The Many Lost Treasures of Mariposa, CA (Photos Added)

[EagleDown]

I don't think they removed anything

(lol) In any case, I think I'll put this in my "Unconfirmed rumor" file. (lol)

 

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[Oakview2]

On your next trip thru stop and talk to the owner, and then we can put this to bed, or secretly start digging up the streets late at night.

 

[EagleDown]

It looks like we can finally kiss dredging goodbye. But then, further down the artical, it states the following:

"This final rule is the result of exhaustive research, public comment, and scientific peer review," said Jennifer Norris, Field Supervisor for the Service's Sacramento Field Office. "While other moderate and minor level threats, including historic logging, mining, grazing pressures and recreational use were evaluated, they were not considered significant factors in our determination."

So, perhaps this finding could be used to restore our mining rights??

2 frogs and a toad receive Endangered Species Act protection | abc30.com

 

[EagleDown]

FYI; I just recieved an email from a friend, there's going to be a dredging hearing tomorrow morning in Rancho Cucamonga. It's not much of a advance notice, but for the ones who live fairly close and can make it, it might be worth attending.

This just in from my friend:

I attended the Dredge court hearing this morning, it was packed standing room only. The forest service attorneys are still delaying their test study's. We will know the outcome in 2 weeks.

 

[Oakview2]

Five years of stalling and delay, same ole same ole from the state.

 

[EagleDown]

Five years of stalling and delay, same ole same ole from the state.

With our present government, I wouldn't expect any less.

 

[EagleDown]

To all of my readers; If you are interested in following my ongoing adventures, I would recommend downloading the free GoogleEarth. I'll be going back up on the mountains tomorrow morning to check out an old mine and mill that I've located. If I should find some gold on the site, I'll be filing a claim on it. So, I figure since joining a prospectors club is so expensive and many can't justify that kind of a cash outlay, I'll probably be inviting my loyal readers to come on up and metal detect to their hearts content. I've been advised to get a "release of liability" from my visitors just in case.

Let me know if anyone might be interested in coming up, if everything works out hokay.

Eagle

 

[Cl1983]

I love google earth. There's some overlays you can download showing current and old claims for all kinds of minerals. I use it in class mapping faults too

 

[EagleDown]

I love google earth. There's some overlays you can download showing current and old claims for all kinds of minerals. I use it in class mapping faults too

I know. I bought "MineCache" and that shows so many old claims that in the last 2 weeks, I still haven't checked them all out in the particular area that I'm interested in. (lol)

 

[Cl1983]

I wondered if it was any good and if minecache was worth buying. I have one done by some federal agency (bookmark is on my laptop which isn't here now) My area isn't much of a gold producing county so I have to use it to check next door

 

[GarretDiggingAz]

Eagle.
Did ya ever check out footprints? They might have a map of that area as well. With miners cache is there a yearly due?

Aside from that. I'm glad you're doing good.
I finally did my spray bars for my sluice/hopper. Still need some tweaks but mostly it's creating the filter system that'll not only catch the particles, but clean the water of dirt. Yet of coarse keep the flow.
Maybe use the bucket as first catch. Then have another tub or bigger bucket that holds filtering material. Then the water flows into bigger tub.

Oh the game I play to keep that water clean. Lol.
The good news was that I really didn't have a bunch of water loss. While spray bars going at least.
Bad news was that I didn't find but a couple specks of color from 12-15 gals. I'm hoping it's in the upper layers of material.

I'm hoping to hit a couple areas this week. Just haven't beat the battle of my left hip. It's trying to keep me down. So I'm happy that you get to go out and post and relay a story or advice once in awhile. So I didn't get my nugget last month. So hopefully this month I can put a bigger effort.

 

[Rik]

I wondered if it was any good and if minecache was worth buying. I have one done by some federal agency (bookmark is on my laptop which isn't here now) My area isn't much of a gold producing county so I have to use it to check next door

You can get a 7 day free trial of mine cache.

 

[EagleDown]

I wondered if it was any good and if minecache was worth buying. I have one done by some federal agency (bookmark is on my laptop which isn't here now) My area isn't much of a gold producing county so I have to use it to check next door

Rik is correct. You can download MineCache free for one week. That would give you time (as it did for me), to determine if it would be enough help that it would be worth subscribing to. Only $29.95 per year. And, they seem to do a good job on keeping it 'up-dated'.

 

[EagleDown]

Eagle.
Did ya ever check out footprints? They might have a map of that area as well. With miners cache is there a yearly due?

Aside from that. I'm glad you're doing good.
I finally did my spray bars for my sluice/hopper. Still need some tweaks but mostly it's creating the filter system that'll not only catch the particles, but clean the water of dirt. Yet of coarse keep the flow.
Maybe use the bucket as first catch. Then have another tub or bigger bucket that holds filtering material. Then the water flows into bigger tub.

Oh the game I play to keep that water clean. Lol.
The good news was that I really didn't have a bunch of water loss. While spray bars going at least.
Bad news was that I didn't find but a couple specks of color from 12-15 gals. I'm hoping it's in the upper layers of material.

I'm hoping to hit a couple areas this week. Just haven't beat the battle of my left hip. It's trying to keep me down. So I'm happy that you get to go out and post and relay a story or advice once in awhile. So I didn't get my nugget last month. So hopefully this month I can put a bigger effort.

