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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[Lanny in AB]

***Annual Christmas Prospecting Poetry***

Christmas Blizzard Gold

A minin’ boom drew young and old
To find the fabled yellow gold
That Nature’d cached in hills up high
So long ago, in days gone by.

A town erected far below
Was clogged with folks, their hopes aglow
That soon they’d bag some treasured gold
Before the winter got too cold.

Well Jill and Jim were clever folk
Who listened well when others spoke.
They took down notes for finding gold,
Birthed from that fabled Mother Lode.

Those golden tips they cached away
A-waiting for that special day
When grub-staked Jim would ready be
To glean the gold to set them free.

To chase the gold, you’ll need the will,”
(Was told to him by his gal Jill)
“That drive to go and never quit
No matter what to get to it.”

“Then lookey here,” said Jim to Jill,
“I think I’ll prospect yonder hill
Where alders grow all mighty thick
Along its steeply flowing crick.”

So, Jill helped Jim into his pack.
“Now hurry off and don’t come back
Until you’ve found the nugget gold
That Nature’s hid from times of old.”

So Jim, he grabs his mining kit
And then he goes out after it!
He pans the stream and finds some specks
So farther up that crick he treks.

He scouts a spot with workings old
Ones antler-dug, while chasing gold.
Stout trees there grew up out from it,
That long abandoned placer pit.

“Well here’s a mystery, yes siree.
I’ll dig around a bit to see
Jest what those diggers dug for here.”
(He digs a bit, then gives a cheer.)

“Well I’ll be durned.” He says aloud
“These nuggets here will do me proud!”
I’ll rustle up some more of these
To give my Jill a life of ease.”

The work was tough, the days were cold,
While Jim dug out that precious gold.
The season turned, and winter rose,
But Jim toiled on through frost and snows.

He soldiered on through brutal days
A diggin’ through the rocks and clays.
At last he hit the bedrock true,
That cradled clay all colored blue.

He stood there dumb and gazed in awe
At all the gold he surely saw.
“This here’s bonanza gold for sure!
Them nuggets bright look awful pure.”

He worked the clay and freed the gold
That slumbered there from times of old.
He bagged it up, then started down
On Christmas Eve to get to town.

But on his way, a blizzard grew
The drifts were huge, so Jim he knew
His hopes of getting back to see
His precious Jill might never be.

Now Jill was home, and worried sick!
Her Jim was in that blizzard thick.
He’d promised her that home he’d be
To help her trim the Christmas tree.

Her snowshoes stout were resting there
Beside their cabin’s only chair.
“Before I go, I’ll write out quick,
A prayerful note to Old Saint Nick”:

“Now Nick”, said she, “I’m in a bind
Yet filled with hope my Jim I’ll find.
My wish is that I’ll git to him,
Although the chance is mighty slim.

But if you’ll let me find my beau,
In all that whirlin’ winter snow,
We’ll give what gold my Jim has found
To help the needy folks around.”

Well, Jill set out into the night
In all that howling wintry fright
In hopes Saint Nick would surely show
Where Jim was lost in all that snow.

She trudged and toiled for quite some time
Before she heard a sleigh bell’s chime,
When wind had lulled enough to know
She’d heard that noise out in the snow.

“A bell,” She said, “A way out here?
Saint Nick’s sure sign my Jim is near!”
And she was right. Her Jim she found
By seeking out that wondrous sound.

No bell was found on Jim or pack.
His nose was froze, his toes were black,
Yet Jim was safe on Christmas day
So Jill gave all the gold away. . . .

No needy folks could then be found
In all the country there around.
And Jill, well she was mighty quick
To give her thanks to Old Saint Nick.

******************************

The seasons changed, the warmth came back
And Jim put on his mining pack.
He winked at Jill, and grabbed his kit.
“I’d best be getting after it.”

“And what is that,” said Jill to Jim,
“That gets you out on such a whim?”
“I marked a spot,” said Jim to Jill
“With nuggets thick up on that hill.”

Merry Christmas 2021, and all the best,

Lanny

 

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[Terry Soloman]

Merry Christmas!

 

[russau]

You just can't beat reliable / expert advice from these guys that have been there and done that !

 

[Lanny in AB]

Bugs, Blood and Gold: Tales from the North.

(Warning--Prospecting humour based loosely on some true events)
​

In the summertime, here in the northlands, hundreds of prospectors line up to donate blood. This is no donation at a clinic but a bizarre, annual event conducted in the boreal forests.

To provide some background, if you’ve never been deep in a northern forest, I’m afraid you’ll have a hard time relating to the True Northern Prospector (known as the TNP from now on) that heads off each season to donate blood.

To begin, try to imagine a place of incredible beauty and peace. A forested wonderland of massive pine, cedar, tamarack, and fir—a glorious spot with forest floor lush in undergrowth, a pristine site where crystal streams run unhindered, where lakes teem with trout, grayling, and arctic char. As well, picture the carpeted forest of mountain green that rolls on until it meets the cobalt blue horizon.

This seemingly wondrous setting drastically changes once you exit the 4x4. A buzzing black cloud engulfs every warm-blooded being. (Yet, you might say, surely any prospector worth his salt has faced mosquitoes the size of humming birds, or horse flies big enough to ride?)

Beyond the protection of the 4X4, the bug-cloud sets the TNP’s dim brain to defence mode. His arms flail at the attacking bugs, and this desperate action launches the detector he’s packing through the air—the price paid an inconvenient memory. Running back to the truck, he finds the vehicle locked, his partner gone with the keys. (Moreover, the partner has the bug dope in his coat’s front pocket, the spray he swears is ridiculous, citing some bull about real men never fearing such small, flying creatures. The partner follows up with sass that anyone needing bug spray is unworthy of the northern prospector’s stripe!)

