Winter prospecting...

It’s a beautiful time of year here in the Black Hills. We’ve had two weeks of very mild weather, with temps in the 40s and 50s most days.

It’s hard to stay inside during weather like that… so we didn’t!

We headed for the Rochford area, checking on our claims as we went. Alex had to throw some rocks in Rapid Creek, but we kept him well back. The creek gurgled as it ran from exposed water back under the ice. It kindof sounded like spring here in December! I showed Alex what we call honeycomb ice, dangerous because it has been weakened by freezing, thawing and re-freezing.

Another thing we couldn’t help but notice were huge swaths of bug trees, their red tops scarring the beautiful scenery. They are working hard trying to harvest as much timber as they can salvage from these areas, and we were pleased to see that whomever is cutting on our claim had taken care to preserve our claim post!

We will caution all those venturing into the forest that these bug tree areas are extremely dangerous. Underfoot are downed trees, limbs and stumps. Overhead loom black skeletons of post years’ kill, surrounded by the red tops that fell victim this past year. A quirky gust of wind might bring any one of them down!

On the positive side of things… despite the fact that the ground is frozen, the creek temp is frigid and snow makes navigation a little treacherous, we saw something made visible due to lack of foliage and a slight snow cover. An old trail led us on a little hike to some old workings on the lower part of our Rapid Creek claim! You might be able to discern what we’re talking about… in the grassed area you can just see the Mickelson Trail going across the photo, and above it the snow highlights an access we didn’t know we had!

So if we throw December out of the winter mix, that leaves us with January and February before the longer days of March give us a taste of spring. We might make it yet!

Happy New Year everyone!

That time of year...

Every year claimholders have two deadlines… maintenance waiver by August 31 and affidavit of assessment due December 30.

The end of the year is near and we want to remind everyone to get the affidavit of labor/assessment filed at the county and also the Bureau of Land Management.

This document proclaims you are working on your claim. Some of the items which qualify for work performed include sampling, mapping and maintenance of boundaries, picking up trash and controlling noxious weeds. Each claimholder is responsible for $100 of work for each claim, which in this day and age doesn’t take long! You can perform the work yourself or pay someone else to do it.

If you are a new claimholder, you will notice that part of the filing fee when you register your claim goes toward the first year’s assessment. Therefore, the assessment form does not have to be filed. The BLM LR2000 site will show your claim as having assessment filed.

A lot of people drop the ball here… we see a lot of claims every year that assessment was not filed. The claim does not show as inactive until April because BLM gives you 90 days to appeal the decision. We’ve never heard of anyone winning that appeal… you may as well re-locate and pay BLM another $189, but at least they give you 90 days to do that before the claim is declared invalid.

I continue to transcribe and edit the Keets mine story. The Black Hills Pioneer newspaper has graciously allowed me to use their copyrighted material, so it will be as complete and accurate as possible.
So I’m going to keep this short… let me know if there are any other historic Deadwood stories you want to see. I would like to focus on early Deadwood so if you have a request I would prefer it pre-date 1900.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and for reasons of our own we are hoping for a prosperous New Year!

As old as the Hills... mining story

     We have several friends who love stories of the old west, particularly in the Black Hills. A lot of positive comment we receive on both the blog and website are related to historic content.

     Luckily, we have researched a lot of the history which is redolent with stories of every shape and form, all entertaining in one repect or another. The toughest thing to do is choose one… in bringing up this particular saga I ran across two others that captured my attention and diverted me temporarily from my mission!

     This is a story about miners and mining, guns and blasting powder, Seth Bullock and ways of the old west. The irony is that miners’ attitudes aren’t much different today. Gun play isn’t quite so prevalent but we still hear stories…

     I wanted to give you the whole story, as reported, but there was a tremendous amount of newspaper coverage of this event. It is lengthy but very interesting reading. I will shorten the story, but do my best to preserve the original. Mostly I want to present the story without bias and only the facts as reported in early Deadwood history.

     I also want you to experience the era, how the reporters wrote, how the legal process worked, how some things are different but most things don’t change!

     Thanks to the generosity of the Black Hills Pioneer newspaper, I have received permission to quote copyrighted material, giving you a view that otherwise would have cost you hours (days!) of research!

