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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[OwenT]

Sawyer makes a .05% concentration spray for this purpose but I’ve never bought it because it’s much cheaper to DIY. I buy a bottle of 38.6% concentration of permethrin SFR on amazon and dilute it to 1% then soak in a bucket. Once it’s dry it’s safe but it will actually still kill ticks and repel other insects. Beware in liquid form it’s toxic to cats and fish. There has been a lot of discussion on the various hiking and backpacking forums. I love it and don’t use deet anymore. Usually soak my pants, shirt, hat and bandana.

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Thank you Lanny that was a Joy To Read!

However, your tale is unfortunately close to the truth. My brother and I were out of Eagle River, somewhere on this straight black highway going just as straight through the brush as far as one could see it. We were doing sixty something miles per hour when he put on the binders as somehow he could tell we were at "The Fishing Spot", how I never could tell but there it was. He pulled the Bronco up tight to the side of the road so the tall weeds were right at the door and turned the engine off. I immediately stepped from the Beast from Ford when I heard a simultaneous buzz from the brush around me. The sound was heard as soon as I opened the door. Somehow all of those beasts you spoke of were awakened to the fact that "Fresh Blood" was available for the taking and was almost being offered for free.

I've Never been anywhere else before or since where the bugs came at you before you stepped out of the vehicle. I used a lot of REI's anti bug stuff that day, they call it Jungle Juice and it is 100% DEET.

Thank you for the reminder, I think. Herb

Herb, thanks for the compliment on the story, and thanks for your little story as well, enjoyed reading it.

As for the DEET, and bug spray, it does have to be used sparingly as too much is just too much for sure. I prefer Muskol brand, and it's somewhere around 30% DEET, but whatever else they put in it, works.

I always spray some on the top of my hat, on the bill, wear long-sleeve white shirts, spray around the ankles, tuck pants into socks to stop the black flies from crawling up my legs, button the top collar button on the shirt, wear gloves whenever possible, spray around shirt cuffs, spray behind ears, rub some repellent around the inside part of the ear (not down onto the eardrum), but once it gets hot, the sweat works the spray off, and the process starts all over again.

As for the materials impregnated with the chemical Owen is talking about, both DEET and Permethrin are chemicals that need to be used carefully, with Permethrin being an actual poison that truly kills bugs, whereas DEET is a repellent.

I have never seen hordes of bugs like I saw in the north, insanely huge clouds that built into living walls of bugs, nuts really how many there were, and every one of them in a big hurry to feed as the breeding season for them is much shorter than here in the southern parts closer to the US border.

The bugs really do make it quite distasteful for nugget shooting, and when headphones are worn, wherever the repellent sweats off, the bugs attack, kind of a constant battle really. Spraying the ears works quite well for general prospecting, but headphones keep the bugs out of the ear canal, but then, as previously mentioned, the sweat areas allow the bugs to attack. So, if using an external speaker, the ears would be open to attack all of the time, so tradeoffs both ways.

All the best, and thanks for your little story and for your response, much appreciated,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Sawyer makes a .05% concentration spray for this purpose but I’ve never bought it because it’s much cheaper to DIY. I buy a bottle of 38.6% concentration of permethrin SFR on amazon and dilute it to 1% then soak in a bucket. Once it’s dry it’s safe but it will actually still kill ticks and repel other insects. Beware in liquid form it’s toxic to cats and fish. There has been a lot of discussion on the various hiking and backpacking forums. I love it and don’t use deet anymore. Usually soak my pants, shirt, hat and bandana.

Really appreciate your input Owen, and your detailed descriptions of the uses of Permethrin; it's something I've never used, but I know people that have used it and really like it.

I'm not sure how well it would work against the great northern hordes either, as they truly are insane to get some blood to carry on their family lines, due to the short breeding season, so very voracious feeders. I think the clothing being permeated would do something to keep them off, but the exposed skin would be the real challenge, as when I'd spray up with DEET, they were only a fraction of an inch from my face the entire time, and it really was easy to breathe them in. I imagine a bug net over the head would probably be a better idea, but not everyone can handle having something over their faces all of the time.

