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

[EagleDown]

Way to go familyhunter, help out our man Eagle. If I was out there I'd help ya brother, but I'm helping others out here for the moment. Plus gives me a chance to hunt in the greaterville area. My buddy's getting a shoulder replaced and he's building his own trommel. Aside from that, his brother got hit with throat cancer and he's having a hard recovery. So another TNet guy "justbent" offered a hopper he had sitting around. So I offered to deliver it.

Brother, I've got to show you a pic of what I've pulled out for my kids college fund. First pan was probably double of what I've pulled out of my hole I've been working. I'll show a pic later today.

Where's the pic You're worse than me with my "continues". (lol)

 

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[EagleDown]

Familyhunter showed up early this morning to work on my brakes. He sure made it look easy. Soon, I was mobil again, for better or worse. (lol) After he headed home, (87 miles, one way), I decided to take the old dog for a test drive. Oops, I ended up on the river below Briceburg. (lol)

Let me tell you Brothers and Sisters, it is COLD down there. Most of the area below Briceburg only sees about an hour of sunshine all day. There were patches of dirt along the road that were white with hoar-frost. Also, ice on the river, along the banks. Over the years, I've spent many Winters on the river, and I've never seen so much ice on the exposed rocks. I'm including a photo I took. And this wasn't the heaviest area, I just didn't want to get out of my warm car to take more.

I did metal detect for about a half hour, before my hands were so cold that when I went to turn the detector off, I had to look, to make sure that my fingers were actually on the switch. (lol)

But, the main reason for this post is to let all of my wonderful readers know how much I appreciate familyhunter's help. Even if I had the tools, it would have taken me pretty much all day to do what he did in an hour.

Thank you familyhunter, My Brother!!!

Love and respect,

Eagle

 

[GarretDiggingAz]

Where's the pic You're worse than me with my "continues". (lol)

Ohh. I know. I wound up panning all the cons I had. For three different spots. So at the moment. The sniffer bottles are holding my days work. I'll show ya after I finish cleaning. Then I'll throw out some pics. Probably in the morning.
I'm also going to go back through the cons in my wash bin. I started rushing it with the super sluice and I know some little stuff probably jumped out. Probably not that big a deal, but I do try to get it all. Lol

 

[GarretDiggingAz]

Well Eagle. At least ya posted a pic. Looks cold. Glad to see brakes worked. Plus was able to cure that cabin fever.
Way to go familyhunter. I'm sure Eagle appreciated the help. I'm in the same boat as far as doing repairs. Would take me a day or two, for what used to take 20 minutes.

 

[chupacabra]

Eagle made a little jaunt down below Bagby yesterday. A friend was there last weekend and wanted company this weekend. According to Minecache the area is called Fremont Placers. A lot of work was done there, but by what? Rock piles almost looked like done with a bucket dredge. Maybe hydraulicing and stacking from sluice boxes? Bedrock and caliche layer not deep, but miners were way trashy. It wasn't an hour before I started cherry picking my dig targets (and I hate doing that), just going for quiet deep signals. Sinkers galore!
Anyway curious if you knew anything about it?
Thanks, Shep

Is this the spot your talking about shep? I believe thats maxwell creek feeding into McClure lake, that area was definetly hydraulic mined I found my first nugget in that red area top picture, raking down the top layer and detecting its almost cemented material and why they had to hydraulic it

 

[chupacabra]

View attachment 914593 facing south west here

View attachment 914594 on the south side of the creek going down and across the creek up to the north side that was worked hard.

 

[chupacabra]

Nice nugger eagle damn I want to get back up there with yuh and i will fter this week im taking a sabbatical from work for a while try and get rons metal detector working and we'll come up, only thing scares me is coming down hells hollow road when theres ice, YIKES hate to go over that canyon,

 

[EagleDown]

View attachment 914593 facing south west here

View attachment 914594 on the south side of the creek going down and across the creek up to the north side that was worked hard.

