I'm goin gold pannin !

[BigAl]

I have not done this in years ,but the old fella that befriended me and my wife in Idaho wants to take us out . Turns out we are going to some old mining claim that has not been worked in 70 years .
Two brothers worked it back then ( one summer) and told Bob they had made enough in that summer to retire the rest of there lives . He said they left and he never saw them again . They left all the old mining equipment there . Its about 20 miles into the back country and I have located a route that will put us within a half mile or so of the creek and the old site . The old road has long since grow over . It should be fun for a day outing and if we happen to find some flakes ,all the better .

 

[urednecku]

Good luck! Let us know how ya do.

 

[ddrane2115]

I have not done this in years ,but the old fella that befriended me and my wife in Idaho wants to take us out . Turns out we are going to some old mining claim that has not been worked in 70 years .
Two brothers worked it back then ( one summer) and told Bob they had made enough in that summer to retire the rest of there lives . He said they left and he never saw them again . They left all the old mining equipment there . Its about 20 miles into the back country and I have located a route that will put us within a half mile or so of the creek and the old site . The old road has long since grow over . It should be fun for a day outing and if we happen to find some flakes ,all the better .

I hope for you the two old guys that got 'rich' were not the flakes on this....... Panning for gold would be fun I would think, finding a mother load would be

 

[EastTexFrank]

I have not done this in years ,but the old fella that befriended me and my wife in Idaho wants to take us out . Turns out we are going to some old mining claim that has not been worked in 70 years .
Two brothers worked it back then ( one summer) and told Bob they had made enough in that summer to retire the rest of there lives . He said they left and he never saw them again . They left all the old mining equipment there . Its about 20 miles into the back country and I have located a route that will put us within a half mile or so of the creek and the old site . The old road has long since grow over . It should be fun for a day outing and if we happen to find some flakes ,all the better .

It's a lot of fun. I did it up in the Georgia mountains. Spent two days panning for one flake of gold. I've still got it in a little tube. Every time I get the urge to do it again I pull out the tube and look at the flake and then go do something more productive but I'm glad I did it. You'll have fun. Enjoy.

 

[fogtender]

I have not done this in years ,but the old fella that befriended me and my wife in Idaho wants to take us out . Turns out we are going to some old mining claim that has not been worked in 70 years .
Two brothers worked it back then ( one summer) and told Bob they had made enough in that summer to retire the rest of there lives . He said they left and he never saw them again . They left all the old mining equipment there . Its about 20 miles into the back country and I have located a route that will put us within a half mile or so of the creek and the old site . The old road has long since grow over . It should be fun for a day outing and if we happen to find some flakes ,all the better .

Remember not to tell anyone that you have something "Yellow" in your pan...

Them "Claim Jumpers" are all over the place!

When my dad was going panning for the first time, I was in shop class in High School (I was about 14 at the time). I told the teacher in shop class that we were going panning and he started to laugh and then melted a bunch of brass from about ten feet up with a torch and let it fall into sand. When they cooled, he gave the "Nuggets" to me and told me to drop them into my dad's gold pan of muddy water and see what happens when he gets down to them.

The guys that took us "Panning" had been doing it for years, and when I showed them what the teacher had given me, they all laughed and distracted my dad while I put them in his pan.

He really freaked out when he came to what looked like about a quarter pound of assorted "Gold" nuggets. Everyone was laughing so hard it took about ten minutes before someone could stop laughing to tell him that it wasn't gold.... It was a pretty "quiet" ride back to the house at the end of the weekend... but he got over it!

But he did have "weekend" gold fever for a few years after that and I got to drag the packs full of "Dirt" from the side of the Mountain down to his sluice box before reality set in.... Lots of hard work for pay that is below working at McDonalds.... But a lot more fun! Miners have got to be the most optimistic folks around! It is always the next rock, bend in the river, quarts vein in some rocks that will be the next "Mother Load"...

 

[California]

I have not done this in years ,but the old fella that befriended me and my wife in Idaho wants to take us out . Turns out we are going to some old mining claim that has not been worked in 70 years .
Two brothers worked it back then ( one summer) and told Bob they had made enough in that summer to retire the rest of there lives . He said they left and he never saw them again . They left all the old mining equipment there . Its about 20 miles into the back country and I have located a route that will put us within a half mile or so of the creek and the old site . The old road has long since grow over . It should be fun for a day outing and if we happen to find some flakes ,all the better .