I'll look into it as I'm a lot farther south where I chase the gold now, and most of the problems are from mosquitoes, very few black flies, and horse and deer flies, so it might be a better solution.

Thanks for the tips, much appreciated,

Lanny

 

[OwenT]

No problem Lanny. Thank you for the stories. As for permethrin, I think you already understand the limitations. When bugs are bad, as they were on my cascades backpacking trip this summer, then you get a couple inches of buffer, enough to keep the face uncovered if you have the head and neck covered when you’re not moving quickly. Still, in such cases a permethrin treated clothing + deet for the exposed skin treatment works well

 

[63bkpkr]

Bugs & Sprays how to keep them away - I was at a camping outlet Friday having my bicycle repaired (its my exercise machine), looking at a 1lb REI chair (bought the 1.1lb Helinox as it fit me better) and looked at pretty much everything! Noticed they had several headnets from $8 to $13 US, the less costly net had larger netting voids, I'd guess No Se-Um's would get through. The minimal inspection was an Aha moment as to why I'd pay a bit more if I found I needed one.

I've been going through my gear in preparations for a long stay in the hills IF I do not have a job when the snow melts. With the chair purchase completed all I'd really need to purchase would be food then I need to go through everything to make sure it all works, fix what can be fixed, confirm my batteries are good and exercise. It is warming up (as expected here in San Diego), in NorCal the mountains are still Cold/having some snow/a little rain/the rivers are above normal flow and I am certain there will be plenty of water puddles for the bugs to hatch from...........63bkpkr

 

[Lanny in AB]

Bugs & Sprays how to keep them away - I was at a camping outlet Friday having my bicycle repaired (its my exercise machine), looking at a 1lb REI chair (bought the 1.1lb Helinox as it fit me better) and looked at pretty much everything! Noticed they had several headnets from $8 to $13 US, the less costly net had larger netting voids, I'd guess No Se-Um's would get through. The minimal inspection was an Aha moment as to why I'd pay a bit more if I found I needed one.

I've been going through my gear in preparations for a long stay in the hills IF I do not have a job when the snow melts. With the chair purchase completed all I'd really need to purchase would be food then I need to go through everything to make sure it all works, fix what can be fixed, confirm my batteries are good and exercise. It is warming up (as expected here in San Diego), in NorCal the mountains are still Cold/having some snow/a little rain/the rivers are above normal flow and I am certain there will be plenty of water puddles for the bugs to hatch from...........63bkpkr

I hope you get the job, but if you don't, here's to success with your back-up plan that encompasses the trip and the adventure.

You have been waiting for quite a while to get back out there, and I hope you hit some sweet gold this time as well as recharge your life batteries.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Flashback Series: Tales From The Flat, Part 1

Oh, the things we discover when we camp with someone for the first time . . .

In the 1990’s, I used to chase the gold a long, long ways north and west of where I currently live, and the last section of the journey was a series of rough logging roads that was hard on vehicles and on nerves (if you’ve ever almost been killed by a logging truck, you know of what I speak).

After our arduous journey, we selected a spot where some of the original gold rush miners from the 1870’s had camped. It was a nice level spot with a creek on one side and the river on the other, the river about 30 feet down on the left, the creek located in a gentle draw on the right.

We went through the tiring process of unloading everything from the back of the truck, so that we could set up the outfitter’s wall tent. Once we’d put together a portion of the steel inner-frame, we hauled the white canvas up over the sidewall and roof supports. Next, I ran inside to lift up the remaining sidewall struts and poles, in order to set up, adjust, and stabilize the wall legs while my partner steadied the tent. After our canvas home was up, we covered the whole thing with a massive silver tarp as extra protection from the sudden downpours that frequently occur in those remote mountains. Then, we secured the tarp and the tent walls with ropes and stakes, and lastly, set up our mattresses, bedding, and the wood-burning stove my partner had manufactured himself (he used to supply the GPAA with stoves for their Alaska trips).

