Kevin in Colorado...and elsewhere

[KevinInColorado]

Hmmmmm. Seems like some of your other posts also included some "authors privileges"(?) while visiting historic mine sites. Always best to have personally guided tours or free rein to explore usually closed areas when you are doing research.

On a side note: I will be in Rico early next week and will spend some time on a private placer claim which is located away from any running water. I also may work the Dolores River itself or some feeder creeks. After doing some checking I did not see anywhere if stream bank digging is allowed or just digging within the wetted area of the stream bed. I remember that you did some sluicing a couple of years ago just down stream from Rico. I think I know where you were from your description at the time (actually close to one of the claims). What type of digging did you do?

Thanks and good luck on your book.

Not really author's privilege (well, maybe a couple times in the past). This latest was because I was part of an outing associated with an academic symposium

When I was downstream of Rico, I dug in the wet zone but there's no actual restriction. It was just NFS claimable land

 

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[KevinInColorado]

Got out yesterday with three of my wife's cousins and their 6 sons, aged 7-19. All had a great time, found gold and had to be dragged back to the trucks after 5 hours on the Colorado River!

 

[GoldpannerDave]

View attachment 1475679
Got special permission to go into the Central City Glory Hole on Friday. Amazing place!
View attachment 1475680
Notice how they cut the pit right down through the old tunnels.

I have a picture like that from when they started digging the current huge pit in Cripple Creek. You can see tunnels just like here.

 

[KevinInColorado]

...like this? (Cresson Pit, June 2017)

That's a 250 Ton haul truck in the upper left of the pic. The circles of rocks in the center of the pit mark areas where it's hollow underneath (old stope area) and so unsafe for the trucks to drive there!

 

[Prospector70]

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...like this? (Cresson Pit, June 2017)

Those guys got: THE FEVER!! lol

 

[GoldpannerDave]

View attachment 1478385
...like this? (Cresson Pit, June 2017)

That's a 250 Ton haul truck in the upper left of the pic. The circles of rocks in the center of the pit mark areas where it's hollow underneath (old stope area) and so unsafe for the trucks to drive there!

Yes, except the pit was much smaller when I visited in 1985. I had given a lecture to 1400 Chem 2 cadets at the Air Force Academy on the Chemistry of Gold. We had talked about cyanidation and that a company called Silver State were doing that now at Cripple Creek. One of my cadets came up and said his uncle was comptroller at Silver State and would I like a tour? The answer was YES!!

Silver State had begun digging out old mining areas, grinding the ore to powder and heap leaching it in 1981. At the time of my lecture gold was in the $300's and their all in costs were about $290/oz. They were eventually bought out. Today, Newmont owns the Cripple Creek Victor Mine, as it is now called. Newmont recently bought it from AngloGold Ashanti, who bought it from some one else, who had bought Silver State. Along the way, the company started consolidating the rest of the mines so they could do what you see now.

Anyway, I did take a tour in 1985 and got some great pictures. They were smelting and pouring gold that day (70 oz was the result). I will have to find and post those pictures. The pit had 3 tunnels very obviously visible since they had chosen to sink the pit into the area those 3 mines had been working.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Cool history! Today they are running two pits and pouring over 1,000 oz per DAY!

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Cool history! Today they are running two pits and pouring over 1,000 oz per DAY!

Today, they do not grind to powder, but to 3/4 " size. That apparently is the sweet spot right now for the costs to crush and the amount of gold extracted, given the current price of gold and the current state of the technology for leaching. If the price goes up, they can re-crush to a smaller size and cyanide it again (basically only the surface is extracted with the cyanide). Silver State ground to powder and extracted virtually all the gold (I know, you never get 100.00%, but you know what I mean). So the tailings they left are not really worth treating again. Not so with the current process.

Also, Silver State heap leached inside so they could process during the winter. Currently, the Cripple Creek and Victor Mine piles the ore on hillsides outside. The bitter cold in winter in Colorado and Cripple Creek in particular means the chemical process slows down significantly. I suspect their pour amounts are much larger in the summer vs say January. But Silver State was much, much smaller and probably needed to run all year to avoid cash flow problems.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Interesting detail to learn. They forecast to pour just over 400K Troy ounces this year but I bet you're right about the winter effect. They did also say they crush some high grade ore to powder and process it indoors; only the large amounts of low grade ore go on the outside heap leach.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Found a poor copy of the picture at Cripple Creek years ago. You can plainly see 3 tunnels to the right of center, but there are others also visible.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

The tube in the foreground is a huge covered conveyor belt to move ore to the top of the pit. Here again poor quality, but you can see huge mining trucks at the bottom of the pit. (bottom center and slightly to the right of that)

 

[KevinInColorado]

Got out digging today while my wife was off shopping. Dug three holes and all three produced

Here's the gold separated by size -50 +30 30-50

 

[Prospector70]

Look at that grin, looks like you have a pretty good system with that tarp. And that is some damn nice gold for that creek. Holy smokes!

 

[KevinInColorado]

More fun digging:
Sampling panning in Idaho Springs:

A new spot with Jim on the South Platte River right near downtown Denver:

And then I met up with Dennis and took personal delivery on a Grizzly Goldtrap "Explorer":

This warranted a serious digging session!


(+30 in the middle, -50 mesh on the right) 0.40 grams

I'll share more about the sluice later but it sure works well!! Anyone want to buy a used Bazooka?

 

[brianc053]

If you'll autograph it Kevin, I'll buy your used bazooka!
- Brian

 

[Capt Nemo]

View attachment 1484338
(+30 in the middle, -50 mesh on the right) 0.40 grams

 

[KevinInColorado]

If you'll autograph it Kevin, I'll buy your used bazooka!
- Brian

Happy to! I even have a gold paint pen

What's a fair price for a used Bazooka Sniper?

 

[Prospector70]

Happy to! I even have a gold paint pen

What's a fair price for a used Bazooka Sniper?

about 4 Grams?

 

[mytimetoshine]

Happy to! I even have a gold paint pen

What's a fair price for a used Bazooka Sniper?

its a vintage collectible now 🤣

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

 

[Johnnybravo300]

I might sell my sniper too. It's just too small for my claim and I'd rather use my little Angus for the backpack.
My bigger prospector model I traded for 7 grams of nice chunky Oregon gold from a tnet member.
I'd rather take gold as payment any day!