Al, that story is so 'over the top' that I question the old man's mental capacity. If he's been telling this story all his life you are going to find a city of tents when you get in there.

BLM has the mining claim records online. Run that section/township and see whose claim you will be sniping. I'm sure you will find an active claim, with gold now over $800, and you will likely find layers of overclaims like we had on our claim up by Quincy when gold was $800 last time. (1980.)

Go, and have a good time. Just don't get shot by the current claimholder. Be real polite!

Fogtender, great story!

I've had an idea for years that I will carry out on our claim someday. [Relevant to another thread - My mining partner died in 1989. It will always be 'our' claim.]

I want to get some new, current-date coins and salt them all up and down the creek. Each spring's turbulence will churn them down to the bedrock on the bottom of the creek. I wish I could be around to watch future generations dredge these out of the crevices. And realize somebody had got there first, in fact many generations, since the coins are dated 160 years after the Gold Rush pioneers did a pretty good job of finding everything. Long ago I read of the Piltdown Man hoax, and I hope to leave a harmless variant up at the Claim.

 

[fogtender]

I've had an idea for years that I will carry out on our claim someday. [Relevant to another thread - My mining partner died in 1989. It will always be 'our' claim.]

I want to get some new, current-date coins and salt them all up and down the creek. Each spring's turbulence will churn them down to the bedrock on the bottom of the creek. I wish I could be around to watch future generations dredge these out of the crevices. And realize somebody had got there first, in fact many generations, since the coins are dated 160 years after the Gold Rush pioneers did a pretty good job of finding everything. Long ago I read of the Piltdown Man hoax, and I hope to leave a harmless variant up at the Claim.

I hope you do a check now and then of your mine, with the prices of Gold now days, there is always someone willing to jump your claim boarders.

Also if you want to find if there has been any gold left on old abandon claims, check the history of it. If it was a bunch of White guys, there is going to be alot around still because they went for the big quick stuff and moved on... If it was mined by the Chinese, there won't be nothing left but dirt, they were the best miners of gold in their day, I think they mined with fine tooth combs!

 

[California]

I hope you do a check now and then of your mine, with the prices of Gold now days, there is always someone willing to jump your claim boarders.

...If it was a bunch of White guys, there is going to be alot around still because they went for the big quick stuff and moved on... If it was mined by the Chinese, there won't be nothing left but dirt, they were the best miners of gold in their day

There's not much placer gold left in the streams up and down the Sierras. First the 49'ers, then associations of busted 49'ers who approached it methodically with industrial methods (diverting streams, hydraulic mining etc), then the Chinese like you said. Then during the Depression, this country is convenient to civilization so a lot of folks went to the woods and squeaked by earning a dollar a day, or less. Then the generation of suction-dredge miners hit it (that's us) then the hobby mining clubs that steal what they can by mobbing a site for one weekend.

Like you said, this is strictly a hobby. I figure we are recovering the cost of the gas we put through the dredge, not what it costs to drive up there. But finding fine gold in the pan after getting down to bedrock keeps us coming back. And the site is gorgeous. I would go up there to camp even if there were no gold at all.

 

[fogtender]

There's not much placer gold left in the streams up and down the Sierras. First the 49'ers, then associations of busted 49'ers who approached it methodically with industrial methods (diverting streams, hydraulic mining etc), then the Chinese like you said. Then during the Depression, this country is convenient to civilization so a lot of folks went to the woods and squeaked by earning a dollar a day, or less. Then the generation of suction-dredge miners hit it (that's us) then the hobby mining clubs that steal what they can by mobbing a site for one weekend.

Like you said, this is strictly a hobby. I figure we are recovering the cost of the gas we put through the dredge, not what it costs to drive up there. But finding fine gold in the pan after getting down to bedrock keeps us coming back. And the site is gorgeous. I would go up there to camp even if there were no gold at all.

Just being in such a place is a good excuse to get out. Kinda like hunting for me now days, I don't really go out and shoot much anymore unless it is trying to eat me, I just use it for an excuse to get out and pretend to hunt and keep the campfire going and enjoy being in the middle of nowhere. Besides if you actually shoot something, it is an incredible amount of work to get it home.... and you can't pay someone to work that hard anyway....