We set up our base-camp on the flat treed area of older growth spruce, fur, white-barked birch, aspen, complimented by (along the banks of the bordering creek) thick stands of green-leafed willows and alders. Nestled amongst the trees, here and there, were several old log cabins, none of them inhabited, and an abandoned Hudson’s Bay store. However, all possessed great character. Likely each structure had many tales to tell, being located in such a rich, storied goldfield, one where the Argonauts had chased the gold for well over a hundred and twenty years. On a related note, the old road we had journeyed in on ran right through our camping flat, and was still in use by the locals to get to the upper lakes for fishing, and to get upstream to their mining claims.

With the camp set up, I finally felt how truly hammered I was from lack of sleep, adrenaline drop, and road exhaustion, brought on by sixteen straight hours of night and day travel on terrible roads, plus near-death encounters with logging trucks! As the long summer night was beginning to wane, all I wanted to do was crawl into my sleeping bag and drift off to blissful sleep. That is what I wanted, but that is not what happened . . .

A long, restful sleep was not to be that first night. Even though I fell asleep easily, I was soon jarred from my dreams to discover something shocking about my partner: his snoring alternated somewhere between the noise of a fully-revved chainsaw, to that of a fully engaged Jake-Brake (engine ******er brake) on a semi-trailer! I tried pushing on his air mattress to interrupt his screeching midnight symphony, but he only snorted, made puckering and slurping sounds, and then hurried on to compose whole new measures to his masterpiece.

Mercifully, my brain came to my rescue: I remembered hearing somewhere that a sudden, loud noise could jar a person from their deep-sleep snoring, leaving them in a lighter state of sleep with no snoring. In desperation, I whistled as loud as I could. (I can perform a loud, ear-splitting whistle on command, call my horses in from half a mile) My partner shot bolt upright in his sleeping bag, wildly scanning every corner of the tent, completely unaware of what had torn him from his sleep. I lay there as quiet and motionless as death, eyes closed, the perfect picture of an unconscious tent mate. As nothing was amiss in the tent, he quickly settled down to drift off to a soundless sleep.

For about fifteen minutes . . .

After that short reprieve, he launched into a whole new musical composition whose noise surpassed his former cruel and unnatural level! I genuinely felt he would wake the long-dead miners in the historic cemetery two blocks away. So, I whistled again, with a renewed, desperate effort. Once more, he sat bolt upright, and again, I remained motionless and silent. This time, the snoring ceased for the night, and I slept like the dead in the cemetery two blocks distant.

Upon waking the next morning, my partner was in a reflective mood. It took him a bit of time to come out and state what was perplexing him so deeply. After fidgeting a bit, he said, “Do you realize you whistle in your sleep? You woke me up last night, and I just couldn’t get back to sleep!”

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Flashback Series: Tales From The Flat, Part 2

Things that go “snort” in the night.


After our largely sleepless night, the next day we set about cutting firewood, and we went off in search of drinking water (we even located a local spring of pure water whose taste finished with a little buzz on the tongue, great stuff indeed).

Returning to camp and firing up the stove to get rid of the chill in the tent (there was ice on the fire bucket water in the corner), and after cooking grub on the stove, we ate a hearty breakfast, layered ourselves with bug-dope, then took the quad for a ride to wind our way along the twisting, bumpy road that headed up the canyon. The day was calm, the sky a pristine blue. Yellow and purple flowers grew thickly along the sides of the road. Lazy bumblebees went from flower to flower performing their unpredictable aerobatics. Butterflies and humming birds busily fed among the same blossoms. In addition, the ageless melodies of colourful songbirds filled the crisp mountain air. As a punctuation mark to all of this, the invigorating smell of new-growth pine was everywhere.

Steadily climbing in elevation, we worked our way toward the upstream placer workings, ancient and modern. When we saw a current site, we took the time to introduce ourselves to the miners. In this way, we discovered two operations just off the main logging road, with a total of eight crew members working at each. Both operations exposed old drift mines from the 1800’s and the 1930’s, revealing a fascinating series of dark tunnels and opened rooms.

The larger of the two placer operations struck pay running six grams of gold to the yard, with that amount increasing to eight grams to the yard on bedrock (the old rule about gold being on bedrock held true at these operations). The gold was coarse, nuggets in the half ounce to ounce and a half range were retrieved. Being bumpy and rough, the gold had lots of character, and with the channel material removed, it was bedded in graphite schist or slate formations.