As stated above by Rik, download the 'free' edition and then you can determine if it would be benificial to you. I've only run into a couple of problems with it. One problem is, it shows ALL claims that have ever been filed on any area. So, you would have to click on the particular claim you're interested in, then if it shows several have been filed there, (usually under different names), you have to click on each one individually to determine if there are any that are still active. That does take time in some incidences.

The problem with that is that when the price of gold went up, (in the early 1970s), a lot of people filed claims merely by looking at a map, then filing a claim. So, you will find that a lot of claims were filed on top of other (perhaps valid) claims. Some (most) of the ones filing these claims have never even seen them, they just like to tell others that they have a couple of gold mines in AZ (or other states). This also happened in the early 1980s, and mid-1990s.

The other problem with it? I'll tell you about that when I post Saturday's "prospecting adventure" and pictures. Quite a day we had. (lol)

Sorry for not posting replies earlier, but I had a few things to take care of Sunday, so didn't really have the time.

Love and Respect,

Eagle

 

[angelus2k5]

To all of my readers; If you are interested in following my ongoing adventures, I would recommend downloading the free GoogleEarth. I'll be going back up on the mountains tomorrow morning to check out an old mine and mill that I've located. If I should find some gold on the site, I'll be filing a claim on it. So, I figure since joining a prospectors club is so expensive and many can't justify that kind of a cash outlay, I'll probably be inviting my loyal readers to come on up and metal detect to their hearts content. I've been advised to get a "release of liability" from my visitors just in case.

Let me know if anyone might be interested in coming up, if everything works out hokay.

Eagle

i'd be down to give you a hand with your mine. the problem is that i'm not sure where it is however that may not matter as if its close to you then is far from me. at any rate i wish you a safe trip and hope everything goes/went well.

 

[EagleDown]

Finally Found it!!

Saturday, (05/03/14), at about 9:20am, I met with JHAtwater in Coulterville, where after being introduced to his daughter and son, we decided to take both his and my vehicles into the hills to search for the old mine and mill I had found on GoogleEarth/MineCache.

Lucky decision, as we were later to find out. (lol) Remember, I had already been in with Rik, searching for the place. At least, this time I remembered to bring the GoogleEarth print-outs of the road going in, (which I forgot when I went in with Rik), so, this time, we didn’t end up 2 miles off course. (lol) But, we still had to search for the right road to the mill/mine after we were about a mile into the area. I found that what was confusing me was that the USFS had been busy changing the numbers of the several roads that we had to choose from, but the old numbers were still showing on GoogleEarth.

The first road we checked led down into a beautiful area where we found ourselves surrounded by huge old growth oak trees. Someone had been there, apparently 2 or 3 years before from the condition of a couple of large camping coolers they left behind. We saw a pole with a glass jar containing a claim paper in it and took it out of the jar to read it. Who ever put it there must have decided not to continue with the claim, because the claim paper had never been filled out. (lol) (I might have to consider filing a claim there, as all of the area looked like it should have gold). In any case, when it dries up enough, I WILL take the drywasher in and run some samples.

But, this wasn’t what we were looking for, so I turned around and drove back to the intersection where we chose this road. The next road, we decided that JHAtwater and his youngsters would wait for me, while I drove down and checked it out. So, the first thing that happened was that about 40ft down the road, I got “high-centered” in the ruts, where even my 4wheel drive couldn’t get me off of it. Fortunately, JHA had a winch on his truck. He ran the cable out and hooked it to my rear bumper and after a few minutes of maneuvering around, we managed to get to the point where my rear wheels were touching the ground. Then I was able to back out and take another shot at it. I won’t bore you with the details of this one, since the final outcome was much the same as the first. Other than the fact that a half mile in, I met a white pickup coming out. The road was so narrow that we spent about 15 minutes jockeying around before we could pass one another. Anyway, I continued on down to the end before I could find a spot large enough to turn around.

So, I make it back up to the top, and directly across the intersection from me is another road heading off into the brush. We loaded everyone into my truck and struck out down this (the only one left) road to see if it was the one. We drove down it for about a mile and guess what we found? (Besides the old mill/mine). Yep, there’s the white pickup sitting, blocking the road. But, no problem, since his front bumper is within a few feet of this gate. We couldn’t get the gate open so, there was no way to turn around without backing up the road for a couple hundred yards. (lol)


To be continued:

 

[EagleDown]

Notice the pile of ore under the hoppers.

The next picture shows the top of the hoppers. You can see the pulley that the cable went through.

 

[EagleDown]

Well, I wanted to get this on the last post, but for some reason, wasn't able to do so. (Perhaps because I don't know how)? (lol)

This is showing the top of the ore hoppers. You can see the rail heading up from the left. The portal to the mine is lower to the left. A large mine “bucket” was drawn up this rail and the ore dumped in the hoppers. You can see the pulley that the cable went through.

 

[Oakview2]

Your on it, now its time to get the gold:-)

 

[EagleDown]

These next two photos are the tailings. It's pretty obvious that they did one heck of a lot of tunneling. Estimated size of tailings; approx. 35 ft high and 150 ft long. And that's just what I could see from my vantage point. JHAtwater says that they extended on around the curve also. (Second photo).