Sorry Brother, I tried these links and get the following message:
[h=2]vBulletin Message[/h]Invalid Attachment specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator

 

[mariposagold]

Familyhunter showed up early this morning to work on my brakes. He sure made it look easy. Soon, I was mobil again, for better or worse. (lol) After he headed home, (87 miles, one way), I decided to take the old dog for a test drive. Oops, I ended up on the river below Briceburg. (lol)

Let me tell you Brothers and Sisters, it is COLD down there. Most of the area below Briceburg only sees about an hour of sunshine all day. There were patches of dirt along the road that were white with hoar-frost. Also, ice on the river, along the banks. Over the years, I've spent many Winters on the river, and I've never seen so much ice on the exposed rocks. I'm including a photo I took. And this wasn't the heaviest area, I just didn't want to get out of my warm car to take more.

I did metal detect for about a half hour, before my hands were so cold that when I went to turn the detector off, I had to look, to make sure that my fingers were actually on the switch. (lol)

But, the main reason for this post is to let all of my wonderful readers know how much I appreciate familyhunter's help. Even if I had the tools, it would have taken me pretty much all day to do what he did in an hour.

Thank you familyhunter, My Brother!!!

Love and respect,

Eagle

If I had to imagine a problem I wouldn't want to have, that would be a brake problem headed to Briceburg from Mariposa. That would be unnerving.

 

[mariposagold]

Eagledown. I took your advice and wondered about Mariposa hillsides for about three hours, mostly in Prospect mode with my MXT Pro with the 4x6 coil. I found an old mineshaft on the hillside, littered with quartz. I didn't really get any decent signals. The areas that I worked where either recently turned by firecrew or burned by the fire itself. Other than trashing my knees once again, from working a hillside like a mountain goat. I think I found one shotgun shell.

Any pointers for my next attempt as my knees are recovered We know there is Gold in Mariposa.

 

[shepcal]

Eagle, back in country. If you get into town, give me a holler. You can see pics here in the metal detecting forum.

Chubacabra- No, I know where Maxwell creek comes in, up by Horseshoe bend. This spot is 1 mile walking, west of Bagby bridge on Hells Hollow side of Lake.

 

[EagleDown]

Eagledown. I took your advice and wondered about Mariposa hillsides for about three hours, mostly in Prospect mode with my MXT Pro with the 4x6 coil. I found an old mineshaft on the hillside, littered with quartz. I didn't really get any decent signals. The areas that I worked where either recently turned by firecrew or burned by the fire itself. Other than trashing my knees once again, from working a hillside like a mountain goat. I think I found one shotgun shell.

Any pointers for my next attempt as my knees are recovered We know there is Gold in Mariposa.

Halito Brother,

The first thing that "jumps out" to me from your post is; your coil. You're kinda battling Borgs with a coil that small when you're in the field, or in this case, hills. (Detecting is futile). (lol) I've learned from my limited experience, you need your 'deep seeking' coil for that rough terrain. Save the little coil for working exposed bedrock, where you wouldn't expect a nugget to be more than two to four inches deep. Most nuggets in the hills will be buried quite a bit more than that due to erosion. Yep, I tried the small coil for a while, since it was lighter and easier to get in under bushes, etc. I came to the conclusion that I was just spinning my wheels, for a little comfort.

I could let you know the next time I'm heading for Mariposa to do a little 'tecting. I would be happy to have you go out with me on one of my little forays. I won't promise you gold, but I can show you some areas where you do have have a chance of finding some nice nuggets.

Also, you mentioned you found a mine shaft. In my nomenclature, a 'shaft' is a tunnel that goes straight down into the ground. An addit is a tunnel that has been driven (horizonally) into the side of a hill. The difference between the two would determine the right place to metal detect. (At least theoretically).

Generally, if it's a shaft, it would have been dug on a quartz 'blow-out', in the hopes of striking gold somewhere in the quartz. If it's an addit, chances are that the miner found gold further down the hill and followed it up the hill to its source.
Of course, this is not a set rule, but just something to keep in mind while out prospecting.

 

[EagleDown]

Eagle, back in country. If you get into town, give me a holler. You can see pics here in the metal detecting forum.

Dang!! It's been a long time since I've been jealous of a Brother. BUT, you just did it!! Truly a beautiful sight!!

Would you mind if I copied and posted the pictures here in our thread??

NOTE TO MYSELF: SELF, get your butt over to AZ.

 

[chupacabra]

Eagle, back in country. If you get into town, give me a holler. You can see pics here in the metal detecting forum.