The other operation was a bit smaller, their equipment was older, so they spent a lot of time repairing their equipment we were told. However, they were located where several ancient channels intertwined and intersected, and this formation produced gorgeous gold from their mine as well. They were very friendly and even shut down their wash-plant and excavation machinery to chat with us (not a lot of visitors in that remote area).

Both mining ventures invited us to detect their claims whenever we wished! What a shock, but a good one. We only had to inform them of our finds, and if we honoured their show-and-tell request, they didn't want any of the gold, very nice neighbors indeed! (We went home with fantastic, chunky nuggets from that trip thanks to them.)

Later, on a branch leading off from the main logging road, we came across a fellow in his late 70’s patiently working a small-scale operation. The old-timer was working a pay zone, dark gray in colour, six feet thick above a lighter-coloured layer of dirt resting on the bedrock (Strangely there was no gold on the bedrock whatsoever!). However, the gold he was getting was magnificent; some of it was crystalline, and all of it was coarse.

We learned quickly in that new region that the pay-layers had to be found and worked where they were, not where we thought they should be. We had to forget some of our previous learning, open our minds, and accept new inputs, strategies, and gold-deposition thinking. The old notion that the best gold was found on bedrock only was tossed out, and new facts were accepted.

That night before closing our eyes, my partner, probably still suffering from post-traumatic whistle-shock, told me, “You know, my wife always makes me turn on my side when I snore at home. She says it stops me cold.” And, with that, he turned on his side. (I did wonder why he’d kept this from me the night before.) With all quiet, I drifted peacefully off to sleep . . .

Later however, my conscious mind alerted my ever-alert subconscious that all was not right with the world. Something was once more amiss. Listening carefully, I noted that my partner was still as quiet as a sleeping newborn. Because of this, I was somewhat puzzled as to why I was awake. Thinking perhaps my subconscious was a bit overactive from the previous night’s debacle, I was just drifting off when I clearly heard what my subconscious had heard.

“Snort—snuffle!”

Icy fingers skittered up my spine; my body began to contract itself into its smallest form. Visions of Timothy Treadwell danced in my head. (Tent walls offer no protection from large, apex predators.) Then something big struck one of the tent’s guy ropes, and it reverberated with a loud twang. This contact with the rope produced an alarmed snort, followed quickly by several others. My brain’s alert level shot to the top of the scale, as we were in remote country filled with blacks and grizzlies. To complicate matters, it was certain there were multiple somethings out there in the dark.

To be continued:

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Flashback Series: Tales From The Flat, Part 3

Confronting the terror.

During this paralytic horror, my only comfort was the assailants were on the same side of the tent as my dozing partner. However, my shameless security in using my partner as a human shield vanished when one of the snorting monsters shifted itself to the back of the tent (right where our heads were) as it began to tear at the grass! I was no longer safe. A two-pronged attack is always harder to defend against. Imagine my heightened distress when another one started ripping up grass at the front of the tent! These attackers were definitely not browsing deer. The weight of these assassins caused the ground to shudder as they moved. Whatever they were, they were huge.

Having nothing to lose now, I reached over and shook my partner. He came awake with a slurping gurgle, and he asked me if he’d been snoring again. I shook my head, but at the sound of his voice, the snorting, snuffling, and tearing of grass immediately halted. The night was deathly still. Using agitated hand signs, I relayed my concerns.

From under my pillow, I flicked on a tiny penlight, then made my way to the front of the tent where I kept a large, halogen flashlight. As I picked it up, the snorting, snuffling and tearing started again. Turning around to check on my partner’s progress, my light lit his panicked, bulging eyes. His hair stood on end! (It didn’t matter it always looked that way; it was perfect for the mood at that moment.) Rushing past me, he flew to the foot of the bed and yanked his 30-30 from its scabbard. The new noises he made caused the outside noises to stop once more.

Gathering all of my courage, then nodding to each other to be ready, I unzipped the front of the tent, and we stepped outside.

I quickly panned my bright halogen beam left and right. Multiple, malevolent eyes were instantly lit in the darkness. I was thunderstruck by their number. We were besieged by an invasion force; evil eyes blazed hotly in the boreal darkness. And then, those demonic eyes, in those huge heads, jerked up from the ground. Massive blasts of exhaled, steamy breath, fogged, and then filled the air.

