Alaskan Pay dirt

[SteveDigsGems]

Earlier this evening I decided to pan some Alaskan pay dirt that I bought from an eBay seller. I bought 1 pound for $15, and it is guaranteed to have gold, because the lady sprinkles a pinch in. I didn't get rich, but I am really happy with the experience I got out of it. I have a lot of friends that want to travel out to my local gold bearing rivers with me to sluice, but before we go, I'm probably going to have them pan some of the dirt in my backyard. It is a good opportunity for them to see how the gold behaves, and it will motivate them for the upcoming trip.





Sorry about the quality, my camera ran out of batteries, this is an iPad picture. I'll get some batteries next time I'm at the store and upload what I found.







-Steve

 

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[TerryC]

Keep the faith, Cody. As Clint says in Heartbreak Ridge", "Improvise, Adapt, Overcome." OORAH! TTC

 

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[SteveDigsGems]

Here are my results from another bag of paydirt, from the same mine. Again, I found some Gold, pretty nice sized flakes. It was nice to have that bag of dirt today, it was a lazy day, but the Gold bug was still biting. It's always nice to do some backyard panning.. Especially when you find something at the bottom of your pan.



-Steve

 

[khpony]

I bought a $15 bag from them also. It wasn't to get rich. The wife and I are new to this and since I've been practicing panning in the local river, with no results, I wanted to pan something with a little gold in it to be sure I was doing it correctly. The bag served it's purpose and was most helpful. As soon as the rivers slow down up in the mountains we'll be trying our hand at it, hopefully with good results.

 

[elkie13]

Got up to my claim this weekend, as you can see, still snow everywhere. But the paydirt pile was thawed out so we didn't have to thaw it with a weed burner. Took the time to get a bucket for me and did some panning with the kid!

I will confess I heated some water up on the stove to add to the panning tray...

 

[SteveDigsGems]

Shoot, now that is some work! Thanks for posting the pictures, that is awesome. Do you have any threads with more pictures? I bet the people here would love it, do you have a blog or anything?

 

[elkie13]

We do have a blog. I don't know if I can post it here but I am a paying member so it's in my profile.

Here's the dozer going up the trail from camp plowing snow. Also as you can see the creek is open again. I will see if I can find some good photos from last season to add. I swear this time last year we were mining, hope summer hurries up.

 

[usdcopper]

I just went through my bag of dirt in purchased too. Nice colors and I am hoping he weather gets straightened out soon. I am going to try to attach a pic of my haul. Great stuff.

 

[SteveDigsGems]

Nice! That was a good bag!! Thanks for sharing man, very cool.

 

[elkie13]

We made it up to our claim today. As you can see snow is starting to melt. Thought you guys would like to see the actual dig site the paydirt comes from. If you can see the layers and the round rocks this is what gives us the idea that we are in old river bed. This is about 100 yards up hill from where the creek is now.

The weird thing is that the gold gets better as we are moving uphill...got more pics but will have to wait until tomorrow.

 

[SteveDigsGems]

Maybe you are finding a paystreak on the older river bed? How exciting! You know there are going to be some nice pieces in there, they've just been sitting there, waiting.. This makes me want to buy more dirt, lol!

 

[elkie13]

Here's the other pictures I mentioned. First, evidence of our claims past and a minor mystery. We found this hole that the old timers made complete with ladder. It's only about 5 feet deep now as far as we can tell but obviously was once deeper. What were they after?
The answer may lie in the walk of bedrock near by with a huge quartz vein. I've never had it assayed but this weekend i collected the red mud next to the quartz and panned it. Along with some gold was a bunch of perfectly formed quartz crystals. Made it really fun to pan! Here's a picture of the crystals.

 

[Fullpan]

Elkie - I for one, would enjoy seeing a blow-by-blow thread, similar to Lanny's in AB. We can all learn something, watching a mining operation.

 

[elkie13]

Well I wish I could show you guys great pictures of the gold we got this weekend, but first, we had to do some house keeping. In the picture below you can see us pepping the spot for our new wash plant. We had to build in the setting pond and the retaining wall that goes next to the wash plant. The wash plant has to be loaded from the top and fulling extended its over 12 feet tall. This means we have to build up the dirt to we can drive up with the loader safely. The triangle pieces are what hold the dirt back on the side next to the plant.

I also have a picture of the new wash plant we built this winter. It is collapsed down for traveling. We got this as plans off the Internet built the smaller version last year, and spent all year modifying what didn't work. This is the big version that we are implementing. Hopefully we will be running dirt by Memorial Day.

 

[SteveDigsGems]

Wow, and I thought I was working hard at the river this week! I had my best day ever, but I can't wait to see what you found. Thank you for keeping us updated, it's a lot of fun to see the process.

 

[elkie13]

I noticed that gold hog was an advertiser on here. Just so happens we are trying some of this in our wash plant. Normally we just use miners moss and expanded metal but after reading various studies we decided to try black mat under punch plate right were the water falls into the sluice.

For those of you that don't know, they sell this stuff 36 inches by 6 inches. You have to glue the pieces together to make your own mat. One piece of advice, watch the video before you attempt and buy the exact glue and tape they recommend. Also buy a little extra and be conservative in your cuts. It's not as easy as they make it look in the video. I hope for the effort and price it's works like they claim.

I did not use the exact tape and glue they recommend but hopefully it will work ok.

 

[davinci]

Did you drill the ground to see how rich it is before setting up everything?

 

[SteveDigsGems]

I was wondering about those mats, you'll have to tell us how they work for you. Thanks for the update, I hope you had a great day. I was on the river today, found some nice gold. Five pickers and a bunch of flakes all over my assay mat, at least twenty or thirty. I'm going to pan my concentrates tomorrow, see how well I really did.

 

[elkie13]

Did you drill the ground to see how rich it is before setting up everything?

No we did not drill, the terrain os too steep and the costs too high to do that. We spent all last summer driving around doing test digs. We hit on this spot towards the end of the summer and were getting better and better returns before our wash plant broke.

Our new wash plant is going right were the old one was, but its twice as big so we had to modify the site.

 

[Doitlaynstyle]

I'm not selling commercially but lately when I hit a hot spot I have been collecting a bucket and I have been offering that up for those who want 5# bags for the cost of shipping and handling. I too have been running the Gold Hog and I gave a pretty good review Here. I think it is awesome that you guys are doing so well up there and with this paydirt and I might get some just to see what Alaska gold looks like. My last take was covered in late 1800's mercury LOL

 

[SteveDigsGems]

Great video, it's interesting to see how the mercury holds the gold. Do you have a video of you cleaning the mercury?