Bedrock and Gold: The mysteries . . .

[Lanny in AB]

Do you love to chase the gold? Please join me--lots of gold hunting tips, stories of finds (successful and not), and prospecting poetry.

Nugget in the bedrock tip:

I had a visit with a mining buddy this past weekend, and he told me of an epic battle to get a nugget out of the bedrock, and of what he learned from the experience. I thought some of you might like to learn from his mistake.

While out detecting one day, he came across a large sheet of bare bedrock. The bedrock was exposed because the area had been blasted off with a water cannon (a monitor), by the old-timers! It was not fractured bedrock, in fact it was totally smooth.

He was not optimistic at all of the prospects of a nugget. But, for some reason (we've all been there) he decided to swing his detector over that bedrock. After a long time, just as he was about to give up on his crazy hunch, he got a signal, right out of that smooth bedrock.

There was no crevice, no sign of a crevice, nada! So, he had to go all the way back to camp to get a small sledge and a chisel. The signal in the rock intrigued him, but he still wasn't overly optimistic. For those of you that have chased signals in a similar situation, sometimes there's a patch of hot mineralization in the bedrock that sounds off, but this spot, according to him, was sharp and clear right in the middle of the signal, not just a general increase of the threshold like you get when you pass over a hot spot in the bedrock.

Anyway, he made it back to the spot and started to chisel his way into the bedrock. If any of you have tried this, it's an awful job, and you usually wind up with cut knuckles--at the least! Regardless, he kept fighting his way down, busting out chunks of bedrock. He kept checking the hole, and the signal remained very strong.

This only puzzled him all the more as he could clearly see that it was solid bedrock with no sign of any crevice. He finally quit at the end of the day, at a depth of about a foot, but still, nothing in the hole.

An experienced nugget shooting friend dropped by the next morning to see him, and asked him how the hunt was going. My buddy related his tale of the mysterious hole in the bedrock, and told the friend to go over and check it out, and see if he could solve the riddle.

Later in the day, the other nugget hunter returned. In his hand was a fine, fat, sassy nugget. It weighed in at about an ounce and a quarter! After my friend returned his eyeballs to their sockets and zapped his heart to start it again, he asked where the nugget had come from.

Imagine his surprise when he heard it came from the mystery hole!! He asked how deep the other guy had gone into the bedrock to get it. "Well, no deeper" was his reply.

So, here's the rest of the story as to what happened. When the successful nugget hunter got to the bedrock, he scanned the surface got the same strong signal as my buddy. He widened out the hole and scanned again. Still a solid tone. He widened the hole some more so he could get his coil in, and here's the key and the lesson in this story, he got a strong signal off the side of the hole, about six inches down, but set back another inch into the side of the bedrock!!

My unlucky friend, the true discoverer of the gorgeous nugget's resting place had gone deep past the signal while digging his hole!!

Now, of course, a good pinpointer would easily solve this problem. The problem was, my buddy didn't have one, so why would he widen the hole, right? Well, the other guy was the one with more experience, and that's why he did. It was a lot more work, but what a payoff!

So, my buddy's butt is still black and blue from where he kicked himself for the next week or so for having lost such an incredible prize.

Some nugget hunting lessons are harder than others to learn. . . .

All the best,

Lanny


P.S. When in gold country--check the bedrock, regardless of whether it looks likely or not! Mother Nature likes to play games sometimes.

 

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[bman3725]

Lanny,

here in the south ive only seen it in quartz rocks, but from your photos im seeing a black colored rock. Although around here i have been told it will form in other bedrock like limestone but ive never seen such and am skeptical due to it being so fragile of a stone here it washes away very easily even causes the occasional sink hole in these parts. There are some large white marble deposits here locally some of the largest in the world and have been told by workers at that quarry they had seen gold below the marble but never in it.

