Starting to Plan for Next Summers Dredge camp

[425jesse]

Starting to Plan for Next Summer's Dredge camp

Hey all, I recently got together with a number of old buddies from high school, and we all seem to have some similar interests. We are going to meet at a friends claim in Idaho and spend a week dredging, detecting and dry washing. I have been prospecting for a few years now, and am currently in the process of buying both a 3" dredge and a 20' travel trailer (gotta keep wife happy to get her to come along). I know the list of things to plan for is surely exhausting, but I was wondering if anyone had ideas about things to bring that are easy to forget and tough to do without. Please suggest anything you have in mind, all ideas are helpful! We will be about 1.5 hours from closest store/gas station.

 

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[Underburden]

CAMP
Adult beverages
Stove top coffee pot
Sauce pan
Frying pan (non stick)
Spatula
Can opener
Dish soap
Sponges
Plastic bowls, plates & utensils
Coffee cups, drinking glasses
Cooler for stuff that does not fit in RV frig
Garbage bags
Zip lock bags
Tupperware containers
Paper towels
Toilet paper
Liquid hand soap & towels
First aid kit
Meds
Toiletries
Flashlight
Sleeping bags
Pillows
Broom for sweeping camper floor
Wood blocks for under jack stand
Wood chunks for wheel chocks
Camp chairs
Camp table
Camp light
Camp stove & small propane bottle
Holding tank deodorant

MINING
Waders & footwear
Gauntlet gloves
4 buckets
Viewing boxes
Shovels
4 prong rake
Gold pans
Sucker bottles
Classifiers (¼”)
Sucker tubes (Dredge)
Scoops
Foxtail brush
Pry bars
Winch
Tow strap
Chains
Camera w/extra SD Cards
Camera battery charger
Weighing scale
Positive Mental Attitude aka Adult Beverages

 

[rodoconnor]

gasoline

 

[Jeff95531]

The black water holding tank will fill up quickly. Is there any place to dump it? To the above list, I would add bug dope, lighters and matches, water purifying tablets and a GPS. I'm from Mountain Home but spent many a summer in Warren. What part of the state will you be going to?
Good luck and heavy pans to you.

 

[425jesse]

CAMP
Adult beverages
Stove top coffee pot
Sauce pan
Frying pan (non stick)
Spatula
Can opener
Dish soap
Sponges
Plastic bowls, plates & utensils
Coffee cups, drinking glasses
Cooler for stuff that does not fit in RV frig
Garbage bags
Zip lock bags
Tupperware containers
Paper towels
Toilet paper
Liquid hand soap & towels
First aid kit
Meds
Toiletries
Flashlight
Sleeping bags
Pillows
Broom for sweeping camper floor
Wood blocks for under jack stand
Wood chunks for wheel chocks
Camp chairs
Camp table
Camp light
Camp stove & small propane bottle
Holding tank deodorant

MINING
Waders & footwear
Gauntlet gloves
4 buckets
Viewing boxes
Shovels
4 prong rake
Gold pans
Sucker bottles
Classifiers (¼”)
Sucker tubes (Dredge)
Scoops
Foxtail brush
Pry bars
Winch
Tow strap
Chains
Camera w/extra SD Cards
Camera battery charger
Weighing scale
Positive Mental Attitude aka Adult Beverages

I especially like how both the first and last item on the list are the same. As long as we have a positive mental out look, everything should be great! Thank you for you detailed list. I have started to make a list too, this will be a huge boost!

 

[Reed Lukens]

You will need a toilet. So you can either build a nice portable seat and dig a hole and put a tent over it for the ladies, which is what I have done for myself. Or this year we spent the $100.00 a month for a porta-pottie. They came in and cleaned it once a week, gave us plenty of toilet paper and it worked great for the 4 to 10 people we had there at a time this last summer. The porta-pottie is well worth it. Then you will also need a clothes line and a way to wash clothes and this is what we do. It keeps the women happy.

 

[goldenmojo]

Lighters and a can of fix-a-flat... or a valve stem remover, tire pump, can of condensed milk and a can of pepper. Its amazing how far you can drive on a tire that you have juiced with that old school mix.

 

[Bonaro]

I loaded my truck FULL of everything you need to operate and support a weekend of dredging on a 5" dredge. Drove 4 hours, unloaded everything and discovered I left the pressure hose at home. It was aggravating weekend.
Put all your parts together into a working unit then make a checklist of all the parts

 

[russau]

I keep all of this in my trailer to be ready to go whenever. all I got to do is get some grub and gas up and kiss the wife goodbye!

 

[DizzyDigger]

Jesse, only things I see missing from the above lists is
plenty of 2-Cycle oil, if you need it. Nuthin's worse than
running out of 2-cycle when ya need it most.

Other things are FOOD and drinking water. No use having a
frying pan if ya got nuthin' to cook in it...

FWIW, I use a 50 gal. tote to hold all the basic camping
stuff, and a 30 gal. tote for the prospecting gear. Add
in an ice chest and bedding and you're good to go. I've
taken that, plus a sluice, hand-crank trommel, shovels,
etc. and loaded it up in my Toyota and did fine for a
week way up in the high desert mountains.

