hard rock mining

[NJnuggetpirate]

can someone show me what a good vein looks like to find big gold in i have always heard the smaller veins had the big gold but commercial miners go for the big veins bc of thats where there would be alot of gold i would love to see pictures of what to look for

 

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[hbprospector]

Here ya go. This is the surface of a really good size vein

 

[Goodyguy]

You'll see the huge veins in the video.
It's a great 411 on gold deposits.

 

[oldbrundogg]

Thanks G. G., I've watched that show a couple of times now, I guess third times the charm. It actually congealed in brain a little better that time.
OBD

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

This was really cool and really helpful but I've heard of something called rotten quartz where it looks all black and brown on gold fever Tom Massie said keep your eye out for the black veins

 

[kuger]

I like the ones with yeller in em,I can show you veins that are 10' wide and barren,and show you rotten spider veins that are barren.......gold is where ya find it

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

I like the ones with yeller in em,I can show you veins that are 10' wide and barren,and show you rotten spider veins that are barren.......gold is where ya find it

Yea that would be cool I would like to see pictures of them and gold is where you find it but being a greenhorn that's what I'm trying to learn ahada

 

[Reed Lukens]

Notice the visible gold. A good quartz vein has gold showing in it.
The gold from the pic below was from a good vein that was about ¼" thick in places and it went down and across the whole back wall.

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

i need to go to VA to go prospecting

 

[hbprospector]

Reed,
Where did you get your yellow crusher. And also I have some dowsing questions for you. PM me please :-)

 

[Reed Lukens]

It was given to me. The dowsing guys here that monitor that forum are far more knowledgeable then I am, ask those questions there. I watch it also

 

[Oakview2]

Reed

Looks like some or I saw in some tailings piles in the Groveland district about 20 northeast of Coulterville. There is both the what I have called blue quartz, and the rotten yellow as well, and we pumped out of a vertical shaft and it has a heavy sulfur smell, like some spots at Bagby. Smells like money, hope to get back up that way soon, but it seems that lately between kids activities and them catching the flu, I just can't break away....Good health and good hunting...


PS.... Thank you so much for the pictorial video on the 16-1 mine, the comments and family photos are outstanding. Maybe your sister will hear your loving comments and your obvious wish to reconnect and reach out to your famil.... That would truly be the motherload...

 

[TAKODA]

That's a cool walk along video Reed . I enjoyed it . Some fine shine in it too .

The part where you said you can just " feel " the gold was interesting .
That's the way to do it man ........ just feel that shine out .

 

[Reed Lukens]

You really can feel the gold around you when you're down in a tunnel like that. We are all natural metal detectors, it's built into us. Just learn that feeling

Here's a little story I wrote
The Silver Dollar

We were always playing in the water no matter where we were and this is just what California kids do. We all start out as water babies and grow from there. So as my parents were up here getting everything opened up for the summer and I had finally finished my chores, I went creek wading and followed it up stream into my new and then uncharted territory. I would go a little farther up stream each time but then sometimes there was the bear, the mountain lion, or many times our little family secret, which was a family of Bald Eagles, any one of which, would stop me in my tracks. So I would sit there quietly and watch them for awhile because I was safe and usually they didn’t know that I was there because I always tried to walk down wind. In all of my adventures as a child up here I always saw plenty of animals. One time I even watched 3 young mountain lion cubs for about 5 minutes. Their heads were about 5” around and they were a little bigger than normal house cats. I was sitting quietly with the motor turned off in my dad’s jeep. He taught me how to drive it up here when I was 10 and I was way up on the hill; way above the old 4th log deck, when they saw me and cautiously came closer and closer until they got to within about 20 feet of me. They were still young enough that they were stumbling, falling over, tripping a little, and they would lift their legs a little higher than usual to keep their balance. I was playing with them by mimicking their growls and meows when their mom finally showed up and stopped them. She was a wild mountain lion but still… She was pretty tame considering and it really did surprise me that she never considered me a threat to her babies. We watched each other a number of times over the years.