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Lanny,

here in the south ive only seen it in quartz rocks, but from your photos im seeing a black colored rock. Although around here i have been told it will form in other bedrock like limestone but ive never seen such and am skeptical due to it being so fragile of a stone here it washes away very easily even causes the occasional sink hole in these parts. There are some large white marble deposits here locally some of the largest in the world and have been told by workers at that quarry they had seen gold below the marble but never in it.

you're right that gold forms in various rock formations--not just quartz. I've even seen nice gold specimens in slate bedrock. It just depends on what got intruded into the bedrock and how. I've even been told of gold formations very close to or actually in coal seams, although I've never seen it myself. However, if you google it, you'll get some hits.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Had a cold front roll in--it's cooled the prospecting season off a bit.

All the best--especially to those of you that are still enjoying warm weather,

Lanny

 

[EagleDown]

I was looking across the river at that bluff (in the second photo), and realised that there were areas of old alluvial here and there. I
don't guess you'd care to wade across right now and see if they're holding any gold? You know, to the lower right corner where I
can see the river rock that's become dislodged. Man, I'd hate to have to wait until next summer to see if anything's there. (lol)

Thanks for the fantastic pictures my friend!!

Eagle

 

[63bkpkr]

I suppose "you'd" call that a 'dusting'! Nice camp, in fact I've never seen such a large tent with a cook/heating stove before.
I guess it would be considered an outfitters tent or guide base camp tent. Nothing like being out in the snow and having a
fire to keep the chill away of course I'd guess in the mornings it might still be a bit nippy inside the tent.

Hmm, I did not notice a large pile of firewood in the pictures, you burning rocks?....Have fun........63bkpkr

 

[Lanny in AB]

I was looking across the river at that bluff (in the second photo), and realised that there were areas of old alluvial here and there. I
don't guess you'd care to wade across right now and see if they're holding any gold? You know, to the lower right corner where I
can see the river rock that's become dislodged. Man, I'd hate to have to wait until next summer to see if anything's there. (lol)

Thanks for the fantastic pictures my friend!!

Eagle

No wading this time of year for sure. The gold in this particular stream is flour gold only--with garnets and black sand running with it. There's always next season when the crossing's a bit warmer.

All the best amigo del mio,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

I suppose "you'd" call that a 'dusting'! Nice camp, in fact I've never seen such a large tent with a cook/heating stove before.
I guess it would be considered an outfitters tent or guide base camp tent. Nothing like being out in the snow and having a
fire to keep the chill away of course I'd guess in the mornings it might still be a bit nippy inside the tent.

Hmm, I did not notice a large pile of firewood in the pictures, you burning rocks?....Have fun........63bkpkr

The rocks don't usually burn very well this time of year--or any other time for that matter--Ha, Ha! The wood is out of the picture, but it was ash, and that stuff burns nice and hot--it punches out a very solid heat. And, it makes the outfitter's tent nice and cozy. However, it's no fun being the first man up in the morning to fire up the stove. That's when things are far too frosty.

All the best my friend,

Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

BRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!! I'll trade you for Hurricane Sandy, Lanny! Turns out, that bad girl is coming to my house on Monday night, and she may stay around awhile. Enjoy the snow.

 

[Lanny in AB]

BRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!! I'll trade you for Hurricane Sandy, Lanny! Turns out, that bad girl is coming to my house on Monday night, and she may stay around awhile. Enjoy the snow.

Yikes! That's supposed to be one monster of a storm. Stay safe Terry.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hornets and gold

What do hornets have to do with finding gold? Nothing, but they certainly keep things interesting from time to time.
Early one pristine northern summer of splendor, my partner and I were running a section of water line up a steep, boulder-strewn gulch. The spot was heavily treed; moreover, there had been a ferocious microburst not long before. The bodies of monumental mature Pines, Spruce, Fir, Balsam, and Tamarack lay shattered throughout the entire length of the gulch. The smell of pitch was powerfully pungent. Some of the victims still had roots partly in the soil, but they were slowly dying.

Many of those massive trunks spanned complete sections from the rim of the gulch, to the roaring creek in the bottom. Countless years of might and proud growth had been humbled in mere minutes, leaving behind a wondrous litter of coniferous corpses. Furthermore, these silent cadavers were dropped at crazy angles—nothing being sequential or ordered about the way that they were positioned. This chaotic, natural disaster made trekking through the little canyon a dicey nightmare.