Regardless of the horror, and somehow finding a reserve of inner strength, I continued moving the light and fully illuminated that host of bodies. I watched in transformed terror as the nocturnal beasts’ claws turned to hooves, their imagined humps to manes, until as one, with a great blowing and snorting, off they all ran.

I have never been so terrified by a herd of wild horses.

We found out the next day that throughout the summer there was a herd that worked its way up and down the connected series of canyons above and below where we were camped.

Of course we both had a good laugh (a hysterical, counterfeit kind of a laugh for sure), and we both uttered macho statements about how silly it was to get all worked up about bears, when in reality it was only horses after all. Clearly, it was the kind of jittery conversation that accompanies the complete and utter loss of every shred of manly dignity.

Oh, the everlasting shame . . .

All the best,

Lanny

(P.S. In the last instalment of this “Tales From The Flats” series, I will relate another disturbing black and midnight event that plagued our seemingly cursed sleep.)

 

[Terry Soloman]

I LOVE these stories!! Thank you so much for sharing with us Lanny!

 

[Lanny in AB]

I LOVE these stories!! Thank you so much for sharing with us Lanny!

Thanks Terry!

I appreciate your feedback and your support.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Flashback Poetry: (Alder Gulch, Virginia City Montana is where I first got bit! I wrote these lines in memory of that fateful day.)


The Alder Gulch Virus, or, Why I Chase The Gold


In days gone by, when just a lad
My sister’s spouse did somethin’ bad
A ghostly town we went to see,
That lit a fire within me . . .

Virginia City’s driving force
Was mining gold. You knew of course
That Henry Plummer ruled that town
‘Til vigilantes brought him down.

But his demise is not my goal,
A bug bit me to take its toll.
It bred a fever inside me,
Away down south, in Montanny.

What plague is that, you’ll likely say,
That sickened me that fateful day?
A golden fever, spread in me
And since that day, I ain’t been free.

The bug that bit that special day,
Infected me in every way.
Just let me say, there ain’t no pill,
To cure that sassy fever’s ill.

I’ve tried to lick it, ain’t no fun
That potent fever’s always won.
It’s driven me around the bend,
Up mountain streams, to canyon’s end.

It’s made me search in arctic climes
And in the desert many times.
But nothin’ ever seems to kill
My golden fever’s iron will.

But should I cure it? What the heck?
There’s tougher ways to stretch one’s neck!
There’s booze and parties, speed and weed;
There’s lust and pride. There’s crime and greed.

But blast it all, it seems to me
It ain’t the gold that’s drivin’ me.
The lookin’ for it’s got me hooked
That’s why my fevered brain is cooked.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[OwenT]

Lanny, your stories are top notch, but your poetry I think is amazing. I'm not that well versed in poetry, but I know at least that I couldn't come up with something like this. You have my respect. I think the reason this one may have stuck out to me more is becasue it hits so close to home. Anyone who's been bit by the gold bug will enjoy this one.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lanny, your stories are top notch, but your poetry I think is amazing. I'm not that well versed in poetry, but I know at least that I couldn't come up with something like this. You have my respect. I think the reason this one may have stuck out to me more is becasue it hits so close to home. Anyone who's been bit by the gold bug will enjoy this one.

Many thanks for the compliments Owen, and thanks as well for dropping in to leave a note, much appreciated.

I'm glad you connected with the poem about getting bit by the gold bug as it's certainly had a profound effect on me, starting when I was only 12-years old on that trip with my brother-in-law, true story, to Virginia City Montana. If you've never had a chance to visit, there's twin ghost towns (Virginia City and Nevada City) with all kinds of restored buildings and artifacts, well worth the trip.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Flashback Series: Tales From The Flat, Finale

The Midnight Cusser!

Well, I know it’s hard to believe, but it took us a while to get back to sleep after the wild horse encounter. So, we bucked up our spirits by telling far less scary stories about real bear encounters, most-likely due to shock, and eventually we went back to sleep.

We awoke the next morning to a beautiful, clear day.