So this was one of those days back when I was about 10 and I had gotten a long ways out of my territory. I had gone way up stream and now I was watching a buck and a doe playing up in the meadow right above the old dinosaur footprint. This was the first time that I had ever been up on the hill past that big old footprint in the bedrock and it always took a lot to get me to go past there. I mean here was a huge footprint of a dinosaur just underwater and big enough to play in, so who knew what was lurking up around the next bend that was going to come crashing through the woods to try and eat me...

All of a sudden I got that feeling, danger was close, too close, so I started cautiously and quietly going back downstream while listening intently for any stir or sound coming from the woods. I always paid close attention to my instincts and followed them as best I could because my dad always told me from the day that I was born, that I was to always trust my instincts. That the more times that I used and listened through my inner sense of hearing, the more in tune I would become to everything around me. This little piece of common sense teaching that my parents gave me only got stronger and better and easier to use as I continued growing up. They had taught me to listen with my inner ears open and I was listening to everything going on around me not only through my ears, but mostly through my heart. I felt like I was glowing and I could feel my senses radiating out of my body from the tips of my toes to the split ends of my hair. Which were all sticking straight out right then as the chill ran up my spine.

This feeling surrounded me like a veil of protection and this little secret way of living kept me out of a lot of trouble that day. Because it was no sooner then had I gotten down stream almost out of hearing range, that I heard the fight break out and then one of the deer started screaming out in pain. I was safe for the time being because the buck had become the bear’s dinner and I ended up taking his horns home from that exact spot where his bones still laid a few months later. But right then I was really in tune after hearing him die maybe 50 yards up stream. So I walked silently through the water, not making a sound, while listening intently to everything around me. I got back down stream just past the huge boulders and instantly everything in the forest felt safe once again.

But at that same time I was still really in tune and I could feel that there was something that had been lost over on the other bank and at one time it was really important to this person. And it was calling out to me. So I waded across the creek and looked around and saw nothing until my instinct told me to flip over the rock that I was standing next to, and there it was just sitting there. It looked like a silver dollar to me at first but it was different than any silver dollar that I had ever seen before. So I picked it up and walked the few feet back down to the creek and washed it off and then I stared at it in amazement. There were two men sitting on horses on the front and it said “In God We Trust” and “E Pluribus Unum” on the top, then “Stone Mountain” in the middle in front of the horses and the year “1925” on the bottom. On the back at the top it said “United States of America” with “Liberty Half Dollar” on the bottom. Then it also said “Memorial To The Valor Of The Soldier Of The South” on the left side and an amazing picture on the right. It was a Bald Eagle in its warning stance, standing on top of a mountain. I hadn’t realized ever before right then, that anybody else knew about this stance that I had seen the Bald Eagles do every time they saw me approaching them from their nest. When they saw me the male with his pure white head would always stand up straight and tall with his wings just folded open and out away from his body just like the picture on this coin. Then he would signal the other eagles and everything in the forest that danger was near. With his wings out, he would rotate his entire body left and right while keeping his eyes on me and then keep repeating this turning part of the cycle for three to five minutes. Then after everything in the forest had no choice but to know that I was there, he would fly up over the top of me and circle and circle about 40 feet above me, while screeching down at me and staring straight in to my eyes. I would sit there in love with this Bald Eagle and we would stare each other down while talking to each other until he would fly back over to his perch in the top of the old Cedar tree right next to their nest. Then he would start turning back and forth while never taking his eyes off of me again for a few minutes and once again he would take off and circle me again continuing the sequence until he felt that his family was safe. There were days when I would lay up on the hillside on top of my favorite old tree stump and just watch them both building their nest. Then I would watch him circle right above me while continually talking to him until that beautiful Bald Eagle and I were like one and I had made a new friend. And then that day finally came when he called me up to his house, so that I could be there to protect his children from the ground with him in the air on that day when they first learned to fly.