© Black Hills Pioneer (1887)
Black Hills Times

Shooting of Mr. J.D. Tuttle     About noon today, news was received here that a man had been shot in the Hidden Treasure gulch in consequence of the difficulties arising from the dispute to the title of the Keets mine. Immediately our reporter jumped one of Travis Bros.’ best horses and started for the scene of the affray, arriving there, he discovered that Mr. J.C. Tuttle was lying at the point of death, having been wounded by a bullet which passed through his body, entering the lower portion of the back. The trouble, as nearly as we can ascertain, arose from the fact that last night about forty armed men in the interest of the Keets Company, took possession of the tunnel in the Aurora mine, which connects with the Keets, and filled up a shaft on the Aurora ground. 
     This morning Mr. Tuttle, who owns a one third interest in the Aurora, warned the Keets’ men that he was going to blow out the shaft, and inserted giant powder for that purpose in this shaft, which is on Aurora ground… After blowing it out he proceeded to a wheel-barrow also on Aurora ground, and in direct range with a port hole in the rear of the cabin occupied by the Keets’ men. We are also informed that while Mr. Tuttle was at the shaft two men stepped out the the Keets’ cabin and fired a number of shots, apparently at random, some of which, however, were returned from the Aurora cabin by an employee of that company.
     With regard to the shooting of Tuttle, we give his dying declaration as follows: “I was greasing a wheel-barrow on Aurora mining ground when shot. I don’t know where the shot came from that hit me. I was not resisting anyone. I had a revolver in my pocket but did not show any firearms. I don’t know how many shots were fired. I told one of the Keets’ men that if he was badly off for shooting to get a pistol and come out and I would atisfy him alone. This as all that passed between me and the Keets men. It was about fifteen minutes from the time of my telling the man to get a pistol before the shooting commenced.”
     One of the attorneys for the Aurora company arriving soon after the shot was fired at Tuttle, posted a posse of men to guard the cabin and mine occupied by the Keets’ men, until the Sheriff arrived at which time the inmates surrendered, and were conducted to jail.
     The shot which struck Tuttle was fired, as we are reliably informed, from the port-hole in the rear of the Keets’ cabin, without any previous warning having been given the victim.

 © Black Hills Pioneer (1887)
     And so the story begins… a continuation will appear on our website in the near future. I know that’s kindof awnry… a word I remember my mom using… hmmm! Joel from Minnesota might even call it paybacks! This is just the beginning of the story and its gets better or worse depending on your point of view!

     I will take you through the news reports, then on to the ensuing trial…

     Meanwhile… back to the present and wishing you “Merry Christmas” from our house to yours!

Prospecting 101

We often talk about lessons we’ve learned through the years.



Castle Creek looking chilly!

 Before we go there, I want to extend Seasons Greetings for gold in your stocking (ouch!) and nuggets in your pan!

I will share with you some stories. I often say that the only place to talk about how much you drink is with the bar crowd! Likewise, the only people to appreciate our prospecting stories would be prospectors!

Bob had done some prospecting when we started dating so I was the real greenhorn, but he had not started working in the mines so we both had a lot to learn. We had my two girls, ages six and three. During the summer months we had his boy and girl, ages six and four respectively. Yeah… we ended up raising four teenagers all at once!

We were both working, so we started taking drives through the Black Hills when we had time. Bob always had his trusty metal gold pan.

The first lesson we learned is that no matter how cold it might be, no matter how cold the water might be, kids will find a way to get wet! Here in the Black Hills we might get snow in June and the creek water may be frigid to the touch until July 1. I knew this well because childhood summers at Iron Creek Lake had taught me, after repeated tries, not to swim until after the Fourth of July. Bob’s family had a cabin in Spearfish Canyon so he learned a similar lesson.

We did manage to forget the “repeated tries” part… within ½ hour of being within ½ mile of any water, the kids were wet and cold. We started taking an extra outfit, which took another ½ hour to get wet! Grandma then contributed her coat/jacket while she shivered, and of course they got wet also.

Needless to say, before the Fourth of July, we never got much more than an hour or two of digging before the kids were ready to go home.

We had a good claim in those early years, close-by the Iron Creek claim we have now. Gold was good and there was usually enough water to sluice.

I hadn’t started panning yet, so we would set up the sluice and start running material. Everything went through the sluice box, from the grass roots down. What that boiled down to was about the time the kids got wet and cold we were getting to a nugget or two!

Now this particular creek had a layer of reddish clay, gravel-like material followed by some very slimy (ask any mom of a newborn and you’ll catch the concept of consistency) yellow clay. We scrubbed every rock until our fingers were pincushions from the quartz in the creek.

