M & M Mining the Northern Sierras

mikep691 · Oct 3, 2015

My friends came to the Meat today, but it was more about prospecting the lower open space than mining. Kathy swung that Minelab around and found the old miner's can dump. Steve and I laughing every minute kept digging up more cans hoping to find the one with his poke in it. Well all we found was more rusty old cans.

It was good to see my mining friends after two years, and really special to show them our claim on Meat Creek. No pictures, and no mining at the dig. We did prospect a bit in different areas of the creek, but it was kind of more a reunion than anything else. Steve and Kathy, love you guys, and you are invited to the Meat ANYTIME.

mikep691 · Nov 4, 2015

Dora and I were able to get up to the claim for the one day last weekend. I had a mixed bag to accomplish, and happy to say I filled all of it. First order, was to do a short day of mining (just to get a late season gold fix). Then my day was for some firewood to take home. I ran the Redneck for just a couple hours, and ran no sucker tube material. I brought that home instead. I'm pretty happy with the results of just shovel material for a couple hour run. Some of the sucker tube bucket will be filling Birthday presents, and a few samples to New England just for their unbiased opinions of what they receive. I'm halfway through my week away from home, and missing the snow that fell Monday in the high country. However, I did not enjoy driving through it to get my work truck in the shop in West Sacramento. I'll pick up my truck later today then head to Fresno and San Jose Thursday morning. Back at home in time to drive through the next winter blast on Monday going up the California coast to Ft. Bragg. I might get in one more weekend of mining after that.

Here's a short vid of my Saturday:

https://youtu.be/64gY6guMPr0

Enjoy.

mikep691 · Nov 11, 2015

Well, it looks like my mining season has come to an end. If El Nino is as they say, I need a break for one weekend to get what gear is in the creek bed outa there. That's iffy now. Back to back to back storms won't make it easy.I'm not complaining, just wish for one more week....

Jeff95531 · Nov 13, 2015

The area I'm currently working can be done thru the winter IF the stream crossing doesn't flood. If it does, I'll have to go three times farther to get to the same spot and hauling it out will of course be harder and the only option. And hydro hillsides are very unstable as well this time of year so respect to that. Where there is the will... :icon_thumright:

mikep691 · Nov 21, 2015

Well, we got one last weekend before the next storm arrives, so Mike and I are meeting at the claim for the day. With sub-freezing temps in the high country, we've ruled out camping this time. The plan is to arrive shortly after sunrise, work the Meat for six or so hours then pack everything out until next spring. Hopefully I'll remember the "good" camera and have some pics to post later this weekend.

mikep691 · Nov 21, 2015

I did remember the good camera, but didn't check the batteries. I was able to get a few pics, but no vids. IT WAS FREAKING COLD!!! Snow still on the ground in the shady ares (which is most of the creek bed), water level was up a bit, and felt like 35 degrees. My hands stopped hurting when they fell off. Rockguy brought a friend along, and this guy was an animal with a shovel. We finished off the last section of gravels to the bedrock waterfall. Turns out, there never was a dip in the bedrock has I thought. It just kept going up, and up, and..... Right into the waterfall. We must have moved 2-3 yards of gravel in six hours.

This shortly after we got digging. Friend Eric and Rockguy did most of the digging while I tended the "hand warmer" and Redneck highbanker.

Eric was dressed for the weather, and ready to shovel:

Hand warmer on tailings, next to the dig. Took some doing to get wet wood to burn, we be rednecks

Keeping it going was another adventure:

Now for some porn. This was the last clean out of the year. Unweighed, we estimate at 1+gram, and there was a picker that was off the carpet too big for the snuffer tube. Gives real meaning to ICE COLD GOLD:

Next year, it's testing up and down stream. We know there's gold downstream as we first started this three year adventure several hundred yards downstream. I'm still leaning on the upstream side as what we're getting has to be coming from "above".

Test, Test, Test.

mikep691 · Dec 5, 2015

Here's a monkey wrench in the gold prospecting theme: Rockguy and I are discussing early season change of gears. If we have the winter the weather guys predict (we need them to be right for once), M&M Mining needs an second outlet to satisfy the urge. We may not be able to get to the claim for months after the predicted winter, but there's something that pays easier than gold. Near where I live is Crystal Mountain. Yeah you saw it Terminator. It really is a crystal filled mountain. I got a place near there that screams of Amethyst. Not confirmed, but why not make a couple bucks?

mytimetoshine · Dec 5, 2015

Beautiful chunkies!

mikep691 · Jan 9, 2016

Itchin' to do some diggin'. Too much snow....

mikep691 · Mar 11, 2016

Well, it's time to get out the small, hand working tools and go to the Meat. I try to go every Easter Sunday as it was then I found this claim. It will likely be just me and Dora on a day trip this year. It's still too cold for camping and there may be a layer of white everywhere too. It's time to prospect the upstream side of the old digs as we wrapped it up after three years of turning gravels.

if the gold is upstream of the 10+ feet bedrock waterfall, I'll building/buying a gravity dredge set up. in the meantime, it's old style mining when I can get there.