Once in awhile I take some out-of-state friends down South of here and let them gold pan, they find a little color and they really get excited and have all sorts of stories to tell back home and enough gold to plate a pinhead...

 

[brazospete]

True story you have to have a goldmine to operate a goldmine. Lots of gold mines closed up not because they ran out of gold but it cost more thab 30 bucks to extract an ounce of gold. $ 2000 gold makes it a whole new world, wish I was younger I'd do some backpacking on the west coast of ALASKA! look on nautical charts of southeast ak they often mark old goldmines along the coast in case mariners get stranded. During the oilspill I knew people who were actively extracting gold from the beaches around Sleepy Bay shhh don't tell any body.

 

[Snowtrac Nome]

living in nome i can find gold every place i dip my pan but you don't see me quitting my day job i'm going to get serious with the suction dredge this upcoming summer i have a nice piece of exposed bed rock picked outgot a bout 1/4 ounce last summer in the one weekend i could get into a friends claim to test out the dredge i built up hopefuly i cover the cost of the dredge next summer i will need more than 3 hours of work

 

[NorthernRedneck]

We're sitting on a gold mine were I live. The last running mine closed up back in the 60's. There's lots of prospecting going on right now with test drill holes being drilled daily. A buddy of mine is working for one of the prospecting companies and he says they are finding lots of gold down there that was previously undiscovered during the last big boom. Here's hoping that something becomes of all this prospecting as our local economy really needs a boost right now.

 

[Snowtrac Nome]

lots of exploration going on here too and some good money to be maade even with the high price of logistics problem i see is large or small you never see a goldminer using his own money always investors and spare money is drying up out there now i got an idea boil out the mining companys a few triple 7's excavators and d-9 each should put people to work

 

[California]

you never see a goldminer using his own money always investors

That's a good point. I've read that while a few early miners and present big established mining corporations have made a lot of money, nearly all the real activity in "gold mining" consists of hustling speculators until their money is gone.

I've had a mining claim in the Sierras for 30 years and I don't know of anyone in my region who made a living at it since a few made $1/day back in the Depression.

Up on the ridge there's an abandoned mine that played out in about 1907 after only a year of operation - after considerable expense was put into it for the tunnels, a tramway down to the creek, and the Pelton-wheel powered stamp mill down there. The story is that some Italian investors were wiped out. I estimate the work completed on the ground would cost over a half million $ today, maybe a million considering the stamp mill they abandoned there, and that's real money spent. Who knows how much more the promoters skimmed off before the scheme folded.

But then there's the story of the kid who picked up a potato-sized nugget (more likely gold-rich quartz, valuable as a specimen) in his first couple of days trying out a metal detector.

And the guy with the claim adjoining mine. (His goes up a different branch of the creek, and I stay clear of the actual fork). We hadn't seen him for years since he said he was moving to Idaho.

Then he dropped in at dinnertime and showed us what he found with his new expensive metal detector. (below) I was happy for him until he kept coming back to the question of just where my upper boundary, the one that adjoins someone else's parcel and is far from his claim, is, precisely. Hmmm.

 

[Snowtrac Nome]

nobodys but there a few guys working out here off shore dredging with cobbled together 8 inch dredges making 100 to 300 k per year at these prices off shore in the bering sea temps droped to about 28 at night and cets up to about 35 during the day these guys are diving in 30 degreee water right now all the new wannabees left at the end of august after fighting weather all summer and the last month and half there has been excelent water conditionsso these guys have been working around the clock they all work out of pocket with cobbeled together equipment so profit margin is kind of high but they are working for their money its not easy diving in freezing water

 

[California]

Man that's a hard way to make a living.

Our creek is direct snow runoff. More than once I've stepped in and sworn I've broken my ankle on a rolled-over cobblestone. After climbing back out and warming up, that pain was nothing more than cold water shock.

After some SOB stole my 4 inch sluice and hose, and my kids had moved away so they weren't free labor any more, I bought a little 2.5 inch dredge. Now I wait until late in summer when the water is low and warm(er). Then invite some unsuspecting guest who doesn't know any better to do half the work, for half of near nothing.

As a hobby this is about like fly fishing, not remotely cost effective. But I love it.
Grandpa was a professional mining engineer so I guess I have it in my blood.

