Not what you want to find on tailing, piles when alone....

Jim in Idaho · Jun 21, 2021

So, about 3 weeks ago, I'm out in the Little Lost valley doing some prospecting. I backpack in about 1 1/2 miles above the old Great Northern mine. I'd seen an interesting rock anomaly on Google Earth, and thought I'd take a look. When I get there, I see a tailing pile, and think "crap"...it's been prospected in the old days. The adit goes in about 15', and then turns to the right, and I can't see back in there. I look for scat, and see nothing, but an oldskull laying there. Gave it no mind, took a few pics, did some detecting on the pile, and left. I wasn't going in, no matter what. So a couple of weeks later, (last week), buddy Dave goes up with me, so I can go in, with someone to yell for help if things go bad. We make jokes about bears, lions, etc, all of which are in that country. I happen to look down at the skull I'd seen when alone on the first trip, and notice, I'm looking at a medium-sized bear skull...LOL hadn't looked close enough first time up there. If I had, there would have been no pics, or detecting..guaranteed...Ha! We had a great time on that second trip, but no good minerals. Found some new prospect holes and adits we hadn't seen before, andm Dave detected some hunks of silver and lead, and a really neat brass plate from a Wilfley table used at the mine. Here's a few pics I took. The second day I backpacked 4 miles, and climbed 1700 vertical feet. I felt pretty good for being 72 years old....topped out at 8350' on that hike.
Jim

Around corner to back of bearskull adit.jpg

Jim in Idaho · Jun 21, 2021

Here's a few more pics, including an adit below which Dave thought he saw evidence of digging when looking from the bearskull adit looking across the canyon. I'm tougher than he is, so I got to climb the mountain, and look for it. Had a nice vein of material on one side wall. Haven't got around to crushing the samples. Also some scenery pics of a monster quartzite dike I still have to check out.