And don't forget the camera...ya gotta have pictures or it never happened!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Do you have a nice rubber hammer to tap on the suction hose to help loosen clogs?

How about knee pads so you don't tear holes in your wetsuit?

Speaking of your wetsuit, be sure to take something to patch holes as they always happen, no matter how careful you are.

Buy a spare seal for your pump and take the tools and a kit to change your seal. If you don't know how to change the seal, watch a youtube video before you go.

Check the sizes of the nuts and bolts before you go to make sure you've got the tools you'll need to fix things when they go wrong.

Take a spare belt for your compressor if you've got air on your dredge.

Take a spare dive mask, spare hose clamps, spare gloves, shoe-goo for patches to boots/wetsuit, Gorilla tape/duct tape/flexible tape to patch holes in the suction hose, to patch your gloves, etc.

Take an assortment of bars/crevice tools; spare starter rope; a hand-sledge; day-glo orange paint to dab on tools so you can find them underwater when you set them down; something to dry your ears if you get waterlogged (ear-dry of some kind/swim ear); crevice cracker; tweezers or hemostats; two knock-out rods; a spare foot-valve, any spare items that you can't run without if one goes missing/breaks for any reason.

I know that where I go, if something can break, fall off, get lost, get stolen, need repairing, etc., that I'm too far in to want to travel back out for anything essential, so I haul it in to camp.

All the best with your adventure,

Lanny

 

[rodoconnor]

Yeah, remember Murphy's Law and that Murphy was an optimist

 

[fowledup]

Solar shower (the missus will love you for ever, as will your wet suit)
Wet suit cleaner/detergent, can't remember name
Tooth paste for mask
Mask and snorkel straps
Fix-all sealer for wetsuit and everything else repair
Stainless safety wire, like used on aircraft, bailing wire sucks at the river
Lupe, magnifying glass, pocket microscope
Small pipe crusher
Couple of masonry tubs from lowes or home depot
Folding saw horses and a ripped length wise sheet of osb(whatevers cheap) use this and the tubs for a nice back saving panning station
Half to a dozen solar lites pathway lights, agsin your wife will love you and you'll be amazed how handy these little suckers are.
Spare batteries for headlamps, flashlites, and other electronic gizmos
Handheld walkie talkies- another wife likes thing when I'm at river and she's in Camp
Tarps, ropes, and stakes, tarps ropes and stakes, tarps ropes and stakes, cant bring enough!
3 or 4 5gal. Fresh water jugs for refilling trailer
CO2 and dry Ice gizmo -if you really want to be the shiznick in camp!
Chainsaw, axe, swede saw, couple of wedges

Lanny, i want to go on an outing with you, your a man after my own heart! I always bring enough spare parts and hardware to rebuild most anything I bring, rarely do I go out I'm not giving somebody something they should've brought themselves, lol!

 

[fowledup]

If your going out for any length of time and this is not your normal kinda thing, do a dry run weekend "trip" at home- set up all your stuff, cook, clean, shower, mock up your mining gear the whole Maryann, play what if scenarios. Spend your time getting gold not fixing or Macguyvering yer stuff. Sounds corny but there's nothing worse or more tiresome then going out with someone unprepared. Be self sufficient and don't count on or rely on your buddies to have or bring what you may need, especialy if you like and want to remain buddies.

 

[Hoser John]

Be it ever so humble there is absolutely no where like my camps hot showers,sit down can,frig with ice cold beer,solar lighting,complete cooking facility,swamp coolers for sleeping quarters,yaaa I rough it John

 

[Lanny in AB]

Be it ever so humble there is absolutely no where like my camps hot showers,sit down can,frig with ice cold beer,solar lighting,complete cooking facility,swamp coolers for sleeping quarters,yaaa I rough it John

Excuse me for jumping in here as I don't wish to hijack this thread, but I've got to tell you John that looking at your dredging camp sure does make me miss one of my favorite ways of chasing the gold!

I certainly hope that California gets out of the way of the dredgers and lets you get back at it. It's nothing but a shame that they've shut you down.

All the best to you John,

Lanny

 

[AlaskaGold]

Be it ever so humble there is absolutely no where like my camps hot showers,sit down can,frig with ice cold beer,solar lighting,complete cooking facility,swamp coolers for sleeping quarters,yaaa I rough it John

You put up such a nice camp you're lucky you are so far away or I might just move in next you set one up! Nice work!

 

[fowledup]

Couple sticks of conduit 3/4 and 1/2"- many, many, uses; knockout rod, tent poles, pipe/hose repair, cut up for stakes, braces, canopy uprights, splints, etc. Very handy.
Find a good crack you cant reach bottom of , pound in the 3/4, remove and use 1/2 to cleanout 3/4- you'll get alot more material then what you'd think

Blue boy portable septic dolly for trailer....
Or if you have the budget a mascerating pump kit ($250approx) will allow you to designated garden hose to pump into vault, 5 gal. Buckets, or septic cleanout or toilet. Very cool piece of equipment in the poo world.
1gal. Coffee can for ash or lye if you dig a large "multiuse" hole for latrine.
Some type of solar for trailer batteries. I always have at least a small panel "trickle charging", then use generator to top off every couple of days depending on use.