 

[Snowtrac Nome]

mine hasn't been verry cost efective yet either but inland most of our gold is coarse and runs about 98.5 au i had a mining engeneer friend of mine come in he feels this little piece of bed rock should produce about 2 to 3 oz per weekend so my hobby might actuly pay back this summer also because of our gold up here the standrad comercialy available equipmend needs to be modified to bring recovery rates up to recover the fine gold left behind by the glacers

 

[Dargo]

Several gold mines that have been abandoned for decades in the west are gearing up and will be active once again. I am doing my research now, but some of my business partners have already gone in and have purchased 30% of a mine. Gees, is there ever a lot of rules, regulations, pitfalls and risks though. I'm convinced that some will hit it and become extremely wealthy. I'm also convinced that others will blow their entire life's savings and get nothing in return. Either way, gold mines everywhere are being looked at very closely again with gold prices sustaining record high prices.

It's sad to say, but true, that some panning for gold will likely make out better than some spending hundreds of thousands investing in reopening some closed mines. Good luck pannin'!!

 

[brazospete]

Chicken Creek Alaska Tourism should be a Gold MINE THIS next summer. I had a buddy that went there every summer. I asked him if he found lots of GOLD ? He always answered "A poultry amount!" I dont know about the gold but the man that was running the only business in Chicken was making a fortune selling hamburbers and bowls of chili to the tourists that came in cars ,suvs,motorhomes,tour buses and a few hardy souls on motorcycles. He also sold canned goods and gold pans and beer,ammo and such. It was robbery without a gun but nobody complained.

 

[brazospete]

If you got a motorhome that'll make it and a fourwheeler you can also make pretty good money picking mushrooms the year after a forest fire in Alaska.

 

[brazospete]

That's a good point. I've read that while a few early miners and present big established mining corporations have made a lot of money, nearly all the real activity in "gold mining" consists of hustling speculators until their money is gone.

I've had a mining claim in the Sierras for 30 years and I don't know of anyone in my region who made a living at it since a few made $1/day back in the Depression.

Up on the ridge there's an abandoned mine that played out in about 1907 after only a year of operation - after considerable expense was put into it for the tunnels, a tramway down to the creek, and the Pelton-wheel powered stamp mill down there. The story is that some Italian investors were wiped out. I estimate the work completed on the ground would cost over a half million $ today, maybe a million considering the stamp mill they abandoned there, and that's real money spent. Who knows how much more the promoters skimmed off before the scheme folded.

But then there's the story of the kid who picked up a potato-sized nugget (more likely gold-rich quartz, valuable as a specimen) in his first couple of days trying out a metal detector.

And the guy with the claim adjoining mine. (His goes up a different branch of the creek, and I stay clear of the actual fork). We hadn't seen him for years since he said he was moving to Idaho.

Then he dropped in at dinnertime and showed us what he found with his new expensive metal detector. (below) I was happy for him until he kept coming back to the question of just where my upper boundary, the one that adjoins someone else's parcel and is far from his claim, is, precisely. Hmmm.

View attachment 38637

It's cute you put that "POTATO" sized nugget story in with that picture of those "nuggets". I knew a bartender in Copper Center Ak he was doing a lot of "hiking" in the Wrangel St. Elias national park until the Rangers caught him with a backpack dredge and took the gold and his dredge and let him go. I never saw him after that he just left I guess. That's really wild country back in there! A man could disappear and nobody would even know where to start looking for him.

 

[Snowtrac Nome]

around nome here there are all kinds of stories going back to the first gold rush but i will share a couple i have first hand knowalage of back when the national guard had uh-1 stationed up here there was a pilot would take one out for test flight on the weekends he had some dry washes he would set up sluces in andanchor them down than leave then through the summer and winter the following sumer he would go on a test flight by him self again and clean them out he always took about a baby food jar full of gold out of his cons.another one had to do with a local miner who always had a scam going the corps of engineers was dredging our port with a big suction dredge this guy got the idea that there must be gold to be had with all the volume of material being moved so with permissionf the contractor he therw one of his boxes at the end of the discharge hose it took about 1/2 hour for the bottom to turn yellow when he came back to check progress the corps of engineers were there told him they were not permitted for mining and kicked the whole box over board

 

[brazospete]