Raw panic soon widens into a chasm of terror. There is no place to hide! The bugs are everywhere. This seals the TNP’s fate, which begins the bizarre annual blood donation event.

Engulfed by a buzzing, hissing mass of wings and teeth (vampires, by comparison, lag thousands of years in evolution), he accidentally kills an entire squadron, breathing them in while gasping in terror.

Regardless of his small victory, a new attack begins, a covert one where the bugs climb inside your pant legs. The troops are the dark demons of the northern other-world: the dreaded blackfly—which Webster’s refers to as “any of various small dark-colored insects; esp: any of a family of bloodsucking dipteran flies”. Dipteran? A disturbingly calm word such hell-on-the-wing!

(To add to the terror, each season, the blackflies get bigger. I saw a swarm the other day packing intravenous poles with blood bags to use on some wretch they’d caught trying to bathe in the river! I realize you think I’m exaggerating for effect. You’re right. The victim had only slipped, then fell in the water; he wasn’t trying to bathe at all.)

Now, I’d hate to leave you wondering about the TNP caught without his bug dope. (Which reminds me—I’ve often pondered on the annoying name given to that spray. But, one day it came to me. The name “dope” refers to the idiot that has none with him!)

As to the earlier attack of the blackflies, their assault goes unnoticed during the daylight hours. Using anesthetic as they feed, the bites will be discovered during a sleepless night, caused by unimaginable itching which only lasts about a million years. (And, you will hate being such a jack-wagon to scratch them in the first place, as it makes the itching much worse.)

Thinking nothing could top the itching of your legs, you ear begins to itch, but not on the outside, no. Deep down in the ear canal a new torture begins. The rotten flies do not fight fair. As well as the ear canal, the cursed flies have the power to attack in unmentionable places—enough said.

By way of flashback, remember the horse flies mentioned earlier? Well, the TNP has been known to use a rope as a strategy—not to swat or slash at them—but to lasso the smaller ones. (To elaborate, some prospectors brag of saddling those bugs, flying off on them to use in rodeos and races. But that’s a bald-faced lie; the mosquito’s wings can’t work while covered with a saddle.)

And, to counter a different claim, some people swear you can shoot the mosquitoes up north with a shotgun. This is absolutely false! A shotgun won’t bring them down. However, a 20mm cannon has been known to blow off a wing or leg, now and then.

But, what of the absent partner, the one with the bug dope. The TNP found his sorry hide at last, his partner wildly waving his detector over a patch of exposed, red-hot bedrock. Then, suddenly hearing a low moan, followed by a screeching sound and another low moan, the TNP frowned, thinking his partner might have found a nugget.

Imagine the TNP’s surprise when he found the sound was coming from his partner as he fled the bedrock, while outpacing a flying blood-bank, only to have that cloud quickly cover him again.

The TNP raced toward his partner, seeming ready to offer assistance with the flying demons. (To provide background on the bug cloud, it was so thick that the TNP used his Bowie knife to cut out a square plug, giving him a quick glimpse of his partner inside.) Yet, the TNP flashing the Bowie, appeared to lunge straight at his partner’s throat! However, at the last second, the TNP shredded his partner’s jacket pocket instead, removing the bug dope, then running off, bug-cloud in tow.

Now, this story may seem inconsequential to most of you—perhaps even rather bland. But I assure you—it was a serious matter, with some truth added for effect.

And what of the TNP’s partner you ask? Why, it’s rumoured he’s still holed up deep in an abandoned northern mine, where it’s dark and cold—far too cold for Bugs, but not too cold for dopes.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

Black Flies.. uugghhhhh.

 

[crashbandicoot]

Black Flies.. uugghhhhh.

Around here we call em mosquitoes,UUUGGGHHHH! Indeed.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Heavy Gold (More for those newer to the gold-chasing game)

One of the things that always amazes me, is just how heavy gold is. Now, people just starting out, they often fail to appreciate this fact. Many times, working with raw recruits, I’ll put them in a hot spot for gold, and after they clean the bedrock I've put them on, and then pan the dirt, they get very little gold.

Well, you should see their eyes pop when I go back to that same bedrock and clean it with a stiff brush, scrape it with some small hooks and scrapers, open a few crevices and pull up all of the enclosed material, take a narrow spoon to any little troughs, and then pan the relatively small amount of material that's accumulated in the pan. It's priceless to see the amazed looks on their faces.

I remember when my buddy was first getting serious about prospecting. He was in Montana on Grasshopper Creek (Bannack) and they were getting almost no gold. A very kind prospector came along and told them to go on a little hike with him. He took them up the canyon a bit, took a stiff brush and got down into every little crack and crevice up his little bedrock draw. My buddy and his wife couldn't believe how much gold was holding tight to that bedrock! They've respected that knowledge ever since. (Simply scraping the surface with a shovel or your hand is never enough.)

When I'm dredging, I'll often disturb flakes and pieces of gold. If they're down in a crevice, too often they won't come up to the nozzle of the dredge, and that gold will just sit down there--that's how heavy it is. You have to reach down there with something narrow and flip it up into the water column to retrieve it. Or, you have to get a narrow nozzle that will reach down right close to the gold. Or, you have to shoot a stream of high-pressure water down into the crevice and hope that it will force the gold up into the water column. (Sometimes, the gold just disappears into an unseen crack!)

Moreover, while disturbing gold, I’ll watch it shimmy tightly along the bedrock until it finds any crack, crevice, rock, or other irregularity, only to have it vanish (sometimes never to reappear)!

That's how heavy gold is--roughly twenty times as heavy as the water, and (if I recall correctly) almost ten times heavier than most other materials in the stream. So, it's going to get down as low as it can after it’s disturbed in the water. It's going to sink, and fast.

If you've located a piece of gold between two vertical sheets of bedrock (when detecting or sniping) and you loosen one of the sheets, the gold will instantly drop.

