THERMAL CITY TRIP--RESULTS

[Sackett]

My buddy and I went to Thermal City this past week. We met up there in time on Monday to get a load of dirt at 1:00pm. We wanted the screened pay dirt and was able to get the last two loads. We ran this dirt Monday evening and Tuesday morning. We would run our dirt though our highbankers. My buddy has a four foot Keene highbanker and I used my homemade six foot highbanker. We panned at night on the front porch of our cabin until mid-night ever night. Then back up at 8:00am and after coffee and a pan or 2 we'd hit the highbankers until the afternoon thunderstorms stopped us. One day we did try our luck at the pay to pan panning spot. I ran about 10 pans and only found 3 or 4 peices of gold, so after the rain stopped we went back to the highbankers. Our second load of pay dirt was the unscreened dirt. We ran this Wednesday and Thursday We left out on Thursday at about 7:00pm and I came home and finished panning my Cons. Here are my results which are mixed. My first load of pay dirt which was screened had an AMAZING 1 1/2 grams!!!! My second load of unscreened pay dirt held a disappointing 1/4 gram!! BUT with what I got out of the first load it made it a great trip. That first load would be about $60.00 + per ton!!! Now that would PAY!! The only thing that I can figure out is that my load was the last that they had and it must have been that the gold had settled down over time and rain to the bottom and I just happened to be the one to get it! We went by the Lucky Strike one day and talked to several people running highbankers there, (way more people at Lucky Strike working?) they were all finding gold and one guy showed us a nugget that he found in the range of 1/4 oz maybe a touch bigger. He said that he had ran 80 loads of pay dirt to get that nugget! He said that in years past he would have 8 or 10 nuggets that size from 80 loads? We do plan to go back soon and try our luck again we are thinking of trying one day at the Lucky Strike to see how it goes there..(By the way Astrobouncer,,,Jim said to tell you "Hello, looking forward to a trip to Az!") Jim is a great asset to the whole Thermal City operation in my opinion!