Found some hand stacked rocks way back in the woods.

[diggingthe1]

Took a huge hike down a remote Colorado Mt. About 3 hours down my boys eyeball these strange formations. Barely visible from the bushwack trail. I was reading some old gold forums about old timers hand stacking rocks afterward and it made sense.
We will do the hike again, very remote. Hopefully we can spend some time and get down to some undisturbed bedrock. How would you go about mining this area? Haul buckets to the stream about one half mile away, or drywash? I mainly just wanted to share my story, and get some ideas. Its an insane hike, I don't want to pack too much in unless its worth it!!! Hope you are 'll finding color

 

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[kcm]

When you said "Found some hand stacked rocks way back in the woods.", I was expecting to see trees. Silly me!!


As that's hard rock area, the first thing someone would have to do in order to work it is to find out what kind of gold/mineralization is there. It could be that they were getting tellurides and then hauling them to processing. Maybe sulfides that they could roast and crush. But hopefully it'd be native!!

Do you know if that side of the mountain has a history of gold? You might could get some more info from this or a similar site:
Abandoned Mine Lands | Colorado Geological Survey

 

[Laz7777]

drywashing sounds better to me than hauling buckets a half mile.
still, hauling all the gear in...ugh....batteries are heavy, obviously, unless you've got a gas powered engine..umm gas cans are heavy...
how strong are your boys? sounds like they'd love to work

hand stacked tailings in a remote locale, must be good gold there (or other minerals) for that kind of work.
nobody ever gets it all, finding remains can be tricky. what's worth it today wasn't way back when. nobody prospected for fun in the old days.
can you figure where the tailings came from? can't be far, due to the man power (maybe mule power, too?)
most everything in your pics looks like it could be handled by human hands, but on the edge of it. stacking like that would be exhausting even for a group of miners, which is more likely. were the Chinese known to be in the area? they'd work for less gold than anyone else at that time.
before hauling anything in other than some simple mining gear, sample it.
as for finding the ground to sample, it couldn't be far from where the tailings are.
in the top left pic it looks like an adit, but is it a shadow?
spend some time when you can, the weather now has to be wicked and unpredictable. go back in the spring when you can be assured that you won't get trapped in this place.

 

[Goldwasher]

barely looks like handstacks and if so Hippie hiker handstacks...That's a lot of granite to be in a gold producing area...maybe some gem mining...I don't see typical miners handstacks...sometimes natural things look manmade

 

[rodoconnor]

GW beat me to it . I would suspect some gem hunting there. Do some research to see what minerals have been mined there. A mini hand operated D/W can be built for next to nothing and might be the way to go. Get some concentrates to ease your curiosity. G/L

 

[DizzyDigger]

Those hand stacked rocks could also be a corner marker for
a claim. Be sure to do your homework first and make sure
you're not poaching someone's legal claim.

 

[diggingthe1]

Thanks for the replies. It looked like they were getting down to the bedrock, or maybe the soil. There was not any rocks inside the walls. I love gems. My son found a Smokey quartz on the way down. Granite everywhere. It will be a great place to plan a trip, and check it out better! Now I need a mule. I like the set ups I've seen on here. There is gold in the area. I'll do some now research. Thanks for the link! To me it looked worked for a summer. I appreciate the responses!

 

[arizau]

To me, the pictures look more like a natural occurrence (deterioration/sloughing/raveling/slides of an old formation)* rather than stacking done by man. If there was any human interaction to what you explored, I would guess that it may have been done by gem hunters rather than by gold or other mineral seekers. Here is a link to a series produced by the Weather Channel about gem hunters (Prospectors) in Colorado and if there are any reruns available they are interesting to watch. https://www.google.com/webhp?source...=2&ie=UTF-8#q=the weather channel gem hunters

Good luck and have fun with your boys.

*I have seen many similar occurrences of what you have pictured on my hikes here in Arizona as well as in Colorado and New Mexico.

 

[dave wiseman]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scree

 

[arizau]

That is what I was describing but forgot what the term for the formation is.