After breakfast, we went to the truck and took out our metal detectors. We connected the batteries and then walked a few steps away to conduct some tests. My machine worked flawlessly. So, I tossed me test nugget on the ground (glued to an old Golden Nugget poker chip) and got a nice low-high-low sound.

All at once I heard the most awful screeching. I figured my partner passed his coil too close to the truck, all of that metal overloading his circuits, the noise blasting from his speaker . . . However, as I turned to look, I saw a blur disappear into the tent. Nope, not the detector at all, my partner simply forgot his bug spray.

Well, we went out that day and dug all kinds of square nails (factory ones and hand-made ones too), bits of lead, pieces of tin, iron wire, copper wire, shell casings, bullet lead, but no nuggets. We came home dog-tired and ready for bed. Up north, it’s possible to get in fourteen or more hours of detecting in a day if the weather’s good, and we’d put in lots of hours of swinging the coils that day.

I actually fell asleep before my partner that night, as he was updating his little spiral-bound notebook he always carries in his front pocket (a hold-over from his ranching days). Anyway, around midnight (I sleep with my watch on), something woke me. At first, all I heard was a faint scuffing noise, off in the distance, accompanied by a human voice, and then the words started to sink in.

Someone approaching from downstream was weaving a tapestry of obscenity unlike anything I’d ever heard. He was a true master of the art. As he got closer, his cussing intensified, but then he sped past the tent. Swearing like a sailor the entire time, he faded away in the distance to be heard no more.

My partner slept through the entire event, blissfully unaware of the fine performance he’d missed. On the other hand, I was quite astounded by the profane sermon, but eventually I fell asleep.

Several hours later, I woke again to familiar sounds in the darkness.

The same scuffing noise, the same colorful language returned from the opposite direction! The volume increased until the midnight cusser sped by the tent, the words drifting off in the distance. Other than being annoyed at losing some sleep, I was ready to write it off as an odd, once-in-a-lifetime performance.

It was not!

(The next morning, I could clearly see bicycle tracks in the dust on the road. That explained the hurried arrival and departure speed of our midnight caller.)

The next night, at the same time, the northern preacher repeated his sermon in all its glory. Hearing his approach, I woke my buddy so he could witness the event. Several hours later, I woke my partner to enjoy the return soliloquy. (However, he seemed a bit cranky I’d woke him up.)

The next night, I was sound asleep, yet my partner woke me to listen to those midnight verses. (I wonder why he did that?) Moreover, for the return performance, my partner woke me yet again. (Karma? Or, was it only revenge?)

The next morning, we followed the preacher’s bicycle tracks for miles up the road until they crossed a bridge over a stream. We quit following them at that point, as it was obvious he traveled extensively at night, spreading his wilderness sermon far and wide.

That night, he returned again, with renewed energy and volume in his delivery, but I was ready to do something about it.

(Remember that halogen flashlight, the one that could turn bears into horses? Well, I devised a plan to use its blazing white light to full advantage.)

As he approached, I quietly unzipped the front of the tent, and when he was alongside the tent, I gave him the full halogen blast! He jerked on his bike as if he’d been pole-axed!! His head snapped up, his one hand clawed the air to fend off the impending blindness, but it was too late.

Losing control as he raised his hand, the gravel hooked his front tire, and off he shot at right angles to the road, launching gloriously into the crisp night air, shooting down the embankment, flying through a dense thicket of alders, to plunge into the knee deep water of the creek.

My partner wondered if the bicyclist might need some help. However, I assured him that anyone that could swear like that didn’t need any help with their cussing . . .

To prove my point, we heard some strangled cries, some renewed cussing that surpassed anything we’d heard to date, followed by a great deal of splashing water, the sound of many branches breaking, and then, by the halogen beam, we spotted him emerging from the gloom. Mounting his metallic steed, and with many squishy sounds, he rode off down the road, utterly speechless, but likely thoughtful.

We crawled back under the blankets, and were not awakened by a return performance later that night, or any other night.

Somehow, I’d found a solution to those midnight sermons.

Somehow, indeed.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[63bkpkr]

Thank you Lanny for this series of storied shared about what goes bump, snore or stomp in the night!