Always respect how heavy gold is and always take advantage of that knowledge to allow you to get more gold. (Often it will be the gold that others, that are less knowledgeable, have left behind.)

All the best as you’re out there chasing the gold,

Lanny

 

[crashbandicoot]

Heavy Gold (More for those newer to the gold-chasing game)

One of the things that always amazes me, is just how heavy gold is. Now, people just starting out, they often fail to appreciate this fact. Many times, working with raw recruits, I’ll put them in a hot spot for gold, and after they clean the bedrock I've put them on, and then pan the dirt, they get very little gold.

Well, you should see their eyes pop when I go back to that same bedrock and clean it with a stiff brush, scrape it with some small hooks and scrapers, open a few crevices and pull up all of the enclosed material, take a narrow spoon to any little troughs, and then pan the relatively small amount of material that's accumulated in the pan. It's priceless to see the amazed looks on their faces.

I remember when my buddy was first getting serious about prospecting. He was in Montana on Grasshopper Creek (Bannack) and they were getting almost no gold. A very kind prospector came along and told them to go on a little hike with him. He took them up the canyon a bit, took a stiff brush and got down into every little crack and crevice up his little bedrock draw. My buddy and his wife couldn't believe how much gold was holding tight to that bedrock! They've respected that knowledge ever since. (Simply scraping the surface with a shovel or your hand is never enough.)

When I'm dredging, I'll often disturb flakes and pieces of gold. If they're down in a crevice, too often they won't come up to the nozzle of the dredge, and that gold will just sit down there--that's how heavy it is. You have to reach down there with something narrow and flip it up into the water column to retrieve it. Or, you have to get a narrow nozzle that will reach down right close to the gold. Or, you have to shoot a stream of high-pressure water down into the crevice and hope that it will force the gold up into the water column. (Sometimes, the gold just disappears into an unseen crack!)

Moreover, while disturbing gold, I’ll watch it shimmy tightly along the bedrock until it finds any crack, crevice, rock, or other irregularity, only to have it vanish (sometimes never to reappear)!

That's how heavy gold is--roughly twenty times as heavy as the water, and (if I recall correctly) almost ten times heavier than most other materials in the stream. So, it's going to get down as low as it can after it’s disturbed in the water. It's going to sink, and fast.

If you've located a piece of gold between two vertical sheets of bedrock (when detecting or sniping) and you loosen one of the sheets, the gold will instantly drop.

Always respect how heavy gold is and always take advantage of that knowledge to allow you to get more gold. (Often it will be the gold that others, that are less knowledgeable, have left behind.)

All the best as you’re out there chasing the gold,

Lanny

Thank you very much for this explanation,it,s knowledge like this that can help newbie gold seekers succeed and stay in the hobby rather than getting disappointed and quitting.I,m a newbie and it,s definitely a help to me even tho what I,m hunting is not bedrock,but the principles you outlined will apply.You have a good heart to do this.Thanks again.

 

[Lanny in AB]

A desert gold-hunting misadventure

I've worked that dry desert dirt chasing gold in Arizona, and it taught me I much prefer using water! Yet, that desert gold sure is truly, beautiful stuff. And, that’s why I was out there looking for some.

While I was working a dry wash on the side of a hill, I found myself wrapped up in a frightening misadventure.

To begin, there were old dry-washer piles everywhere. So, being a likely place for gold, I picked a spot with bedrock outcroppings that looked more promising than the rest (I have to tell you at this point in my tale that I can’t stand spiders, of any size or kind.), and I started to dig.

As I prospected along the wash, I started to see these round holes located in the bank. Well, I'd seen some of them while I was detecting in flatter areas (and of course, those holes went straight down), and I'd spotted a tarantula crouching in one of them, the front appendages wiggling, those blood-thirsty eyes boring directly into the terror center of my brain! You get the picture—that was enough for me.

I quickly changed locations—with about the same speed as a jacked-up sprinter on steroids does. Only, sprinters are far slower it appears, because I'm certain I broke several Olympic records as I raced through that unforgiving region of plant life where everything pokes, stings, or bites! (I'm thinking of a full Kevlar body suit the next time I have to run from a tarantula. It might save me from the nasty bite as well as stop me from picking spines from my hide for two days afterward.)

Despite my escape from near death, I went off digging in a new spot, a little wash among the grease-wood and creosote. I started working my way uphill, and when I saw those same, round holes I've mentioned earlier, I started to have freaky flashbacks. However, I overrode my brain's early warning system. (I'm quite famous for disabling my body’s hard-wired survival systems and that has allowed me to have some truly wild experiences that spice my otherwise bland life.)

Motivated by the fact that I'd traveled well over a thousand miles to get myself some desert gold, I wasn't going to let some hairy, fanged octo-ped drive me from my diggings, not on such a fine desert day.

So, I stared at those holes for a moment longer (there were three of them, about head height--ranged across the hill close to a foot apart, with the middle of the three just about dead center with my body), and I decided that I would go about loosening the dirt that covered the bedrock wall in that spot.

With my pulse back to a normal level, and my formerly panicked brain calmed to a benign state, I hefted the reassuring weight of my pick, and drove the pick into the ground.

Like a blast from a rocket-propelled-grenade, something came flying out of that center hole!! It flew at me so fast that I had no time to react. I was the perfect, paralyzed victim.

On a side note, if you've ever been in a car crash (as I have), you may have experienced this phenomenon: time and action slow to a crawl. Every minute detail is recorded by the brain which is somehow temporarily rewired to Star Trek warp speed factors. This allows your melon to record every little detail at hyper speed, thus generating a slow-motion recording mode. This lets the brain capture the entire event perfectly so that you can micro-analyze it in perpetuity.

But, I need to backtrack to the moment when the unknown terror shot forth from the hole. It was heading straight for my chest, and it had a leathery head with several colors. It was wagging from side to side. The tail was long and it was swaying back and forth, acting as a rudder, driving the horror relentlessly toward my paralyzed body.