mytimetoshine · Mar 11, 2016

Howdy stranger! Good to hear from you. I think you might be in for more then just a "layer" of white stuff. Lol been dumping up there

mikep691 · Mar 11, 2016

I know. I just drove over Donner in my work truck with no driver side wiper. Too cold and unfixable on top of the hill, so I drove my Freightliner from the right seat...sort of... to Truckee then got out the bailing wire.

mikep691 · Mar 18, 2016

I may have scored big!! New driver was hired yesterday to assist me as a ride along until I get my CDL Or after I leave the company. He has a 3" dredge complete and he doesn't mine. I'll be running a gravity set up on the Meat this year, and a full set up will save me time and labor. Since he found it in a house he bought fully furnished, I might be able to get it for a song and good training of my replacement driver. I'm so ready to go Easter Sunday for the first time diggin' this year.

mytimetoshine · Mar 19, 2016

I want you to dredge that meat bad... I didn't want to tell you something you already know. I figured. Heck if your running a generator for a highbanker pump you might as well dredge...

Those old tarps that we found up meat...yeah those were used as dams for dredging....go get those chunky monkeys!

mikep691 · Apr 7, 2016

This cold (or whatever it is) is kicking my a$$, but I need to get to the Meat....SOON. I'm temporarily out of my truck, but the boss wanted me to work Saturday so he could deliver a load of fuel. Then, out of the blue, he says "Why don't you take the load to Grass Valley, then You won't need to work Saturday?" SOLD AMERICAN!!! Who needs a license, I don't need no stinking license. Gitterdone, and go dig some Meat dirt... Sick or not.

mikep691 · Apr 10, 2016

Yesterday was "Take a Dog Mining Day", so Dora and I got up, loaded up and headed to the Meat. The past storms and snow has the creek flowing pretty good. It's actually the highest I've seen it in several years for this time of year

I really wanted to work at the top of that bedrock water fall, but with this flow, it was cleaning off the shovel of everything before I could get the gravels to the bucket so we decided to just test and explore the whole upstream section of the creek. I did dig up one section of tarp that someone had used as a dam, but what little gold I found was just that, little. So today became "Catch and Release" gold day. Since there are no money shots from this short day, The pics are all of the beautifulness of Meat Creek:

There's even RV parking at the Northwest end of the claim, with tailings to run if you can get the water to them:

Yes, there is still some white stuff at the claim too:

While sampling, I did check on the Northwest corner marker and was surprised it was still standing:

Couple notes to self: Don't shovel gravels from the bottom of a 3' deep pool when you only brought one shirt, and don't step in that same pool with old waders unless you like cold wet toes.

Here's a short vid of the beginning of the day:

All in all, it was a short but good day

mikep691 · May 14, 2016

I'm still in the planning stage, but I have room for a friend or two more to join a dig at the Meat. This is happening on Memorial weekend, 27-30 May. There's room for one more tent at the main campsite, and a couple Type C smaller RV's nearby. Larger RV's can camp .4 miles away at the quarry (northwest corner of the claim). The claim is in the northeastern Sierras, near Quincy. If anybody is interested, PM me.

Hefty1 · May 26, 2016

Thanks for the invite Mike....I will be there Friday afternoon.
Motorhome loaded and ready. :occasion14:

mikep691 · May 27, 2016

Up at 3 am and doing my coffee. All kinds of excited about this weekend. Dora is ready to go too. Floyd will be here around 8 am and we'll head to the Meat. Hefty will join us this afternoon in time for beer. :occasion14:

Today is set up day and the real mining will commence early Saturday morning. As always, lots of pics and vids will be posted upon our return. Floyd is bringing his highbanker combo and with four of us, we can rotate on the #2's. We'll be working an area of creek that we started at four years ago, the first bedrock (and gold) was found here. I'm looking forward to seeing what was passed up back then.

Hope I brought enough beer

mikep691 · May 31, 2016

It was quite the weekend!! New friend, Floyd from the Susanville Rockhounds joined me Friday morning and we got to the Meat before 10 am. There was no mining planned for this day. It was all about setting up camp, and doing some exploration of the area. Now with my new job working in a deep freeze, picking and packing Nutrisystem orders, I have access to dry ice that's unusable in the shipping, so I was able to bring some home. I thought I'd get ahead of the 8ball by loading thee ice chest up Thursday night. I knew there might be an issue when the ice chest froze to the kitchen floor, but carried on anyway. Well, I ended up with the coldest beer in Northern California. It was so cold, it was undrinkable. It was literally frozen, cans froze together through Saturday.

By 7 pm Friday, we became worried that something may have happened to hefty as they still hadn't arrived at the claim. We decided to drive the route I gave him backward to the paved road just in case. With no sign of them, we stopped off at the Middle Fork Feather bridge, then returned to camp. To my surprise, Hefty was there, and so was my mining partner, Rockguy, who had said he couldn't make the trip. Now, it was beer drinkin' time with the gang all here. EVERYBODY was beat up from the beer on Saturday morning and we got a later start digging. We got all the gear to the dig site, set it up, and started to play.