Therefore, the going was awful tough, and more than once I barked my shins or smacked my forehead. To say that my partner and I weren’t having any fun is far too kind. It was more like we were on some misguided mission of misery.

By the way, did I mention that we were packing a huge coil of black plastic water line, weighing somewhere just under 10,000 pounds; one that had to be uncoiled and carefully threaded beneath the aforementioned mess of forest slaughter? Nevertheless, we kept soldiering on, even after we negotiated a rise that still has me uneasily cursing in my sleep to this day.

We were packing said pipe to a point far enough upstream so that we could generate enough hydraulic pressure to run a small wash-plant located in a draw containing a fair placer deposit—a fraction of a section of ancient streambed left behind when the old-timers had drift-mined most of the area. The gold was deposited in two pay layers, one set down in a surface run, and the other found from about six inches above and then into the bedrock itself. The placer was too far removed from the river to make pumping possible, so the only solution was to hike the gulch I’ve referred to and then to lay a line.

Well, we finally got to a point where the ground rose steeply again. It was tough sledding—let me tell you. My partner was getting tired, and I was about ready to swear off prospecting for the rest of my life when a wondrous thing occurred to teach me a lesson that prospecting is far from dull and tedious and unrewarding. As we struggled with the coil, trying to reach the top of the rise, my buddy reached out to grab a convenient stump, one that offered assistance at the exact moment when he was losing his footing on the steep incline. He put all his effort and weight into that desperate grasp. I heard a snap—the stump tore loose, and mayhem filled the air.

However, the air was now thick, swirling, filled with the ominous sound of a buzz saw, and it was very much alive! Now, my poor friend had tumbled downslope when the stump broke off, and he’d dropped into a bit of a hollow. Well, that air I mentioned earlier—it also had eyes—lots of them. As a single eyed entity that angry swarm looked down on my poor buddy, formed up, and like a missile strike containing multiple warheads, it impacted his head.

Well, he had on a heavy hat, and they soon gave up on that. He had on a heavy jacket, and that produced no satisfactory results for the swarm. But—his ears were conveniently exposed, and so the swarm vented their fury on those innocent little pink protrusions.
He howled. He cursed. He jumped up and down. He swatted. He screamed, and still the attack pressed on. Meanwhile, I was upslope, somewhat frozen in shock, gazing at the spectacle. Of a sudden, my brain sent a message to my legs, and I was scrabbling down the incline to my friend’s assistance.

For some reason the hornets ignored me.

They had found the object of their perfect rage and were passionately engaged in making my partner pay for ruining their home. It was as if I was invisible. Nonetheless, I took off my hat and started swatting. I drove them off his head. I smacked his ears violently and corpses dropped away.

He howled anew.

The blows from my hat were adding to his intense misery. Nevertheless, we were both moving quickly upslope to where I’d been. Luckily, our passage at that point was unencumbered by deadfall, as there was an old hydraulic ditch. We hit the ditch running—me swatting the angry remnants off his tortured little ears as he raced forward.

Eventually we lost them, perhaps because we’d gone uphill, over a rise, and down a ditch. I’ll never really know, but they finally retreated.

I received not a single sting. My buddy had dozens on his ears. Indeed, they puffed up some, but it added to his overall character, I felt.

It’s illegal for me to print what he felt.

On a side note, but still on the topic of hornets, a friend of mine that works a claim about an hour away from where we work has a slightly different tale. As the story goes, he was mining one day, working a rich pocket in a remote area of his claim when nature called, urgently. He couldn’t make it back to camp, so he found a convenient log and comfortably positioned himself to heed the call he’d received. All was progressing well. It was a beautiful sunlit day. Butterflies were flitting among the spaces between the pines; birds were singing. Yet, strangely, as he looked down at his boots, he saw that his boots were moving. And, as he wasn’t moving his feet, he began to wonder more about the deepening mysteries of nature.