I watched immobilized as it dropped below eye level, then caught the bizarre object again, just to the right of me, as it plowed into the desert dirt. Sensing this was no spider, my brain switched out of panic mode, and it returned to recording at normal speed.

This flying menace was only some kind of stinking, pea-brained lizard! Although this rotten reptile was launched from the underworld to give me a heart attack, quite obviously, the desert plot to frighten me had failed miserably.

For, I have no fear of lizards or snakes you see (Strange huh? I mean, the snakes may kill you, but the hideous tarantulas will only tease you a friendly bite that feels as if liquid fire is lancing through every cell and nerve ending of your entire body. So, no wonder snakes don't worry me. . . .), and because I don't fear reptiles, I was able to laugh.

The fact that laughter sounded much like a pack of deranged hyenas is irrelevant. It was a healing event for me, a wondrous catharsis. Who cares if the aforementioned laughter terrorized the nearby city of Phoenix and jammed every available 911 circuit with panicked callers.

On a reflective note, in a bold act demonstrating my supreme daring and courage, I abandoned that hill-side and headed off to a flat, wandering trail I'd spotted earlier in the day, one that leisurely led across a level mesa, about three miles distant. . . .


All the best,

Lanny

 

[crashbandicoot]

A desert gold-hunting misadventure

I've worked that dry desert dirt chasing gold in Arizona, and it taught me I much prefer using water! Yet, that desert gold sure is truly, beautiful stuff. And, that’s why I was out there looking for some.

While I was working a dry wash on the side of a hill, I found myself wrapped up in a frightening misadventure.

To begin, there were old dry-washer piles everywhere. So, being a likely place for gold, I picked a spot with bedrock outcroppings that looked more promising than the rest (I have to tell you at this point in my tale that I can’t stand spiders, of any size or kind.), and I started to dig.

As I prospected along the wash, I started to see these round holes located in the bank. Well, I'd seen some of them while I was detecting in flatter areas (and of course, those holes went straight down), and I'd spotted a tarantula crouching in one of them, the front appendages wiggling, those blood-thirsty eyes boring directly into the terror center of my brain! You get the picture—that was enough for me.

I quickly changed locations—with about the same speed as a jacked-up sprinter on steroids does. Only, sprinters are far slower it appears, because I'm certain I broke several Olympic records as I raced through that unforgiving region of plant life where everything pokes, stings, or bites! (I'm thinking of a full Kevlar body suit the next time I have to run from a tarantula. It might save me from the nasty bite as well as stop me from picking spines from my hide for two days afterward.)

Despite my escape from near death, I went off digging in a new spot, a little wash among the grease-wood and creosote. I started working my way uphill, and when I saw those same, round holes I've mentioned earlier, I started to have freaky flashbacks. However, I overrode my brain's early warning system. (I'm quite famous for disabling my body’s hard-wired survival systems and that has allowed me to have some truly wild experiences that spice my otherwise bland life.)

Motivated by the fact that I'd traveled well over a thousand miles to get myself some desert gold, I wasn't going to let some hairy, fanged octo-ped drive me from my diggings, not on such a fine desert day.

So, I stared at those holes for a moment longer (there were three of them, about head height--ranged across the hill close to a foot apart, with the middle of the three just about dead center with my body), and I decided that I would go about loosening the dirt that covered the bedrock wall in that spot.

With my pulse back to a normal level, and my formerly panicked brain calmed to a benign state, I hefted the reassuring weight of my pick, and drove the pick into the ground.

Like a blast from a rocket-propelled-grenade, something came flying out of that center hole!! It flew at me so fast that I had no time to react. I was the perfect, paralyzed victim.

On a side note, if you've ever been in a car crash (as I have), you may have experienced this phenomenon: time and action slow to a crawl. Every minute detail is recorded by the brain which is somehow temporarily rewired to Star Trek warp speed factors. This allows your melon to record every little detail at hyper speed, thus generating a slow-motion recording mode. This lets the brain capture the entire event perfectly so that you can micro-analyze it in perpetuity.

But, I need to backtrack to the moment when the unknown terror shot forth from the hole. It was heading straight for my chest, and it had a leathery head with several colors. It was wagging from side to side. The tail was long and it was swaying back and forth, acting as a rudder, driving the horror relentlessly toward my paralyzed body.

I watched immobilized as it dropped below eye level, then caught the bizarre object again, just to the right of me, as it plowed into the desert dirt. Sensing this was no spider, my brain switched out of panic mode, and it returned to recording at normal speed.

This flying menace was only some kind of stinking, pea-brained lizard! Although this rotten reptile was launched from the underworld to give me a heart attack, quite obviously, the desert plot to frighten me had failed miserably.

For, I have no fear of lizards or snakes you see (Strange huh? I mean, the snakes may kill you, but the hideous tarantulas will only tease you a friendly bite that feels as if liquid fire is lancing through every cell and nerve ending of your entire body. So, no wonder snakes don't worry me. . . .), and because I don't fear reptiles, I was able to laugh.

The fact that laughter sounded much like a pack of deranged hyenas is irrelevant. It was a healing event for me, a wondrous catharsis. Who cares if the aforementioned laughter terrorized the nearby city of Phoenix and jammed every available 911 circuit with panicked callers.

On a reflective note, in a bold act demonstrating my supreme daring and courage, I abandoned that hill-side and headed off to a flat, wandering trail I'd spotted earlier in the day, one that leisurely led across a level mesa, about three miles distant. . . .


All the best,

Lanny

Great story Lanny,well told and with just the right amount of verbal skullduggery involved.Enjoyed it immensely and laughed my head off! I don,t fear spiders or snakes or lizards,but a wasp will put me in the road. I,m allergic to them. Any thing that buzzes past my head provokes a panic reaction like you described. thank you!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Great story Lanny,well told and with just the right amount of verbal skullduggery involved.Enjoyed it immensely and laughed my head off! I don,t fear spiders or snakes or lizards,but a wasp will put me in the road. I,m allergic to them. Any thing that buzzes past my head provokes a panic reaction like you described. thank you!

