School is back in... Time to work!!!!!

Yeah... Drywallman and I were talking about that setup on the phone today. From what I can see in the video they're pretty much going across the river (and through the woods) and really don't have nearly the amount of drop that would be required on site #1. Like I said... that sucker is STEEP!!! A 5 gallon bucket would be doing about Mach 3 near the end of the trip. I'd rather not have Robi get knocked into next week by a flying bucket. Not something that would be good for the home life is ya'll know what I mean.

I'm still going to do a recon on the area and see if there's any way to mine it in a safe and sane way. Since it's not claimed, if nothing else we might find a new area to go play in when we want do work something different.

Keith: Look at the south face of Granite Mtn on a map or the next time you're out in the area. From the "goat path" of a road down hill. I really think you will agree with me that it's some rough bush.
 

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A thank you to Texans

As those of you that have been following the adventures in Greaterville may remember, I spent a full week out there about a month ago with my new friend Chris who is from Houston. Clay introduced us and we got along great. There were also a couple of OTHER Texans out there that week as well.

Being that I was the "Local" and I'm a nice guy, I pointed out several areas that they could dig and find some gold without too much trouble. They on the other hand "Knew better" and went off to dig just about everywhere else in the area. They did show me their system (a Gold Cube) which I hadn't had a chance to check out before which was right friendly of them. I couldn't help but think that it wasn't the kind of system that would work well in that area as it required classifying the materials (or so they said) down to 1/8 inch. That's a LOT of work to do when dealing with Greaterville soil.

When Robi and I were out there this weekend, I spotted one of the places they decided to test which they had waited to do until after Chris and I had left. It was about 20 feet down the wash from where I had set Chris up at. Ok... no harm, no foul there. What surprised me was their tailing pile. It was full of clay balls about an inch or two around. (Keith... you know the kind I'm talking about, That clay and fine gravel mix)

These guys seemed to be running the materials through their classifier and just shaking the stuff through it, No sign of grinding the clay balls down at all. The hole they had dug in the side of the bank might have filled about 3 buckets max and there was about 2 buckets worth of clay balls in their tailing pile.

First thing we did was to load those tailings into a couple of buckets and run them through our high banker. As soon as we finished them up I cleaned everything out of the sluice and bagged them up to pan down when we got home. I wanted to know just how much they had left behind and didn't want it mixed up with our cons so I could get an accurate idea.

Well to make a long story short, I panned down those cons this morning and wouldn't ya know it... Gold. In fact there was almost 2 grains worth of it in those two buckets worth of tailing!!!

What this all boils down to is that it pays to know what you're dealing with in any area you're working. Know our gear and how to make it work correctly!!! :icon_scratch: Don't go running home and posting on the GPAA site that Greaterville wasn't worth your time when you don't know what you're doing to start with. :icon_scratch:

In closing I'd like to extend an invite to our "Friends" in Texas. Come on back any time! I'll be more than glad to clean up after you. After all... It's easy gold when someone else is doing the digging! :headbang::headbang::headbang:
 

Funny story, love it!

Ps the gold cube does require classification to 1/8 inch, they are right about that at least!
 

Well to me that pretty much makes it a "finishing system" no matter what others may say. Yes it may have fantastic recovery abilities but in our area classifying materials down that far is a major PITA. With the high clay content, high number of rocks (one I moved this weekend was in the neighborhood of 250 pounds) it's not usually easy diggins. Many of those clay balls require a lot of force to break them up and I just don't see a Gold Cube having the power to do so. Matter of fact, it was this exact soil composition that inspired AzViper to build his trommel system. He works the same area a lot of the time and was tired of fighting the clay balls and having to run them several times to get everything out of them.

I think that the entire story is kind of funny when I look back on it all. At the time I couldn't help but think "What a Mickey Mouse Operation these guys are running." You should always listen to the locals when working a new area and not assume you know better. There isn't a one of us here that knows everything about everywhere. (Well maybe Clay does but he's an exceptional individual after all.) These guys were just wasting time out there and then had THE NERVE to post such negative comments on the GPAA forum (Which was sent to me and I posted a copy of earlier) when the cause of their problems could be broken down to several things. None of these things were actually the Greaterville area itself, so don't blame the area for your lack of not taking advantage of local help and knowledge when offered.
 

Some people expect the gold to jump into their pans!
 

LOl Funny you should say that Kevin. My buddy Chris, Clay and I were thinking EXACTLY the same thing about these guys. They want the reward with having to do any of the work. We all know it just don't work that way in this game. Your return is equal to the effort you put into it.
 

goldenIrishman said:
LOl Funny you should say that Kevin. My buddy Chris, Clay and I were thinking EXACTLY the same thing about these guys. They want the reward with having to do any of the work. We all know it just don't work that way in this game. Your return is equal to the effort you put into it.
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and with the humbleness you bring to the challenge. We ALL have a lot to learn, especially in a new area as you said earlier. Asking for help and advice accelerates the learning as we know from tnet of course!
 

WHAT?!?!?! Me humble????? ROFLMAO Looks like I've got another one fooled Ma! Think I might be able to sell him that swamp land outside of Phoenix?