As it turns out, he’d parked himself right over the entrance to the mother of all hornet bunkers. However, they were only crawling on his boots, but somehow, this unsettled him. Then, they started to explore his pants, which were down, and he knew they’d soon find unprotected flesh as they moved upwards. Yet, he didn’t have the steely nerves to see how that one would turn out. So, he did the only thing he could.

He screamed.

Then, he ran.

Now, you probably wonder how someone can run with their pants down, especially tangled around their ankles. Well, he said he did just fine.

In fact, he feels he set some kind of land speed record that day as he burst from the forest and launched himself into the embracing arms of the icy waters of a friendly beaver pond. (However, the noise he was making as he ran through the woods, before he hit the water, probably sparked some rumors of Sasquatch encounters that were reported that day.) He said the swarms of hornets eventually left, after about a half an hour. And, as he’s bald, every time he’d surface for air before that half hour was up, they’d send him a painful message about doing his business in their place of business.

All the best,

Lanny

P.S. If you're new to this thread--it's huge. I'd scan back to page one and then rapidly skim forward until you hit a story or a hint that interests you.

 

[Canuck]

I've finally had a chance to catch up on your thread and my stomach still hurts from the hornet tales. Its ironic how someone else's pain and misery can be so humorous. I'm amazed you didn't get zapped a couple of times from the little fellas. It's funny that you posted the video of the nip and tuck mine. When I first got into prospecting This year, I spent a day up there. Stephen is a good fella and taught me some basic things that every green horn should know. I found a few flakes of gold and went home with a strong fever! Do you know very much about the gold on boulder creek?

 

[Oakview2]

Lanny

As always, a great thread, another great story, and some great pictures of some great looking material. Good health and good hunting

 

[Lanny in AB]

I've finally had a chance to catch up on your thread and my stomach still hurts from the hornet tales. Its ironic how someone else's pain and misery can be so humorous. I'm amazed you didn't get zapped a couple of times from the little fellas. It's funny that you posted the video of the nip and tuck mine. When I first got into prospecting This year, I spent a day up there. Stephen is a good fella and taught me some basic things that every green horn should know. I found a few flakes of gold and went home with a strong fever! Do you know very much about the gold on boulder creek?

Thanks--I'm glad you enjoyed it. And, it is remarkable that none of them zapped me, but for some reason, none of them stung me.

I've never hunted Boulder Creek for gold. The areas where the good gold was supposed to be were always claimed up. Search the B.C. Provincial archives and see if you come up with anything solid that way. Google for hits as well--all kinds of things turn up from time to time.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lanny

As always, a great thread, another great story, and some great pictures of some great looking material. Good health and good hunting

Thanks for your kind words and for the nice compliments!

All the best, and good health and good hunting to you as well,

Lanny

 

[EagleDown]

Never try to anticipate the actions of hornets!!
When I was about 15, several of us boys were playing in a field by the childrens home when a 4 or 5 year old stepped on
a clump of "wire grass". I was fairly close by and heard him scream. I looked over at him and saw that he was covered by
hornets.

Without thinking about it, I ran over and picked him up, while brushing the hornets off of him. I carried him as I ran for
the infirmary. Poor little guy was in a coma for most of 2 days. Oddly enough, I wasn't stung at all. Perhaps they didn't
feel any fear from me, so left me alone.

As for laughing at others misfortune, it seems to be a way of showing relief that it wasn't us that it happened to.

Now, that's deep. (lol)

Thanks for the great stories my friend.

Eagle

 

[Lanny in AB]

Eagle,

That's a sad story about the little one that you rescued, but at least it had a happy ending.

Hornets are indeed unpredictable, and both of us seem to have escaped their wrath--maybe they leave a chemical marker on the victim and the others are drawn to what they consider to be their enemy, while the rescuer is unmarked?

As always, you have a profound thought to deepen the meaning with your insight about life.

All the best, and thanks for dropping in my friend,

Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

Hornets and gold

What do hornets have to do with finding gold? Nothing, but they certainly keep things interesting from time to time.
Early one pristine northern summer of splendor, my partner and I were running a section of water line up a steep, boulder-strewn gulch. The spot was heavily treed; moreover, there had been a ferocious microburst not long before. The bodies of monumental mature Pines, Spruce, Fir, Balsam, and Tamarack lay shattered throughout the entire length of the gulch. The smell of pitch was powerfully pungent. Some of the victims still had roots partly in the soil, but they were slowly dying.