Many thanks for dropping in to leave some kind words of appreciation! As for things that go buzz, not really the ones that get me running (sorry about your allergy--the only thing I'm allergic to is too much work!), but it's those totally silent, stealthy killers with eight legs that I can't stand.

Say, if we were mining partners, we'd pretty well have the phobias beat!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Old Trenches--A Missed Nugget Opportunity

So, I thought I'd post a little story about one of my infamous missed opportunities, a chance gone by to metal detect for some sassy nuggets. But, what else is new, right? I’ve left lots of gold behind due to my long nugget shooting learning curve.

Well, at the time, I was pretty green, although I had (the previous summer) broken the rookie metal detector's curse (You know, when you swing the detector forever and only get the coil over trash. Which means, all you dig is trash day, after day, after day. . . . However, I broke the rookie curse and found my first nugget "The Africa Nugget", which then led to a dozen or so nuggets all the size of your fingernails. On a side note, it’s always amazed me how that worked out—nada, nothing forever, then once the curse was broken, I couldn’t keep the sassy nuggets from getting under the coil!)

I guess that was enough digression, so I’ll get back to my tale. As I was pretty green, I'd been detecting a huge excavation, one worked around a massive boulder, that boulder the size of a small house. It was so huge, you could look under it where the Chinese had tunneled (a lot of silt and debris had washed in closing most spaces up) and see where they'd left their, short, stout and round posts to ensure the boulder didn't drop to the bedrock to crush them. It was quite the sight, and I can't imagine the work done to excavate it, let alone the courage to tunnel under it!

Anyway, I was detecting around the boulder’s basin, and I was getting all kinds of trash. I was having flashbacks to the previous year's "Rookie Curse" mode, so my enjoyment level dropped fast.

As well, because I'd hit so many nuggets the previous summer, I was in a bit of a hurry to start hearing that "low-high-low" golden tone once more. Well, it didn't happen at all in that spot, and the bugs were exceptionally blood-thirsty down there away from any breeze, so I moved on to windier realms.

I happened upon some long rows of hand-stacked cobbles and small boulders, and then I came to some sheets of bare bedrock, but I couldn't get a peep out of the bedrock. It was completely smooth and iron hard, the wrong type of rock to trap gold, which made for discouraging hunting.

I walked down closer to the river and detected along a bench, but all I found were more heavily rusted pieces of tin can, bits of lead, snips of small gauge iron and copper wire, broken chunks of cable, boot tacks, and lead meat-tin keys. It was Deja-vu all over again.

By this time I was hot, sweaty, tired and felt four times dumber than when I'd hiked in there. (I say I was much dumber because of what happened next.)

I decided I'd hike out through the pines and aspens in a different direction from the way I'd bush-whacked my way in. I got partway through, heading uphill about a block and a half away from the boulder basin, and all at once, the trees opened up, and I was in a clearing. Well, that should have been my first tip-off (a clearing), but like I said, I was a bit grumpy, hungry and looking forward to cooking some grub on the wood-burning stove back at camp in the wall-tent, about a half a mile away. Nevertheless, my little prospector brain (the one much smaller than my big, dumb prospector brain that wants nothing but food, and easy finds) lit up and overrode my big dumb brain, and recognition set in.

This area was clearly not natural. (I know it's hard to believe, being so easy to understand for a pro, but at the time I was such a green rookie my brain had almost no gold logic.) Anyway, my two opposing brains quit fighting and made me do a double take; my hunger was briefly forgotten, and I started paying attention to what I was walking through.

Off to my right I spotted disturbed rows of forest floor. And, sure enough, there were rows of trenched forest floor, which cut down to bedrock! (Now, any prospector worth his salt, his bacon, or his beans would have spent time carefully checking this entire area, but no, at that time I was a sausage-brained rookie.) There were chunks of broken bedrock, tree roots, cobbles (clearly indicating the existence of channel underneath) and smaller water-worn stones cast up everywhere. In addition, some spots had been trenched wider than others, leaving exposed bedrock patches. (It was about two to three feet to bedrock.) Other cuts were slumping back in, and many had grown over. This was old work, likely done by the early diggers around 1870.

So, what did I do? I followed those trenches around in the forest, peering down into them from time to time like a sappy tourist. Towards the end, It dawned on me to fire up my detector (That it took me that long proves how dumb newbie dumb can be) and detect around a bit. There were old square nails, bits of decomposing tin can, and much rarer tiny square nails. What did this mean to me at the time? Well, I figured someone had been digging around, had left some trash behind, and had moved on to bigger and better opportunities, of course.

What does it all mean to me now that I’ve been chasing the gold for many years? Someone did a ton of back-breaking work hand-trenching chasing the gold, and because of the different sizes of square nails, they were there most likely had some kind of recovery system set up to get the gold. Moreover, as they were following the bedrock, they were probably finding enough to make it interesting. (Have you ever trenched in the forest two to three feet to bedrock? Cutting through those roots and rocks is zero fun!) Yet, with the clearing not worked to bedrock, it likely wasn’t rich ground (gold was around $19 an ounce in 1870). Or, they could have had water problems or lacked enough funding, etc.

Regardless, I should have reopened some of those trenches and detected that ancient bedrock. Instead, I overruled my tiny prospector's (developing) baby brain that had tipped me off in the first place and only gave the ground a superficial working.

The location of that forest trenching is a gruelling eighteen-hour drive north and west of here, and I may never return (thick with bears and bugs, and a road that really beats up vehicles). Nonetheless, because I've learned much better how to find the gold now, if I ever do return, I’ll know where to explore and what to exploit as it would be a fantastic opportunity to detect virgin bedrock as well as virgin (thrown out) dirt.

