that, I had them stored in my head and marked in various books in my library which was growing fast for a non-reader like me. I have been close to my area of interest, close enough to get photos of the area but not on top of where I think the mine is located. After three attempts to put my feet on the mine and possibly get a sample, I feel my chances are fading as my body is disintegrating and my physical condition is deteriorating quickly.
I believe the timbers he used to hide the mine have probably rotted away and could easily give way with the weight of one 250 pound person, if they haven’t already. I always take a length of rope for the purpose of tying a safety line to a large rock nearby and hope that it isn’t part of his death trap. I want to be prepared to descend into the pit and have some training in SRT (Single Rope Technique), a method used in caving and potholing to descend and ascend vertical drops. However my being able to ascend the rope without assistance would be questionable of late.
How did he get to the bottom and back up? More rotten wood probably. This mine shaft is vertical with no mountain sheilding it from rain that would soak through a couple of feet of rocks and ‘dirt’. The dirt? Where did he get dirt? There is nothing there but rocks. Even the ‘dirt’ is tiny rocks. The rocks is another story. Where did he get the rocks that would blend in with the surrounding desert varnish covered rocks? Turn a rock over and it no longer blends. I have found another covered mine and the rocks used to cover it were all taken from above the mine. Soooo the area above the mine was devoid of almost all the rocks! Sorry,
the photos I took of that mine have been swallowed by my new computer. I bought it brand new in November 2009 and now sits on my desk turned off until I can figure a way to recover some of my lost photos numbering between 4 and 5 thousand. It’s a beautiful 27 inch i-Mac OS X with Snow Lepord. It has only one cord exiting the back and that’s for power. Every thing connected to it is blue tooth wireless including the (after thought) 1 terra-byte Time Capsule.Here I sit at 5:00 in the moring and I have to take my wife to a doctor app’t at 8. Will it never end? I just want to sleep.
Till next time,
Ken ‘dustcap’ Chichester