No... You're right Kev. Thinking you know everything there is to know about this game is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. i've been doing this for years off and on and I'm still learning. Just joining up here on T-Net has taught me tons and given me a new outlook on how to approach this game of ours. Yes, it IS a game folks! It's Us Vs Mother Nature. The problem is that she has a LOT more practice at hiding the gold than any of us do in finding it! Sure some of us get lucky from time to time, but we all know that there's a lot more gold to be found.
 

Getting better all the time!!!

Well I'm down to two buckets of materials left to run out of the stuff we brought back from our last trip out. So far this has been some of the best dirt we've gotten from this site. Almost double the amount of gold. Using the MineLab X-Terra on the side of the wash has really helped us to pinpoint some richer ground. Well, moving that big rock might have had something to do with it as well.

This week has been one of rotten weather and equipment problems. The pump for the spray bars on the high-banker gave up the ghost so I had to revive the old Long Tom sluice and put it back into service. It makes for slower processing, but at least it's getting the job done. Kind of like being reunited with an old friend and i'm glad I hung onto it and the carpets that go with it. the weather have been cold and I've had to de-ice the system before I could get started running materials through it.

I hope to get the last two buckets run tomorrow and will then get everything dried out and figure out how much we totaled for that trip.

Next time we go out we should be into some really good stuff but I won't be bringing back anything from this site. We're planning on going over to one of the possible claim sites and getting some materials to test so unless I can come up with more buckets before we head on out...... well you get the picture.
 

Well at long last we're heading out this weekend to the site we're considering placing a claim on to do some testing. This is a 20 acre area so needless to say we're not going to be able to test it all. We hope to hit some of the more promising areas and see what they hold. The plan is to use the GPS to locate areas that have I've done a map recon on. Between Topographical maps, Aerial images, geology reports and historical locations we shouldn't have much problem finding some good gold out there. We'll be digging and classifying down to 1/4 inch and loading it up in buckets. I want to get at least 20 gallons worth from four different sites. Each test site will have the GPS readings marked on the bucket so we know which ones go together and where they came from. Each sample will be run separately from the others and the totals noted in my record book.

We're also going to do some detecting while out there as I've spotted some very nice looking quartz lattice areas as well. Never hurts to check them out and I think Robi would be jazzed to find some gold on her own with the detector.

I'll report back in and let ya'll know how it went upon my return from the bush!
 

Glad your getting out there, hope Robi finds a nugget! Myself and a couple guys headed to east fork tomorrow.
 

Frick frack and dang nab it! The entire trip had to be canceled at the last minute. Robi had an emergency come up at work so we were unable to get out there this weekend. Next weekend is also shot in the foot already so it's going to be at least two weeks before I can start this testing! The way my luck has been running lately it will be raining cats and dogs when we do have a chance to go out. Well... I guess I'll keep doing more research into the area and see about rounding up more buckets or other suitable containers so I can test more spots at a time........
 

Sorry for you on this end Jeff. Murphy has been busy lately. I'll do what I can do to help sedate that quest for knowledge and desire for the yellow metal till you can go once more.

Now....if I can just post pics....
 

That stinks Jeff! But the Au will still be waiting for you, when you do get to go.

And ya... What's with no posting pics....
 

Ok.. We made it out there today for a quick day trip. Got pics and as soon as Robi gets them over to me I'll be able to post some of them so you guys will get off me arse!

We spent a good part of the day driving around trying to make sense of what that P.O.S. GPS in the truck was trying to tell us. We ended up driving past the area three different times! For some reason the GPS wasn't updating as we moved. I'm sure glad I had studied the area well on topos as well as sat images! When we go there we found all kinds of claim markers! Hardly a one of them was filled out with the info that is supposed to be on them and those that did have anything on them were so faded you could barely read them. Looking the area over, I truly believe that the claims have been abandoned and nobody bothered to remove the old markers. We did manage to find one that you could still read the federal reg# on so we wrote it down so I can look it up tomorrow and see what the status on it is.

Some of the "good" things we found out there was a really nice pad that had been cut with a little "road" off the main road going up to it. Plenty of room to set up a small processing area, a couple of tents and it even has a nice fire ring. If the area proves to be available it will make a great place to setup while we do some detailed testing to see if we want to file on it or not. It won't be hard to haul water in but getting a trailer out there is going to be very "iffy" to say the least.
 

Glad to hear you got out Jeff. I hope you get good sign there. How were the temperatures?

If you need to know current claim status on the area just email me privately and I'll do the research.

The GPS in your vehicle isn't going to get you anywhere near accurate location data. You need to be moving at a fairly good clip (25+ mph) to get any sampling going. Going that fast on those roads will present more problems than it will solve. Vehicle GPS units are not designed to give static locations. Different tools for different purposes. Time to get a commercial grade handheld GPS if you want to have any accuracy on the ground. I strongly recommend Garmin as the only reliable choice in the under $1200 range. You can pick a new that will serve you well for years for under $200 if you spend some time searching.

Heavy Pans
 

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