I heard they had dredges working the beaches at Nome ever since the Gold Rush that Johnny Horton used to sing about(I love that stupid song!). Heres another one. I was operating a decontamination barge on the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in 1989 And sometime after we moved from Green Island to a place called Sleepy Bay I discovered the 3 women that ran the washing machines that washed the coveralls that the beach crews wore under their rain gear were acting funny. They were excited and hyperactive. Now those girls were picked because somebody didn't want them to get hurt trying to cross oily,rocky extremely slippery beaches. They were all nearing 60 and I was 39 so I usually didn't pay much attention except when there was a problem with the machinery. That day was different so I sort of kept a close eye on them about middle afternoon I dropped into the trailer that housed the washing machines and men's showers. Well one of those girls was waiting for me I guess they talked it over and decided to tell me cause she just walked up to me and handed me a medicine bottle and said "Look at this!" Oh there was a nugget about the size of a pea and 2 smaller ones and a few flakes" I found these in one of the washing machines" Well spit I was puttin in 95 hrs a week drawing $16.69 an hr. I wasn't about to do anything that was gonna mess that up. I just handed her her bottle back and said "don't tell nobody nuthin just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. I don't know anything about what happens in here. I just run the generator and tie up boats." We worked another 4 months and then it was over. I can't even remember more than a handfull of names of people who worked on the Oilspill. I could find Sleepy bay on a chart we were anchored in Mummy Bay. The whole Coast of Alaska from south of ketchican to Anchorage is a National Park (Off limits for prospecting)it sure is one honkin big Park!

 

[brazospete]

I worked For Veco Inc. and I was on Task Force One and the barge was named Chignik. IT WAS AN EPIC ADVENTURE ! I got Whale Tales!! Nobody gets an argument from me if you don't believe me SPIT if it hadn't happened to me I wouldn't believe it either!

 

[brazospete]

I aint trying to bore you people so if you want to hear a story about "Bear Spray" your gonna haf to ask me. I 'm a slow typer and I don't know when I'll get around to it but if you want to hear more say so if not never mind.

 

[Snowtrac Nome]

funny you mentioned it my jr high teacher was a hunting guide in the off season your story reminded me of one he had he shot some ducks and while cleaning them he opende up a craw's and found 3 nuggets in one he said it would have been nice to know where them ducks had come from

 

[Snowtrac Nome]

I heard they had dredges working the beaches at Nome ever since the Gold Rush that Johnny Horton used to sing about(I love that stupid song!). Heres another one. I was operating a decontamination barge on the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in 1989 And sometime after we moved from Green Island to a place called Sleepy Bay I discovered the 3 women that ran the washing machines that washed the coveralls that the beach crews wore under their rain gear were acting funny. They were excited and hyperactive. Now those girls were picked because somebody didn't want them to get hurt trying to cross oily,rocky extremely slippery beaches. They were all nearing 60 and I was 39 so I usually didn't pay much attention except when there was a problem with the machinery. That day was different so I sort of kept a close eye on them about middle afternoon I dropped into the trailer that housed the washing machines and men's showers. Well one of those girls was waiting for me I guess they talked it over and decided to tell me cause she just walked up to me and handed me a medicine bottle and said "Look at this!" Oh there was a nugget about the size of a pea and 2 smaller ones and a few flakes" I found these in one of the washing machines" Well spit I was puttin in 95 hrs a week drawing $16.69 an hr. I wasn't about to do anything that was gonna mess that up. I just handed her her bottle back and said "don't tell nobody nuthin just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. I don't know anything about what happens in here. I just run the generator and tie up boats." We worked another 4 months and then it was over. I can't even remember more than a handfull of names of people who worked on the Oilspill. I could find Sleepy bay on a chart we were anchored in Mummy Bay. The whole Coast of Alaska from south of ketchican to Anchorage is a National Park (Off limits for prospecting)it sure is one honkin big Park!

here is food for thaught the park is closed to mechanised mining but in moste places metal detecting and panning is still permited with nuggets that big a metal detector should pay for its self look for some exposed bed rock where water had run over it or still is and thats where they were picked up it does happin ihave found amalgum laying in the little creeks running aggross the beach

 

[brazospete]

Well those people had big diesel pumps with manifolds down to multiple 2" hoses. They were supposed to be washing the oil off the rocks and into the water where it could be picked up by skimmers,but some of those guys were old alaskan sourdoughs who knew what to do with a rocky beach and a high pressure hose. I only spent 10 days on the beach (It was pretty tuff trying to walk on oily rounded rocks) until I caught a detail getting that old barge up and going. I stayed on that barge until I was told I HAD to go home.