That's a weekend!

       We spend a lot of time in our office here, running reports and searching for information. We enjoy all that or we wouldn’t be doing it, but what we really love is being in the Hills!

       Saturday dawned clear, so we took off to further explore the claims we are in the process of permitting at Friday Gulch. We had a couple of missions…. Take a bunch of photos; check all alternate routes; and of course have fun!

       Alex brought along a deck of cards so we played “Go Fish” to while away road time. Also observed a lot of logging, a lot more “red tops” to be logged, and what little snow we have in the Northern Hills diminishing as we traveled south.

       First thing I noticed when we got out of our friend’s truck was dust…. Yes, dust in March! There was no snow to be seen, even in the gulches. Okay, maybe that was the second or third thing because I first smelled a hint of pine in the air, then felt the warmth of the sun, the light breeze and reveled in the fact I didn’t have to be wearing a coat!

       Rain is in the forecast and that is a good thing. However, along with the thunderstorms forecasted is a fire warning. Every fire department in the Black Hills has to be hoping torrential rain and little lightning!

       It was with a great sense of relief that our friend out hiking found some old lode workings. It was way up on a hill, well out of our proposed placer operation. We were pleased to see that the shaft he found also had an adit entrance further down the hill. This could serve us well as shelter from a storm or forest fire.. We will explore it more extensively another day… we didn’t really come equipped for underground work!

       To dramatize how dry the winter was we had previously documented two seep areas within the claim boundaries for the permit. This is done to help mitigrate how we go about avoiding impact to the existing ecological balance. To our surprise, one of which was noted as a seep area last August is now completely dry! Too little winter snow to generate spring run-off had dried up and eliminated standing water.

       Now that may make permitting easier, but I sure don’t care for the long-term implications. There is little water available in that gulch. You can bet every type of wildlife knows where to get water and just like that, one of their sources is gone!

       The trip concluded with finding a good access that will allow haulage of campers and equipment; a very good day indeed.

       One footnote to add is during our day’s travels we explored an area that left us a little awestruck! We happened upon what is called in mining terms, an “arrastras.”

       The definition of the word is, “Drag-stone mill for pulverizing ores to isolate silver (or gold) by the patio process, apparently used in pre-Columbian America. The ore was crushed and ground by mule power in the arrastras (shallow circular pits paved with stone). Large blocks of stone attached by beams to a central rotating post were dragged around the arrastra, reducing the ore to a fine mud. Further steps resulted in the isolating of the silver (gold).”

       Bob (of course) figured it out, saying he had seen few remaining examples of it in the Black Hills. We can’t be positive that’s what it was, but the symmetrical shape and level ground indicated the possibility. It wasn’t fancy… the ground had been leveled, a rock boundary laid out and the center was composed of finely ground rock. I could almost hear echoes of the mule braying, or horses whinny as their hooves trod in a never ending circle.

       Sunday it was back to the Rochford area to look at a possible claim, but also to meet for the first time in person our friend Pat and her two sons. The weather was beautiful with a little snow still on the ground under trees and deep gulches. Time was limited, so we showed them to the Montezuma for a little exploration of the geology there. Hope they had fun!

       So if we had our druthers, this is how we would spend our days… a little hiking, a little prospecting, and a little bit of “Go Fish”!

Spring?

        It’s usually kindof a bad joke when spring officially arrives in the Black Hills.  As the month of March passes mid-point and heads toward the first day of spring, we have to think that this is a rare year indeed!

        The first week of March is usually host to one of a series of spring blizzards.  We’ve passed that milestone unscathed and forecasts look to another week of balmy weather.



Minimal ice, minimal run-off

      I can’t help but recall last year, when the 80 degree high of yesterday and the 45 degree low overnight would have been an event left unseen until June!  We are enjoying every minute of it; also mindful that minimal snow pack is already melting with little chance of saturating the ground let alone look forward to run-off!

        Our best bet is to hope for rain… crops, fire danger and prospecting all being weather dependent!

        First draft of our U.S. Forest Service plan of operataions is on our desk and we want to talk about some of the “common sense” elements that have to be on paper to avoid destruction to public property.

       

         We always chuckle at these items… everybody should know, right!  Liken it to the 10 pages of warnings packaged with the simplest item these days!  The bottom line is, however, if someone hadn’t been injured or a home hadn’t caught on fire, you wouldn’t need to tell people that using an electic appliance in the shower might electrocute them or bring their home down in ashes!

        “Solid waste generated at the site such as broken equipment, scrap metal, trash, garbage, tires, etc., will be promptly disposed of at an off-site approved facility.”  This has been a golden rule in both families since childhood in the forest and on the prairie… take out what you bring in!  Bob and I grew up in rural areas before the “clean up a stretch of highway” projects became popular.  In those days, mom and dad got the family together in the fall and spring and we ALL spent the day cleaning the road ditches that ran along our property lines.  My first paying job, at the ripe age of 10 years old, was for my sister and I to ride our bikes ¼ mile to town (uphill all the way J) and pick up garbage during the summer months in the city parks. 

Now if you’ve ever had to pick up other people’s garbage, you don’t spread it around yourself!  Even our kids will get an indignant look on their faces and immediately correct their friends, “don’t throw that on the ground!”  Saves me a lot of talking!

Next on the agenda… “Refrain from removing material at the toe of a slope greater than 30% to prevent mass movement.”  There is a good-sized hill behind our property which shows a pretty distinctive slough area. Two years ago we woke to the sound of a dozer on the abandoned railroad grade on the back of our property.  Although they have no right to work that grade, a neighbor had hired them for dirt work.  A quick trip to the railroad grade showed that a good-sized boulder, probably six feet across, had been removed from the toe of the slough area!  An unhappy dozer operator when confronted said he was trying to help!  That would be the difference between a driver and an operator… anyone who has operated heavy equipment knows what I mean!