Many of those massive trunks spanned complete sections from the rim of the gulch, to the roaring creek in the bottom. Countless years of might and proud growth had been humbled in mere minutes, leaving behind a wondrous litter of coniferous corpses. Furthermore, these silent cadavers were dropped at crazy angles—nothing being sequential or ordered about the way that they were positioned. This chaotic, natural disaster made trekking through the little canyon a dicey nightmare.

Therefore, the going was awful tough, and more than once I barked my shins or smacked my forehead. To say that my partner and I weren’t having any fun is far too kind. It was more like we were on some misguided mission of misery.

By the way, did I mention that we were packing a huge coil of black plastic water line, weighing somewhere just under 10,000 pounds; one that had to be uncoiled and carefully threaded beneath the aforementioned mess of forest slaughter? Nevertheless, we kept soldiering on, even after we negotiated a rise that still has me uneasily cursing in my sleep to this day.

We were packing said pipe to a point far enough upstream so that we could generate enough hydraulic pressure to run a small wash-plant located in a draw containing a fair placer deposit—a fraction of a section of ancient streambed left behind when the old-timers had drift-mined most of the area. The gold was deposited in two pay layers, one set down in a surface run, and the other found from about six inches above and then into the bedrock itself. The placer was too far removed from the river to make pumping possible, so the only solution was to hike the gulch I’ve referred to and then to lay a line.

Well, we finally got to a point where the ground rose steeply again. It was tough sledding—let me tell you. My partner was getting tired, and I was about ready to swear off prospecting for the rest of my life when a wondrous thing occurred to teach me a lesson that prospecting is far from dull and tedious and unrewarding. As we struggled with the coil, trying to reach the top of the rise, my buddy reached out to grab a convenient stump, one that offered assistance at the exact moment when he was losing his footing on the steep incline. He put all his effort and weight into that desperate grasp. I heard a snap—the stump tore loose, and mayhem filled the air.

However, the air was now thick, swirling, filled with the ominous sound of a buzz saw, and it was very much alive! Now, my poor friend had tumbled downslope when the stump broke off, and he’d dropped into a bit of a hollow. Well, that air I mentioned earlier—it also had eyes—lots of them. As a single eyed entity that angry swarm looked down on my poor buddy, formed up, and like a missile strike containing multiple warheads, it impacted his head.

Well, he had on a heavy hat, and they soon gave up on that. He had on a heavy jacket, and that produced no satisfactory results for the swarm. But—his ears were conveniently exposed, and so the swarm vented their fury on those innocent little pink protrusions.
He howled. He cursed. He jumped up and down. He swatted. He screamed, and still the attack pressed on. Meanwhile, I was upslope, somewhat frozen in shock, gazing at the spectacle. Of a sudden, my brain sent a message to my legs, and I was scrabbling down the incline to my friend’s assistance.

For some reason the hornets ignored me.

They had found the object of their perfect rage and were passionately engaged in making my partner pay for ruining their home. It was as if I was invisible. Nonetheless, I took off my hat and started swatting. I drove them off his head. I smacked his ears violently and corpses dropped away.

He howled anew.

The blows from my hat were adding to his intense misery. Nevertheless, we were both moving quickly upslope to where I’d been. Luckily, our passage at that point was unencumbered by deadfall, as there was an old hydraulic ditch. We hit the ditch running—me swatting the angry remnants off his tortured little ears as he raced forward.
Eventually we lost them, perhaps because we’d gone uphill, over a rise, and down a ditch. I’ll never really know, but they finally retreated.

I received not a single sting. My buddy had dozens on his ears. Indeed, they puffed up some, but it added to his overall character, I felt.

It’s illegal for me to print what he felt.

