M & M Mining the Northern Sierras

[mikep691]

Now for the bad news of this mining season. I had my first visit with the Urologist this morning. Seems my prostate is enlarged and has a hard spot. So, after my trip this weekend, my mining season is on hold at least through June. I'll have to schedule an ultrasound, MRI, and prostate biopsy, all by the end of the month. Then have a consultation with the urologist on July 14 to discuss next actions. Sucks to just got all this new gear from wildminer, and now I won't be able to use it.

 

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[OwenT]

M & M Mining the Northern Sierras

Sorry to hear it. Hoping for the best and that you?ll be out again soon!

 

[mikep691]

I thought I would be working solo for four days, but room renter Jason volunteered to drive Adam (former landlord) to the claim Friday night. We relaxed for the evening, then started moving gear to the creek. It was a killer process. Once everything was down the canyon, we each had our own setups to assemble. Here's a couple shots of the setups:



Adam was using my old highbanker, with his own modifications, and worked a crack in the bedrock wall while my goal was to move gravels off the creek bottom to the bedrock. I'll continue to open up the hole and work my way upstream with the next trip. The gravels were about two feet deep to bedrock, and I was able to open about a three foot wide hole in those gravels. For that effort I was only rewarded with three small pickers and a flake. It was gold with character, just not a lot of it. Adam definitely got the quantity of gold, but just not the quality of my pickers.

Some more pics:



Kinda hard to take pics through running water, but here's my hole:



Jason came back after work Monday evening and helped get all the gear back up the canyon to the road. Then a few pics while we broke down camp:



We didn't take pics of the gold, so that will be in a later post. I'm thinking we need to build a sled type thingy with a block and tackle to belay the equipment down and back up. It was near heart attack for me especially coming up the hill. More on that later.

 

[N-Lionberger]

Nice, I know your old land lord he's pretty wild.

 

[mikep691]

Now that he has opened a TNet account, he'll put up some pics of his gold from the weekend. It looked to be a gram or so.

 

[wildminer]

Cool pics, Mike. I know some elk hunters that recover their elk from a ""no-no" hole by using a car hood attached to a rope that is ran through a snatch block then hooked to their pickup which is slowly driven down the road. They use walkie talkies, one in the truck and one on the ground for communication. Hope you are feeling good!

 

[mikep691]

Cool pics, Mike. I know some elk hunters that recover their elk from a ""no-no" hole by using a car hood attached to a rope that is ran through a snatch block then hooked to their pickup which is slowly driven down the road. They use walkie talkies, one in the truck and one on the ground for communication. Hope you are feeling good!

I started having issues with the P-90. Had a vapor lock that acted like a seized motor. We hiked it to the truck, then it decided to work again. It ran good until mid Monday morning then started surging and I couldn't get a stable idle or suction. Next trip I'll take the P-180.

 

[wildminer]

I would put a new carburetor on it. Sounds like it is sucking air and may have had to much raw gas in the cylinder making it seem seized on the compression stroke. If that was the case make sure you change the oil as there could be gas in the oil.

 

[mikep691]

Yeah, changing the oil... And the oil in the tiller. That's another story.

 

[mikep691]

Nice, I know your old land lord he's pretty wild.

We have room for one more tent and person for the 4th of July weekend if you're interested. Can't have campfires now but that's normal through Labor Day weekend. PM me if you're intested

 

[mikep691]

It looks like a change to the 4th of July plans. Mining partner Rockguy called me over the weekend and said he needed to get out of Tahoe in a bad way. It appears the Bay Area crime is reaching the west shore. They've had a murder and stabbing, along with multiple road rage incidents that just made him want to bale from the area. So after talking, I decided to move my 4th trip up a week. Now Rockguy and I will head up on Wednesday for a five day trip. I'm bringing the big guns for this outing, and hope to get some decent chunkies.

 

[mikep691]

We had a great week at our burnt out claim. At least the gold is still there.



Unfortunately, our season came to a screeching halt shortly after this trip. The fires erupted in Northern California, then, doctor after doctor had ended my season. I fought an infection since last December and no antibiotic was working. I guess antibiotics just don't work on Cancer. I've been diagnosed with Prostate cancer and stage 2 testicular cancer. I was hoping to get in one more trip after the forests reopen this fall, but they say I need to be on chemo through winter. So life's perverbial monkey wrench has been thrown at me.

I'm still kind of in shock at the news, and haven't decided my course of action. I'm talking with friends and family to find help with my decisions that are upcoming. What I do know is it's going to be a long, hard, cold winter.

 

[arizau]

Life seems to be full of curve balls. I wish you the best.

 

[mytimetoshine]

Nice nugget! I'm sorry to hear about the health issue Mike. You fight that dirty ***** cancer. You can do it. God speed my friend.

 

[wildminer]

Shocking news, Mike. I know you will fight this and will come out for the best! It may be tough, but you can do it. I've air mailed prayers for you and have faith that you will come out on top of this!

 

[delnorter]

All the best to you Mike. Your positive attitude will serve you well on this next journey. Charge ahead and win these battles.

 

[mikep691]

Nice nugget! I'm sorry to hear about the health issue Mike. You fight that dirty ***** cancer. You can do it. God speed my friend.

If you can open that pic of the nugg and expand it for the quartz matrix on both sides.

 

[mikep691]

Two weeks into the first chemo cycle, things changed rapidly. Thinking I had done everything I could to protect myself during chemo, I found out otherwise. One of my renters came home with a cough one day so I tested for Covid. Sure enough, I tested positive ( and a few days later, so did he). So my whole house turned into Zombieland with all three of us in quarantine for 10 days. Fortunately, it was a very mild case for both of us, just cough and I did lose my voice. After putting chemo on hold for a few weeks, I'm back to the full schedule beginning Nov. 2 with the start of the second cycle. This will be a couple eight hour treatments then some six hour days . I have at least four cycles to go through. One thing is for sure: If chemo doesn't kill me, nothing will. And I'll be the meanest SOB alive come mining season next spring.....

 

[KevinInColorado]

I’m looking forward to those “meanest SOB” posts next spring! Best of health to you man 💕

 

[mikep691]

The three week cycle two is now complete. I'm doing amazingly well with little to no side effects. White blood cell count and platelets are extremely low so I have to do additional precautions to not get sick. Balance of Nature, double One a Day's and forcing myself to eat, which I'm finding hard to do. I have a loose molar that keeps me from chewing without incredible pain.

When I can hold my train of thought, I'm planning the spring gig, and the modifications to the equipment that will make the trek to the dig site easier. Since Toyota pick ups are limited to what can go, I'm making a set of removable bike wheels for the sluice. I'll be able to load everything on the sluice, strap it down and roll it down the hill. I'll fabricate some handles too. I can use the sluice leg mounts for the wheels then swap them out at the dig with the legs.

I'm so looking forward to this chemo being over and going after some good gold. Half ounce is my goal for this upcoming season.