Chubacabra- No, I know where Maxwell creek comes in, up by Horseshoe bend. This spot is 1 mile walking, west of Bagby bridge on Hells Hollow side of Lake.

Hunters valley then, I always wondered why on the NORTH side so many claims not many on the south west side, theres a spot I found that i need to go back with a metal detector, found it in summer and wasn't going to hike up the hill in the heat, brush and whatever but i found a area that 1 either had a mine up the hill or #2 an out cropping was breaking apart, road was scatter with shatter quartz, hill was almost straight up incline.

Merced River at the southern extremity of Lake McClure (Exchequer Reservoir), on the divide between David Gulch and Solomon Gulch (In Hell Hollow near its confluence with the Merced River at Bagby), on private (patented) land, within a Bureau of Land Management wilderness area (Merced River Wilderness Study Area). The property consists of 8.15 patented acres. Operated prior to 1900. Operated by the Pacific Mining Co. MRDS database stated accuracy for this location is 500 meters.

 

[EagleDown]

Dang!! It's been a long time since I've been jealous of a Brother. BUT, you just did it!! Truly a beautiful sight!!

Would you mind if I copied and posted the pictures here in our thread??

NOTE TO MYSELF: SELF, get your butt over to AZ.

I had a nice little visit with shepcal this morning. Nice gold!! Of course, I've never seen any bad gold. (lol) Anyway, he gave me the go ahead to paste the photos here. So, enjoy.

Incidentally, the weights you see on the scale is in dwt. (Penny weights)
Thumbnails

 

[naturegirl08]

Thank you again for all the wonderful stories, Eagle. Do you ever go detecting in Calaveras County?

 

[EagleDown]

Thank you again for all the wonderful stories, Eagle. Do you ever go detecting in Calaveras County?

Sad to say, no. I did a little 'sniping' in Calaveras County back in the early 80s, but didn't have a metal detector at that time. But, I did manage to pan out a little gold. Calaveras County has a rich mining history.

Back when I was in my teens, I loved the story by Samuel Clemmens about the "Spectacular Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". (lol)

 

[Got_4by4]

I gotta rock like that

I had a nice little visit with shepcal this morning. Nice gold!! Of course, I've never seen any bad gold. (lol) Anyway, he gave me the go ahead to paste the photos here. So, enjoy.

Incidentally, the weights you see on the scale is in dwt. (Penny weights)
Thumbnails

Hi Eagle,

It has been quite awhile since I have posted but I do stay up with the thread.
But seeing that picture of Shep's gold reminded me of a sample that I also had collected!
It also came from Arizona and appears to be the same concretion of quartz crystals large
and small glued together with what looks like black "tar". The other side has the brown patina
some call desert varnish that shows it had been exposed in place for many decades.
Her is a picture of mine:

Is there a more common name for these samples of Shep and myself?

Thanks for looking and you can add me to the list for when you book is available.

Steve "PorkChop" aka got_4by4
Fullerton, Ca

 

[EagleDown]

Hi Eagle,

It has been quite awhile since I have posted but I do stay up with the thread.
But seeing that picture of Shep's gold reminded me of a sample that I also had collected!
It also came from Arizona and appears to be the same concretion of quartz crystals large
and small glued together with what looks like black "tar". The other side has the brown patina
some call desert varnish that shows it had been exposed in place for many decades.
Her is a picture of mine:
View attachment 915275
Is there a more common name for these samples of Shep and myself?

Thanks for looking and you can add me to the list for when you book is available.

Steve "PorkChop" aka got_4by4
Fullerton, Ca

You know?, I can't really say if there is a geological term for it. I've never asked or heard of one. Basically, it's what I call "rotten quartz". Quite often, it's associated with wire gold. I have run across a lot of it over the years and since it's exposed to the elements, I kind of figured the sun and cold was causing it to crack and break down into its basic particulate matter. (Sand).

Of course, if it has gold in it, I don't care if it's solid, or if it's rotten. (lol)

Thanks for the question! Though I don't think my answer helps a lot. (lol)

 

[GarretDiggingAz]

If anybody had rotten gold and wants to throw it away I'll be happy to dispose of it properly for ya. Lol.
Great pics of specimen samples.