On a side note, but still on the topic of hornets, a friend of mine that works a claim about an hour away from where we work has a slightly different tale. As the story goes, he was mining one day, working a rich pocket in a remote area of his claim when nature called, urgently. He couldn’t make it back to camp, so he found a convenient log and comfortably positioned himself to heed the call he’d received. All was progressing well. It was a beautiful sunlit day. Butterflies were flitting among the spaces between the pines; birds were singing. Yet, strangely, as he looked down at his boots, he saw that his boots were moving. And, as he wasn’t moving his feet, he began to wonder more about the deepening mysteries of nature.

As it turns out, he’d parked himself right over the entrance to the mother of all hornet bunkers. However, they were only crawling on his boots, but somehow, this unsettled him. Then, they started to explore his pants, which were down, and he knew they’d soon find unprotected flesh as they moved upwards. Yet, he didn’t have the steel nerves to see how that one would turn out. So, he did the only thing he could.

He screamed.

Then, he ran.

Now, you probably wonder how someone can run with their pants down, especially tangled around their ankles. Well, he said he did just fine.

In fact, he feels he set some kind of land speed record that day as he burst from the forest and launched himself into the embracing arms of the icy waters of a friendly beaver pond. (However, the noise he was making as he ran through the woods, before he hit the water, probably sparked some rumors of Sasquatch encounters that were reported that day.) He said the swarms of hornets eventually left, after about a half an hour. And, as he’s bald, every time he’d surface for air before that half hour was up, they’d send him a painful message about doing his business in their place of business.

All the best,

Lanny

P.S. If you're new to this thread--it's huge. I'd scan back to page one and then rapidly skim forward until you hit a story or a hint that interests you.

 

[delnorter]

It's always great to hear you folks tell of gold and other life's stories. I thought I'd share one particular time concerning bees and such.

I worked for many years for a land surveying and aerial mapping company throughout the northwest USA based here in Crescent City, California.

In the land survey side of the business we performed many retracement surveys of the original cadastral surveys separating public and private land and often had encounters with our local hot shot bees, the yellow jacket. One such survey was a very large project over in the Happy Camp, California area.

This particular job, in very rugged country, often required us to hike long distances to begin the next days work where we left off the previous day. Towards the end of one hot summer day, (Happy Camp can be a real hot place in the summer) the "boss", owner of the company, was with us and was operating the total station (survey instrument) when he disturbed a nest of yellow jackets right next to the setup.

In our typical survey crew at the time, there was generally a lead chainman (rod man)pioneering the next setup, a rear chainman setting a backsight, the instrument man and one or more machete or chain saw men. The lead chainman had already gone by this spot without annoying the little buggers and the boss then completed setting up the tripod and instrument without bothering them. This was late in the afternoon and was to be the last setup of the day. We would occupy this point, bush out as far as we could within sight of the instrument and set the first point to be occupied the next day.

These types of surveys for the federal government required us to clear a path roughly 4' wide, on the true boundary line, of everything to ground level, smaller than, if I remember right, 6" in diameter. We then chopped a particular series of blazes on trees within an arms length of line, painted them bright red (so the forest service wouldn't get lost) and set the appropriate monuments at the corners. A lot of chopping, sawing and general commotion. If yellow jackets were around they found us.

Yellow jackets seem to take a dislike to certain people more than others. I don't know if it's a persons odor or what but some guys just got stung more than others. We also noticed if one guy was being chased by a heard of YJs you could often just step off the line we had cleared and they would chase only the original guy running. Another curious thing seamed to be the wearing of bright colors. We wore bright orange vests. These are often used for safety in more urban areas, but out in the woods it was more to see each other over long distances or through thick brush and timber. The guys running the chain saws or machete would sometimes take off their vests because of the heat. The "bees" would usually go after the guys wearing the bright orange vests.

Well, on this particular summer day, the lead chainman found a good spot and set a hub for the next days starting point and headed back to the rest of us for the hike out. We generally left all of the equipment, except for the total station, in the woods for the night. If possible we would use a rope to lift the tripod, cans of red spray paint, saw gas and bar oil up a tree to prevent bears from chewing the hell out of everything. By the way, do you know, bears think bar oil is honey? Then there is the cans of bright red spray paint. What a mess if the bear got one of them. Red paint everywhere and a bright trail where they ran off with it. I never did see one of these red phase bears. I imagine it was kind of like racing stripes along each side from the mouth back.