 

[johnedoe]

I was looking over your pics as well and I just can't see where any of that is hand stacked..... If it were hand stacked there would be additional evidence of the spots that were worked and not just a bunch of jumbled rocks.
Now with all that there is still a good chance to find some gem stones..... But my tired old busted up butt would not be there trying to climb over and around that stuff....

Also see image here.... http://www.screencast.com/t/jNdJj0Gl4

 

[kcm]

Can't help but wonder if much of that isn't from avalanches.

 

[DizzyDigger]

Thanks for the replies. It looked like they were getting down to the bedrock, or maybe the soil. There was not any rocks inside the walls. I love gems. My son found a Smokey quartz on the way down. Granite everywhere. It will be a great place to plan a trip, and check it out better! Now I need a mule. I like the set ups I've seen on here. There is gold in the area. I'll do some now research. Thanks for the link! To me it looked worked for a summer. I appreciate the responses!

You have a son...why do you need a mule?

 

[diggingthe1]

I think an avalanche would have wiped those little walls out. If you blow up the top right picture and look at the bottom left. There were lots of wall stacks like these. I doubt it is skree because there were vacant holes with the walls built around them.
Its an interesting place and I'm sure I will be back to explore. I figured I would dig as deep as I can and run some of the dirt, but now I will be looking for gemstones too. You can't loose if your out in the woods. We will have no matter what we find

 

[johnedoe]

The important thing is... Be careful , and HAVE FUN.... and the gemstones or gold is just a sweet bonus...

 

[arizau]

I think an avalanche would have wiped those little walls out. If you blow up the top right picture and look at the bottom left. There were lots of wall stacks like these. I doubt it is skree because there were vacant holes with the walls built around them.
Its an interesting place and I'm sure I will be back to explore. I figured I would dig as deep as I can and run some of the dirt, but now I will be looking for gemstones too. You can't loose if your out in the woods. We will have no matter what we find

What you describe here sounds a little like what they were showing in the gem hunting series I mentioned. After I looked up your location you are pretty near where some of it was filmed (Mt. Antero). Check this site out. Colorado Gemstones! Aquamarine, Rhodochrosite, Amazonite It might be a good idea to check and see if the area(s) you play in are claimed and stay away from them for collecting if they are.

 

[ClaimStake]

the smaller rock walls are man made, but I don't think the whole hillside was broken up by mining like that. I've seen some pretty impressive rock piles and usually they're a little neater stacked than that.

the bigger rocks look like natural erosion. 10+ft snowpack melting and sloughing off will bust that rock up and move it around.

but who really knows without some history. someone could have dynamited that whole place. look for drill holes in the rocks.

 

[diggingthe1]

The hillside is natural, just a small part was hand stacked. The grass has grown in and it looks quite old from the gold rush days. Its so remote, but Ill definitely check to see if its claimed. I would love to run into gemstones. I'm familiar with the local gemstone localities and have done my share of moving Tallus. I'm hoping for big gold flakes or gemstones. Sore back is what ill probably get. Good times with the Family for sure.

 

[arizau]

For claims info; make yourself familiar with Land Matters Maps if you are not already.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Thanks for the replies. It looked like they were getting down to the bedrock, or maybe the soil. There was not any rocks inside the walls. I love gems. My son found a Smokey quartz on the way down. Granite everywhere. It will be a great place to plan a trip, and check it out better! Now I need a mule. I like the set ups I've seen on here. There is gold in the area. I'll do some now research. Thanks for the link! To me it looked worked for a summer. I appreciate the responses!

I agree, some of that is hand-stacked, though one needs to blow the pictures up to see it clearly. Pink, Pike Peaks granite seems to me. And yes, there is gold around some of that; likely tellurides. As others have mentioned, it could be gem-hunters instead of gold.

Without giving out a lot, would you like to tell us approximately where it is? Around Victor, or the Collegiates, or Summit County, etc? Might help with the responses....

I live in Monument, a little north by northeast of you as the crow flies; though if they have to follow the roads, it is a bit of a way. I do know some of the background around here if I can help, I'd be glad to do so. (I'm getting too old to climb up into the area where you took the pictures; plus bad knees and ankles from football long ago.)