There I was sitting in the creek just staring at this coin, I couldn’t believe that I was actually seeing this act that I thought the Bald Eagles just did with me. And it was right here on the back of this coin that I had never even seen the likes of before. I was sitting here stunned, becoming a man and realizing for the first time that our forefathers who started this country had seen these same things long before I had. They had made this Bald Eagle the symbol of our country for this same reason. At that moment I knew for the first time why I was proud to be an American, and I realized that I wasn’t alone in the way that I saw things. I watched these Bald Eagles for years as I was growing up and now I had pulled this special “Stone Mountain Memorial” coin from under a rock that was deep in the woods. The thought that someone else had carried this coin in his pocket for years, and then so many years ago somehow lost it right here for me, made this a very special and very personal memory that will stay with me forever.

Before I moved to Alaska in 1984, I made a special trip up here to see my Eagles one last time and to say my good-byes. I watched and talked with them for a while and I prayed that they would be safe, because I knew that I would probably never see them again... And after that I headed north to Eagle River, Alaska for a few years, and I really missed seeing my own Bald Eagles, because they were so unique in the way that they acted; and even though they always stood their ground, they were my friends. Down here in California there were only a few pairs in this area that I knew of and every time I saw them whether it was in Auburn or Weimar or Alta, they would always signal and then circle above me. It’s not that I didn’t see Bald Eagles in Alaska, I saw them by the hundreds, but it was different. Up in Alaska south of Anchorage, there were so many of them that they were always flying in large flocks up to around 100 in the largest of the flocks that I saw.

The Alaskan Bald Eagles acted more like Ravens and they didn’t pay much attention to us for anything other than handouts. When we went fishing out off of the Kenai Peninsula a few Bald Eagles would gather above the boat after we started catching Salmon. Then they would dive towards us when we called them and we would all throw fish up into the air for them. They would usually catch it in their talons and then fly back to their nests. And there were others who would just hang off of the side of the boats and we would throw fish to them in the water and they would fly down and pick them up. One or two would even sit up on the mast sometimes. It was just like feeding the ducks at Chana Park, but these were Bald Eagles and they were so beautiful to see so close up. I got so spoiled up there with all of those Bald Eagles that I would have stayed there forever if I could have. But my wife was ill and couldn’t live in such a cold and desolate environment where there was basically no sun for 3 months out of the year. The doctor said that she had to have sunlight and plenty of heat year round to keep her alive. The sun beds did keep her going during the dark Alaskan winters, but it was really tough on her and she really needed to come home. So in 1987 when our Alaskan baby was in the oven, my wife closed her eyes and clicked her heals together one last time and we flew home.

In 1987 things were rapidly changing up here in Alta and people were moving in all over the place. The Eagles were still here but there was too much activity and way too much was going on for them to be able to continue living here. So that summer I watched the old Eagle couple move up over the mountain about two miles away. And one of their offspring, whom I recognized, and his mate made a nest way up on a rock cliff. They were watching over a new valley, over a big lake just a few miles up the road and this lake became my little family’s favorite camping spot; and once again the cycle started and it continued for another generation. This time I was taking my family, my children up to see our bald Eagles while camping in sight of the new nest, and my Bald Eagles that I had watched since they were born, were now watching us and always flying right over and playing with my children. For me it was the perfect gift and it happened such a long time ago. Once upon a time, not so long ago, I was watching my children playing with the Eagles, and then that day finally came for each of them, when they spread their own wings and flew for the first time and went off on their own. So look up into the sky when you are feeling down, because way up in that deep blue sky, you will find something beautiful.

 

[kuger]

Thanks Reed,brings back a lot of memories of my childhood.......playing in the Gold Cliff,Carson Hill,off shoots of the Utica.....
You have a mine I have been amazed by my entire life

 

[DizzyDigger]

Reed, I've watched many of your video's on YouTube, and pretty much enjoyed them
all. Thanks for taking the time to share with us!

Mike

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

thanks for your help everybody