Any way, lead chainman returns, every one is loading their backpacks for the hike out and the boss heads over to take the instrument off the tripod and load it into a pack. All hell breaks out. A ground nest of yellow jackets explodes and stings everyone as recall. The boss is next to the tripod and instrument doing the fandango, brushing yellow jacket off. This was a lot of bees and they were really po'd. Back down the line a ways we group up, brushed off the remaining bees and decided to head back to camp, leaving everything but a couple backpacks where it was, including the instrument still on the tripod.

Well that night the boss seems to recall that yellow jackets don't become active below a certain temperature. I don't recall what temperature, but I think it was 47 ' F. To make matters worse the boss has lost his rather expensive wrist watch in all the chaos.

The mornings are sometimes quite cool in the mountains, so we all head out early the next day for the hike back in. It's a few degrees under whatever this activity level was and arrive with a degree or so to go. The plan is to sneak up and pour saw gas down the hole to the underground nest. Gas does them in if you get it in the hole.

Well, this was the bosses bright idea so it's him who gets the honor of administering the gas. Being still cool, we all get within seeing distance of the "hole". It's a thing of beauty, the bosses watch is perfectly surrounding the "hole". Behind the boss we are all smiling and quietly giving a few elbows to each other. He turns around and we are all serious and sympathetic.

In the older days you generally had a thermometer along to record temperatures for making later adjustments to long distance measurements. The boss takes a quick look at the thermometer, still a degree to go. He makes the sneak on the "hole", raises the gas can for the pour and Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! He got the living daylights stung out of him. Like someone said, it's probably not nice to laugh at another guys misery but this was a something to see. A real demonstration of how a man can move. He came up dancing the fandango, slapping and swatting. He starts to take off running but bumps the tripod tipping it over with the instrument still on it. We know this is not going to be good if the instrument hits the ground, we are serious now, and through all the pain the boss knows it too. He takes a second or two stabilizing the tripod (a good man) and takes off down the line. The instrument is saved and we being well learned students of yellow jackets just step off the line.

Stomp, jump, slap and Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, right by us. None of us could recall the boss making a sound or moving that fast before. I don't think it's manly to holler, scream or cry in this situation. This may be a boss thing. The bees eventually went back to their hole, quite a few keeping watch just outside for any more problems. It's actually pretty nice and quiet while we take a break. Morning in the mountains can be real nice.


Well, what to do now. If the yellow jackets are not taken care of, no work, no pay. The boss is petty roughed up and he's not going back in. We have a relatively new young guy on the crew that can run a chain saw in one hand and a machete in the other. He can carry a pretty heavy load too. With a little pressure from his coworkers, a few promises of food and the assurance that the boss would be forever grateful he heads in with the gas. He walks right up to the hole, pours the gas in the hole, grabs the bosses watch, brushes off a few of the bees stinging him and walks back to us, a hero.


Many times after this experience there was the occasional remark on cool work mornings about the temperature and at what degree yellow jackets become active. For a long time the boss didn't think this was very funny but he came around with time. They say time heals all wounds, even all the stings of a large yellow jacket nest I guess.


Remember I said bears think bar oil is honey? Yep, in all the chaos, that days remaining gas and bar oil was left on the ground. Brother bear came in the night and had saw gas for dinner and honey for desert. Our brave young coworker poured all the saw gas we brought in that morning down the bee hole. It was a long day of machete work but ya, it was worth it. Boy could that kid work a machete.


Mike
Joe?s Cabin Vacation Rental in the heart of Redwood Country

 

[Lanny in AB]

Thanks Terry!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Mike,

That's a great little story. I really enjoyed it. I've had quite a few run-ins with the bears over the years, and they'll eat just about anything, or chew on it first to check it out. Your story was an interesting, fun read. Nicely done.

All the best,

Lanny