SW Oregon

[BosnMate]

Somewhere under the fog, just to the right of center, where the fog turns from bright to more grey, is where my house is located. This picture is a few days old, it's raining now, so no fog.


The peak on the left is Brushy Butte, the one on the right is Mt. Dodson. Between them there is a played out copper mine. To the left of Brushy, and down the other side of the ridge is Lee Creek, that has a gold mining history. They did a lot of hydraulic mining on Lee Creek back in the day. One time I thought about buying a house over there, that had what was left of a hydraulic mine on it. Didn't buy it because it was too far to drive to get to work every day. Then when it sold, the new owners were messing around, and found the monitor nozzle, that was used too wash the dirt away, and run it through sluice boxes. Probably 20 or so years ago, this was in the local news paper with pictures; a fellow in that area had his ranch for sale, and he found a huge nugget, as I recall, a couple of pounds. He took the ranch off the market. Haven't heard anything more on that, but this area is famous for pockets of concentrated gold, perhaps an area of 6 or 7 feet and a few feet deep, dig that out, and you are done. Then human nature, being what it is, they spend all the money they made looking for the rest of it, and it's not there.

 

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[tamrock]

Yeah those early untapped high grade placer gold deposits sure didn't last long before the old timers played those all out. I guess what we've got going for today is the higher prices, but the cost of mining is ever increasing to offset most mines potential. I can't count all the smaller operations I've delt with that open and closed in a short period over the years now. One 12 man operation seemed to be a good possibility and I started selling a few things there, but then MSHA wasn't going to approve their secondary escape plan and said in order to meet their requirements the mine needs a second escape shaft built to MSHA standards. Bid estimates for that shaft came in at 12 million dollars. All the investors said to heck with that.

 

[kcm]

That's an amazing photo! Looks more like looking across a snow-covered valley than it does fog. Have never had the chance to experience anything quite like that before. ....And just think, you can even have it without the need for sub-freezing temps!

 

[WannaDig3687]

Thanks for the story and beautiful photo. It's very interesting. You have awesome views.