I've since found beautiful gold in areas like that one, as the prospectors a hundred and fifty or so years previous had no way of knowing what they were throwing out (unless they ran all of the dirt, which they did not) during their testing. Moreover, they had no way of knowing what they were leaving in the invisible cracks and crevices of the bedrock, but a premier gold detector, put to good use today would do the job very well indeed.

So, there’s one for the someday, if I ever return list, and a lesson that’s stuck with me since that’s produced nice nuggets when I’m out tramping around old workings.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[crashbandicoot]

That was a neat and interesting read. Experience is the best teacher,as you now know!

 

[Lanny in AB]

That was a neat and interesting read. Experience is the best teacher,as you now know!

Many thanks for your compliment!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Friable Rock Gold

Gold in the bedrock tip: When working in friable rock, bedrock that has lots of standing plates/sheets perpendicular to the bedrock, it has been my experience that the flake gold and pickers (and, sometimes nuggets) are easily trapped by these formations. (The gold drops as it moves over the little plates that shimmy and vibrate due to the stream action.)

The friable rock in my area has standing plates that vary from three to four inches in height, and the vast majority of the gold rests on top of, or in the top few inches of the formation, as the underlying bedrock is usually barren, because it’s largely solid, and lacks the proper cracks to trap the gold.

Digging deeper through the plates, the little river stones and coarser sand that travel with the gold will disappear. The remaining material is almost exclusively a sticky clay, and it is also what’s usually in any of the rare deeper cracks and crevices.

The fine-grained clay I’ve mentioned sifts deep down, but very rarely is it carrying any values. As well, that sticky clay is horrible stuff to wash, and it does not want to go back into suspension. So, it takes a long time to wash (if it ever provides a return).

However, there are exceptions to this (as far as deeper cracks or crevices go). For instance, when a deep crack or crevice beneath a cap of friable rock is loaded with sticky clay, it pays to see if the clay is peppered with lots of little river stones and coarser sand. If you find any of the aforementioned material, that is the crevice material to get excited about, and it’s worth the time to work the clay.

Generally, what this means is that sometime in the dim past, the crack was opened wide enough to allow entry of the coarser material, and naturally, this would allow gold to drop as well. (To elaborate on such cracks, at some time after the gold dropped, the crack snapped shut again, perhaps due to a large boulder hammering downstream along the bedrock during a flood.)

In crevices, like the ones I recommend to work, I have found some beautiful flake gold, pickers and even nuggets. Nevertheless, I don’t find them that often on great gold streams with the prime conditions I've described. (To avoid confusion, I'm not talking about a generic river crevice that is jammed with rocks at its surface, and is summarily packed with progressively smaller stones as the crack narrows to depth at its bottom. I'm speaking of a now closed crevice that resides beneath the movable cap of friable rock--a crevice that is located much deeper down in the bedrock substructure, far below that cap of friable rock.)

I hope this helps someone find some nice, sassy gold--either in the little perpendicular plates and sheets on the surface, or if you're lucky enough, in a tightly closed crevice beneath the cap that once allowed the gold to enter. (I also hope that it will help you save some time by not working barren clay deposits.)

*** I just remembered something: always carefully examine the surface of any gooey, clay-jammed crevice material. Sometimes if there's little stones and coarse sand jammed in that surface material, there's a good chance there's gold as well. Take the material down to where there's no more granular particles stuck in it (you can tell by squishing the material between your fingers), and go through the hassle of liquifying it (it's time intensive, but stick with it). Next, pan it very carefully. Also, be sure to wash everything off in clear water so you know what you're looking at before you discard anything! Clay is a master of disguise, and if there's enough of it around a particle of gold, the gold's specific gravity won't allow it to behave like gold at all. On a related note, clay will also form a ball around gold (as it encases the gold) and let it roll right over your pan's riffles! So, to be safe, squish and smear everything around under the water in your pan until it's well liquified. ***

All the best, and good luck,

Lanny

 

[crashbandicoot]

Friable Rock Gold

Gold in the bedrock tip: When working in friable rock, bedrock that has lots of standing plates/sheets perpendicular to the bedrock, it has been my experience that the flake gold and pickers (and, sometimes nuggets) are easily trapped by these formations. (The gold drops as it moves over the little plates that shimmy and vibrate due to the stream action.)

The friable rock in my area has standing plates that vary from three to four inches in height, and the vast majority of the gold rests on top of, or in the top few inches of the formation, as the underlying bedrock is usually barren, because it’s largely solid, and lacks the proper cracks to trap the gold.

Digging deeper through the plates, the little river stones and coarser sand that travel with the gold will disappear. The remaining material is almost exclusively a sticky clay, and it is also what’s usually in any of the rare deeper cracks and crevices.

The fine-grained clay I’ve mentioned sifts deep down, but very rarely is it carrying any values. As well, that sticky clay is horrible stuff to wash, and it does not want to go back into suspension. So, it takes a long time to wash (if it ever provides a return).

However, there are exceptions to this (as far as deeper cracks or crevices go). For instance, when a deep crack or crevice beneath a cap of friable rock is loaded with sticky clay, it pays to see if the clay is peppered with lots of little river stones and coarser sand. If you find any of the aforementioned material, that is the crevice material to get excited about, and it’s worth the time to work the clay.

Generally, what this means is that sometime in the dim past, the crack was opened wide enough to allow entry of the coarser material, and naturally, this would allow gold to drop as well. (To elaborate on such cracks, at some time after the gold dropped, the crack snapped shut again, perhaps due to a large boulder hammering downstream along the bedrock during a flood.)