And last but certainly not least… “Store fuel and keep the camp site, fueling sites, and other concentrated-use sites outside the Water Influence Zone.”  May I say…. Duhhhh!  But then I stop to think about how many times we’ve had to caution prospectors about the simple possibility of a flash flood!  It’s so easy to pick that perfect campsite by the creek, falling asleep to the lull of the babbling brook…

        So this also brought to mind something I hadn’t thought about in respect to dredging.  South Dakota water officials frown on dredging.  I’ve always been a little puzzled by that…  here in ag country stock dams are often dredged to improve habitat, water storage, etc.  A motor of any kind, however, will drip fuel, oil and grease into a creek.  Maybe that’s the reason! So maybe we want to address that when we talk about the possible benefits of dredging.  Anyone got a solution?

 

        Anyway, this will remind you of a few simple rules that any prospector should follow.  Use common sense and the rules are second nature!

Spring break...

       Spring break is true to name this year… temps in the 60s and 70s allow shirtsleeves versus winter coats!

       I took a little time to enjoy the weather and dipped into my winter stash of gravels toted home last fall.

       While I (Teresa) was panning (one of those people who can’t ever do just one thing at a time), I was thinking about making a panning video for our website someday. 

       The reason for “some day” is simple.  We live in a rural area, do not have satellite, so therefore depend on a dial-up connection for the internet.  Guess I’ve never taken the time to explain, but that is the reason our website isn’t updated often.  It involves a whole day (at dial-up speeds) to change out the website… that’s if everything is working okay and I’m in a patient sort of mood!  That might happen once or twice a year that those two elements actually mesh!

       So I thought, swirl of pan… swirl of pan… that I would give you a simple verbal panning lesson.

       I’ve gone on-line, I’ve read books, I’ve read instructions packaged with gold pans.  I’m thinking that somebody didn’t really want me to pan; I usually get lost with Step 3 or Step 4!

       So I’m going to keep it simple.  I will address panning what I call dry “screened” gravel. The only difference between that and what I call rough panning (meaning everything dug in a shovelful) is that you don’t have as much material in your pan and it’s easier and generally a better return for a beginner to pan material put through a concentrator.  I usually reserve rough panning for a new dig site where I’m not sure of the pay zone.

       Step 1 – Fill the pan with a couple of scoops of material.  First time out, keep it at less than about 1/3 the capacity of the pan. The reason is that first timers need to take their time and half or heaping full pan can take you quite a while to pan down.  Secondly, less weight makes it easier to control motion of the pan. The flip side is your probability of gold lessens but is counter-balanced by the fact you are reassured the control lessens chance of losing gold!

       Whether creek panning or tub panning, you want to start in relatively still water.  It will evolve that you can pan just about anywhere, but a calm spot in the creek is by far superior for visibility and avoiding turbulence in the pan.

       From this point on, I will discuss how I pan versus how everyone else pans!  That’s strictly because I feel that everyone develops their own style and I’m not here to call them right or wrong.  It’s kindof like this… if a person’s panning technique doesn’t lose gold, it must be right!

       Handy tip:  Right-handers need to be on the right hand side of the creek looking upstream; lefties like me on the left side of the creek. In short, you want your pan when angled facing downstream.

       Step 2: If possible, completely submerge the upright pan in water, keep it below water and in an upright position, swirling contents to insure complete saturation.  If there is any current in the creek at all, as you swirl the really lightweight materials will wash out along with any debris (pine needles, grass blades, leaves). It wouldn’t hurt a bit to get rid of as much of this material as you can at this stage.  You can be rough at this point as long as all heavier material does not slop over the side of the pan. As long as the pan is upright, you can shake and bounce the pan, loosening light material.

      

Step 3:  I don’t know about you, but angles don’t mean much to me, so as you dip the pan imagine your wrist slanted vertical at about noon and 6 o’clock. A circular panning motion allows water to wash into and out of the pan at a depth that covers material being washed. Do this to a count of 10.

Step 4:  Bring the pan back into an upright position.  Use a circular motion underwater in that upright position, give it a little shake to insure heavier materials sink, then angle and start circular motion again.

Step 5:  Repeat… repeat… repeat.  Take it at your own pace, adjusting angle so that an even layer of material flows out of the pan with each swirl.  Here’s where practice counts, increasing the angle as material reduces.

Tip: You can pick larger pebbles out of the pan to get rid of them to help speed up the process.  The golden rule here is keep the pebbles submerged as you pick them out.  A fleck of gold in residence under a pebble can pull right out of a dry pan with the pebble!



Surprise!  I didn't even salt it!

          When material has reduced to a few spoonfuls, you can swirl the pan outside the creek with about 1/2 cup of water in it to look for gold!  This takes a little practice and patience also, but watch toward the back of the swirl for heavier materials, including gold!

Looks easy, huh?  It is... with a lot of practice!

       So, simply put:

1.   Submerge upright and wash out lightweight materials.

2.   Angle and swirl to a count of 10.

3.   Return to upright position, swirl and shake.

4.   Repeat steps 2-3 until material reduced to a few spoonfuls.

5.   Swirl and look for gold!

       I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done this… I can’t remember exactly when I developed this method… I can’t tell you there isn’t a better way.  I can tell you it works for me!

       Happy panning!