About My Last Trip
May 31, 1998 at 14:08:30
This time three and a half weeks in the desert seemed long. The weather was good with a few days near 100 degrees and a few mornings in the low 50's but most of the time in the low 90's during the day. There were only a few bugs and no rain to speak of, just 5 minutes one day near the end of my trip. Plenty of humming birds came to the feeder all day long and I saw 3 small rattle snakes ( 2 foot) while exploring. I saw my first badger. The badger reminded me of a Hum Vee with a short tail. I was heading to my cabin one day on the 4 wheel (ATV) and there it was in the wash and it had no real place to go. It ran up the wash and ducked under a Palo Verde tree. The next morning heading to my diggings I came across it again. This time it kept running a head of me. I kept my distance (50 feet) from him. I like the wild life and try not to interfere with what they like to do. He ? just kept trotting a head of me. As we came to a bend in the wash, he stopped and turned on me, standing on his hind legs. I stopped and he ran up the bank and over the top. A 1/2 mile latter he was a head of me again in the next wash. He had taken a short cut to it. I was surprised to see he had no great desired to hide or run off the trail but would stand its ground. I guess he figured it was his wash and I should go somewhere else.
I dropped the front drive shaft on the Jeep after 10 days in the desert. I had just pulled up a steep bank and bang, bang from the front end. When I had the lower transfer case repaired, they did not tighten the bolts very good that hold the universal to the yoke coming out of the transmission. The front drive shaft separated at the universal to the yoke. One bolt broke and the other was gone. Also the other clamp and bolts were gone. I wired it out of the way and kept going unlocking the front hubs. My friend and I were going to fix it in the desert but we metal detected instead. He comes and goes every few days now. He says he is just checking on me to see if I am OK after the problems of my last trip. We have developed a friendship and filed a few claims together. A few days later I was able to drive the Jeep out of the desert and I had it repaired. It cost me $36 for 2 universals and a transmission mount. When the universal came free it got between the guard plate and the transmission and broke to mount. The repair shop charged $0 for the repairs which was fine by me. I had already put 1800 miles on the Jeep since they had fixed it the last time.
On one of my exploring trips I found a few more old shaft lode mines with a lot of good ? ore piled up. At one site, they worked it for a long time from the size of the tailing and ore pile and the trail to it. They dug 5 shafts that ran in and down at a slight angel about 80 foot long each. Two of the shafts are side by side and separated only by about a 5 foot section leaving it for roof support. The vein of ore is about 18 inches thick and it is still exposed on each side of the shafts. It is on top of a greenish shale material. These are good hard rock mines and the roof is still hard and not falling. I did enter each shaft and checked them out. There is still about 15 cubic yards of ore in a neat walled pile out side the shafts. They must have carry a lot of ore out from the way the trail was built a long time ago. It goes in and out of many washes and along the edge of many low hills. They built at least a total of 400 feet X 4 feet high (small sections at different places) of stone wall to have the trail. This mine was probably from the "20s or earlier. They could have used a mule team. There were no deep ruts from wheels but yet a well defined trail in most spots after all these years. In the old days they would take a model "A" and put in 2 transmissions. They welded the rims into larger 20 inch wheels and locked the rear end up. I am told they would go every where with that type of rig. They carried 2 "milk cans" in the back for cooling water rapped in wet cloth. The engines had no water pumps in the old days and the cooling water self circulated to the cans from the radiator, so I am told, VIPER.
From this site I carried back to camp 25 pounds of ore in my back pack. A one hour walk along the old trail and then the first rattle snake of the trip. The ore looks promising although I did not see any gold with a quick look. It is a very fissured quartz with a lot of black veins. I also carried back a few pounds of nice blue quartz (Chalcedony). At the site I found some old chisels (not drill points) about 1 1/4 inch hex. Again like most sites I find it had the appearance to me that one day they went to town for supplies or sell the ore or gold and never returned. Many tools were left behind as well as a wood and steel sled to drag ore out of the shaft. I did have a metal detector with me VIPER. I will reduce the ore and see what gold it may hold. At least I know where there is 30 more tons of it and some good looking veins. I will investigate this site more in the future.
The next lode mine I found was way back in the mountains. After much climbing.......I will post the rest in a day or two. I am going to take a closer look at the ore I brought back to Key West from the two site. I have about 50 pounds seperated. That was why I posted about the rock crusher.....Richard
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