In crevices, like the ones I recommend to work, I have found some beautiful flake gold, pickers and even nuggets. Nevertheless, I don’t find them that often on great gold streams with the prime conditions I've described. (To avoid confusion, I'm not talking about a generic river crevice that is jammed with rocks at its surface, and is summarily packed with progressively smaller stones as the crack narrows to depth at its bottom. I'm speaking of a now closed crevice that resides beneath the movable cap of friable rock--a crevice that is located much deeper down in the bedrock substructure, far below that cap of friable rock.)

I hope this helps someone find some nice, sassy gold--either in the little perpendicular plates and sheets on the surface, or if you're lucky enough, in a tightly closed crevice beneath the cap that once allowed the gold to enter. (I also hope that it will help you save some time by not working barren clay deposits.)

*** I just remembered something: always carefully examine the surface of any gooey, clay-jammed crevice material. Sometimes if there's little stones and coarse sand jammed in that surface material, there's a good chance there's gold as well. Take the material down to where there's no more granular particles stuck in it (you can tell by squishing the material between your fingers), and go through the hassle of liquifying it (it's time intensive, but stick with it). Next, pan it very carefully. Also, be sure to wash everything off in clear water so you know what you're looking at before you discard anything! Clay is a master of disguise, and if there's enough of it around a particle of gold, the gold's specific gravity won't allow it to behave like gold at all. On a related note, clay will also form a ball around gold (as it encases the gold) and let it roll right over your pan's riffles! So, to be safe, squish and smear everything around under the water in your pan until it's well liquified. ***

All the best, and good luck,

Lanny

Thank you Lanny for sharing this info.Stuff like this is very helpful to me and my future search for some flour gold that may have made it down the Arkansas RIver this far and fallen out in the rocks below the dams.Very helpful.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Thank you Lanny for sharing this info.Stuff like this is very helpful to me and my future search for some flour gold that may have made it down the Arkansas RIver this far and fallen out in the rocks below the dams.Very helpful.

Most flour gold will usually stay within the top six inches or so of the gravel bars. We have a lot of flour gold here due to the glaciers pounding and grinding it into a powder. We look for rocks in gravel bars fist-sized and larger, and that's where the gold drops out, and as I stated, it's usually deposited quite shallow in the bars as it gets ripped and moved along every spring with the new high waters from the snow melt. However, that high water is also redepositing/replenishing the bars as well.

Up here we always look for garnets travelling with the flour gold, so if we find garnets, but no gold, we know we're just to the left or right of a pay streak as when the gold is found, it's been my experience there's always garnets with the gold.

Not exactly sure of your deposition geology in your neck of the woods, but good luck, and all the best as you chase some of that sassy gold,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Ten Stream Mystery Cabin

I was checking my prospecting notes from 1997, and I came across a story I’d almost forgotten about.

In 1997, my prospecting buddy and I traveled to a goldfield that took us some sixteen hours to reach. (Most of the route was on paved roads, but the last six hours were on gravelled, active logging roads. The roads were not topped with crushed gravel, but with what’s classified as pit-run gravel. That type of gravel is simply unsorted rock that comes straight out of the gravel pit, minus the huge rocks, but it’s the rough rock Mother Nature dropped after ice-age glaciers melted. Not a smooth riding surface for normal vehicles!)

To get to the goldfield, we traveled in a four-wheel-drive diesel, and we towed a large flat-deck trailer with a small backhoe and wash-plant. As well, it carried a quad, and all of our camping gear, grub, and miscellaneous mining equipment. In addition, it freighted our steel-framed wall-tent and a cozy wood-burning stove.

We had packed all of that equipment to make the trip after receiving an invitation to do some testing on promising placer ground, ground located in a remote area.

We’d been into the territory the previous summer and had found some nice, coarse nuggets with metal detectors, and we’d caught a nice catch of flake gold and pickers with sluice and pan. As well, we’d earned the trust of the local miners and claim owners, and had been invited back to bring in the bigger equipment.

Once we arrived, we set off on a series of prospecting day-trips to try and find some promising additional ground to justify bringing in the extra equipment.

We explored one interesting area where we’d seen signs of previous testing done in the 1800’s. There were shallow test pits liberally scattered across an ancient, heavily glaciated low-lying area, the uneven ground punctuated by numerous little streams and small lakes.

We’d found the previous year that the old-timers tested glaciated areas such as this because the numerous small streams concentrated any gold the glaciers carried. Of course, the unknown factor was which glacial runs were carrying gold. So, the detective work for gold was carried out over the years with pick and shovel, which left the numerous test pits scattered across the valley floor.

At this location, the valley terrain was populated with pine, fur, and aspen groves. Large yellow, black, and orange butterflies fed among legions of mountain daisies and stands of fireweed. Humming birds, multi-colored with iridescent hues, buzzed in and out hunting nectar. In addition, Jet-black ravens shadowed us as we worked toward our chosen spot.

Suddenly, in a stand of thick timber, we found a massive ditch work—the remains of a huge hydraulic operation from the 1930’s. After crossing the ditch and its steep bank, we hit a foot of standing, swampy water, a spread-out area fed by multiple small streams. We waded through, and then the ground gradually sloped upward. My partner went to prospect around a small lake, and I followed one of the larger streams to see where it led.

(Finding some workings and trash along the way showed the area was prospected in the 1800’s and again in the 1930’s. However, no buildings remained, nor were there any recent signs of human workings. And, we never saw anyone else in the area while we explored over several days.)

As I continued to work my way upstream, the stream split, and continued to split multiple times. I found myself in a unique geological area, completely surrounded by small, gravelly streams. There were ten of them in all! I stopped and panned them, but I only got infrequent flake gold—nothing coarse.

The interesting part about this area was that there was a large mounded hummock that split the paths of those little streams, and it was timbered with trees and brush.

This island-like rise of ground caught my attention, I forded the streams, bush-whacked through some pine and willow heading up to the rise to see if I could find some good panning ground.