I've backpacked since I was a teenager first sleeping w/o a tent, getting tired of the bugs and jungle juice at night I purchased my first tent and then on to others. And yes, just beyond that ever so thin nylon tent wall came unfamiliar sounds of mountain trolls, big foot, Grizzly bears and worse yet the unknown. However I've lived through 50+ years of tenting and never has the tent been torn, at night. The sounds when added to being very tired are multiplied to extreme heights by our unconsious or concious minds allowing ones mind to wander near and very far out there. Thank you for the reminder and I will try to remember that not all that snorts in the night is a meat eating monster..............Herb

 

[Lanny in AB]

Herb,

Always great to have your feedback as well as your shares about your past experiences, makes the connections to you more solid knowing about the common things we all go through while in the wild with our imaginations on hyperdrive overload.

All the best, and thanks for always being a friend,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Interesting video with some good tips.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

This post falls into the category of things that haunt us, the lost opportunities, the unknowns that make us wish we'd have done something different, that we’d have paid more attention at the time, or that we’d have made a return trip . . .

I know of a spot that I have to get back to one day where they were running the material so fast they were pushing nuggets over the end of the sluice boxes, and all of that material ran under a road across jagged bedrock, so those nuggets will still be there.

That same outfit had a hopper that had a leak, and it used to ooze out material from one side. These guys were getting so much gold, they knew about the leak, and they knew they were pushing gold over the end of the sluices, but the season up north is short, and the material was incredibly rich, so they were running flat out to get as much as quickly as they could. Furthermore, because they were getting so much gold, they wound up not caring about what they’d lost.

From my own experience, I know the gold was left at the site after they pulled their equipment out as I panned a few spots, and talk about pickers! That country is known for coarse gold. I gathered up a couple of five-gallon buckets for my son to pan, and what a party he had running those buckets through a little river sluice. There was lots of dirt left at the site of that hopper too. But, once again, a person would have to know exactly where to look, and to the casual observer, they'd never have a clue as to what had taken place there in the past.
However, I’ll add a few more details about that abandoned area, and the wash-plant, as well as a bit about the crew and the deposition of gold in their mining cut.

After removing about forty feet of overburden (boulder clay: thick glacial clay salted with boulders), the ancient channel was finally exposed, with lots of orange material (orange is a good sign of the heavy mineralization that runs with the gold in ancient channels) in the bottom six feet of material that was sitting tight on bedrock. Moreover, getting to the bedrock had exposed a large section of tunnel where the old-timers had worked extensively, and as those Sourdoughs did all of that underground, back-breaking work by hand, it was a good sign that we might have a great chance to hit some good gold as well, and we sure did.

After the modern miners used the excavator to take the orange material out, and there was only bare bedrock left, I got invited into the pit to have a look at the side-wall of the channel, the area composing the ancient stream material that was still buried under all of the previously mentioned overburden. It was a sight I'll never forget.

The excavator operator (who was also the mine owner) walked me in from the north end of the cut, and he said, "I've never seen this before. Come take a look."

He walked me over to where the cleaned bedrock met the wall, and then he started pointing out nuggets in the wall! You just can't make this stuff up!!

About a foot off of the bedrock, and all along the length of the cut, we walked along flicking out multi-gram nuggets from the side wall into a pan!! I'd certainly never seen anything like it before, and I haven't seen anything remotely close to that amazing sight since.

The owner had to go to town for machinery parts, and the second-in-command wanted to yard as much through the wash-plant as quickly as possible, but not having been in the game as long as the owner, he overfed the plant, because when they shut it down, the twin sluices were yellow from top to bottom with nuggets!! That's another sight I haven't seen since, and one you should never see if you're running the plant properly. Furthermore, that's why the nuggets went over the end of the sluice with the discharge water, getting trapped on the broken bedrock as the water rushed under the road to fall into the waiting settling pond, and nobody ever tried to recover them as the whole outfit left at the end of the season and none of them returned (me included).

However, as I said earlier, they got so much gold everyone was happy regardless. Now, that’s the kind of gold mining problem I’d love to have in the future, the issue of pushing nuggets over the end of the sluice but not bothering to recover them because the overall take was so rich!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[OwenT]

A deliciously golden tale! One would wonder why you've never been back?