But, after fighting through the brush, I was stunned by what I saw. Hidden within the brush, and completely invisible from the lower level of the streams, was a prospector’s cabin! To convince myself it couldn’t be seen from lower down, I went back to stream level, and carefully looked back from many viewpoints, and that cabin could not be seen. The only way to find it was to stumble upon it, for it was guarded by streams on every side.

Whoever chose the site did so carefully. It showed a level of stealth I have neither seen before nor since. I’ve stumbled across other old cabins, with some of them cleverly hidden as well, but none with such a specialized craft for secrecy.

The roof was collapsed, and the interior held the remains of an old wood-burning stove, rusted bedsprings, some shelves along the log walls, one small window, a caved in cache pit below the floor, a very solid door frame, and a porcupined assortment of protruding square and round nails sprung from the log walls, indicating living quarters in the 1800’s and then again in the 1930’s.

Outside, there was a large overgrown garbage pile with old lead-sealed tins, broken hand-blown glass, as well as more modern glass. There were old enamelware pieces; tobacco, evaporated milk, ham, and fish tins; broken crockery; remnants of rusted pots and pans; as well as corroded kerosene and oil tins. Due to the size of the garbage pile, the mystery inhabitant(s) had spent considerable time at their hidden site.

I spent about six more hours prospecting the immediate area, but it was a confusing web of small streams, little lakes, beaver dams, and swampy ground. Wherever the phantom prospector’s diggings were, I couldn’t find them in the time I had available.

We abandoned the area and then set up the equipment in a promising area closer to our base-camp. We recovered some nice coarse placer gold with a ton of character.

However, that mystery cabin still puzzles me, and perhaps I’ll get back one day to solve that fascinating northern riddle.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

No nuggets in smooth bedrock?

Most of the time, smooth bedrock doesn't hold gold, but I have run across some spectacular nugget finds in smooth bedrock. Even if the surface has been pounded smooth or weathered flat, it doesn't mean that there weren't cracks in the bedrock before those massive re-shaping and smoothing events occurred. So, when I'm in gold country, I always check smooth bedrock with my detector as well, and I have been rewarded, from time to time, with some incredible results because the worn, smooth sheets are often overlooked, with most nugget shooters giving them a pass.

What new shooters don't realize is that any bedrock in gold country has an excellent chance of holding gold. It's not as likely as rough bedrock for a trap; but, due to untold years of change and weathering, any bedrock in placer areas offers a chance I don't pass up, as the rougher bedrock has usually been hammered to death.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Suction Eddy Gold, Part I

I prospected a river quite a while back. It was far to the north, down in a steep canyon lined with lots of alders, pine, and fir. Rugged slopes led down to the stream, and I was trying to find a spot where I could detect or pan for some of the nice coarse gold the area was known for.

I took a wrong step and got smacked in the face by an alder while trying to get down to what was clearly an active suction eddy during Spring Flood.

The eddy was straight down the mountain slope from where an old placer tunnel went in, about a hundred feet up slope. The mine (called a “drift” mine by the locals) went into the mountain on a bedrock hump, about seventy feet above the river. The Oldtimers had seen the hump and drifted toward it along the up-sloping bedrock that rose from the river, hitting the hump then driving underneath about fifty feet of boulder clay (almost exclusively clay, yet sprinkled with boulders and lesser rock dumped from the long gone Ice Age glaciers). [The mine entrance is still there, but the tunnel is caved in.]

Some modern miners had come in with big equipment and made a road around that bedrock point on the hill, cutting into the bedrock as they widened the road, while slicing across the drift mine entrance.

Now, what a dummy I was--I didn't detect that scraped off bedrock hump where the drift mine had gone in! Instead, I went over to the entrance, and hauled several heavy buckets of material down to the river to pan.

What a miserable time I had getting those buckets down to the river, skidding down that 30 to 40-degree slope covered in broken bedrock and loose cobbles. Fun? Not as much fun as a double root canal, but just about. Still, I was way over the legal-limit for fun.

Every bucket held gold, but only flakes. And, as I was chasing coarse gold, after lugging three five-gallon buckets of clay goo from the mine entrance to the river, I'd had enough fun.

But, since the eddy I’d picked to prospect was exactly below that bedrock hump, I dropped into the spot, a truck-box sized hole high water had cut into the river bank. It was littered with bread-loaf sized cobbles.

I was in my own little enclave down there, and I couldn't be seen from the equipment-trail above, nor could I be seen from up or down the river on my side of the stream.

I had packed down my old VLF detector and a shovel with me. I fired up the detector and scanned the cobbled section. I immediately got a loud signal.

I chucked a load of bread-loaf cobbles into the river and scanned again. The target was still there. Moving the underlying loose stuff, I exposed a nice square nail. What the . . .? That wasn't what I wanted, but square nails were everywhere on that bank!

Well, being the dimwit that I was, I never made the connection this was a good sign (heavies dropping out during flood stage). So, I scanned more bank, got more signals, then gave up detecting because I KNEW every signal was a square nail. (Dumb yes, but I was quite a rookie back then.)

I cleared the rest of the loose stuff from under the cobbles and chucked the stream-run back into a hole (eight-foot deep) in the river. That hole lay downstream from a series of bedrock drops, it being the only calm water in a long stretch. This clue should also have lit up my gold-getting brain, but my rookie mind was a steel trap, and once shut, no helpful gold logic was getting in.

What I found after clearing the overburden was friable rock standing over a layer of soft decomposing bedrock. So, I scraped the shingle-like pieces off and panned it all out. Immediately I had coarse gold in my pan! What the . . .? My rookie brain began to make connections.

All along that eight-foot section of bedrock, there was fantastic, coarse and sassy gold!

Sitting down, I looked at that river eddy excavation. The bedrock, where the eddy had dumped the heavies, rose up into the bank. At that moment, my brain finally made another connection. (Part II to follow)

All the best,

Lanny