We still have a couple of the nice-sized nuggets recovered on that claim.

Hindsight is 20/20… what we would have given for the deep-V ribbed matting we use today! Those pretty little nuggets would be displayed spectacularly!

I would have saved a few items of clothing… a metal gold pan is no good unless it’s weathered and it takes some real coordination to hike in, juggle a gold pan, buckets and shovel without getting rush on something. A wet rusty pan is even worse! The newer plastic pans are also a lot lighter and the size I use tucks nicely inside the concentrator for carrying.

Further, we would have panned layers and quickly identified the zone between the two clay layers as the pay zone and not worked two-four feet of overburden! In retrospect though, I was too busy hauling wet kids out of the creek and changing their clothes!

We would know that the gold settled on top of the yellow clay zone and not run the risk of putting the clay through the sluice to rob our gold! If we did want to run clay, we’d clean the matting first, then go for it!

If the material was dry, we would have used a concentrator to screen and clean bigger rock and saved a few fingers from scarring!

Once you poke through that clay layer, do you know what happens? Water in the hole, then we’re all wet, muddy and ready to go home!

We’ve prospected a lot with kids and grandkids. I know to take extra clothes and not let them change until we’re almost ready to go home. Kids’ boots are a waste… they will find water deeper than any boot! We always have a blanket they can wrap up in… until it gets wet. Plenty of refreshments and snacks are necessary for all. I love those small shovels when we find a pay zone. Get more than one… kids can dig too!

Last but certainly not least… Every kid and probably every adult you ever take on your claim will kick over a gold pan at least once! Patience is a learned trait.

We usually make about four-five hours on a claim now and can’t say we’ve been “skunked” (no gold) for quite some time. We’re older and wiser (less labor, more gold), but we’re still driving the Hills and scouting out new prospects!

T.G.I.Friday gulch...

Abandoned cabin on private property.

        We’re contemplating a new (additional) permit project on recently acquired claims in what we can now disclose as the California and Friday Gulch area north of Hill City.

        You might want to kick yourself a little… we offered claims in the area last winter!  The story is classic, though.

        Way back in 1992, Bob and a friend did a little prospecting on California and Friday Gulch.  They found good gold, staked a claim and filed it, but subsequently the “friend” disappear and the claim was dropped.

        Around 2004, Bob recommended the claim to another “friend.” He didn’t follow through and probably won’t because he now resides in Sioux Falls for the next 35 years J.

Late last fall we corralled the grandkids and got to California Gulch about dusk, couldn't do much that trip except see the potential and listen to kids complain!  We located a claim  for a group of friends on California Gulch. They followed through! We wanted to locate in Friday Gulch ourselves, but also offered opportunities to our followers. It was a chance in a lifetime, since no one but us had discovered that a 40-acre patented placer claim had been re-conveyed to the U.S. Forest Service.

April of 2011 rolls around and we prepared a new 60-acre location certificate for ourselves and a friend.  In exchange for us doing all the research, he would pay to have the claim filed.

That didn’t happen.

We headed out for Friday Gulch on three occasions this spring/summer.  The first time we tried the access Bob had originally used in 2004.  It was round-about and we spent most of the time trying to figure out where we were, or weren’t as the story goes!

The second trip was on a hot day, Rusty overheated at least five times.  We did get almost where we wanted to be but another overheat was just too much and we headed home.

Three’s a charm, so they say.  A rainy day in the area got us to California Gulch to look over our friends’ claim and venture into Friday Gulch. 

A mineral trespass sign informed us there was already a claim. This definitely dampened our spirits, literally and figuratively!



Pits and diggings cloaked in Aspen groves.



        Like good prospectors we came home, ran the area on LR2000 (again!), saw no active claims.  We drove to Rapid City, pulled claims and found one claim filed in January 2011(therefore expired) and another July 2011. Luckily for us, that locator wasn’t aware of the re-conveyed placer claim.

        We worked around his locations and dates, claiming an adjacent area and returning to post location certificates. We then received an angry phone call accusing us of claimjunping – par for the course! 

        Around came October, the previous locator didn’t follow through and file with BLM.  We staked the remaining claims for friends. They then received angry phone calls, which of course trickled down to us! We ran everything on LR2000, made another trip to Rapid City and declared our friends’ claim valid.

        Sorry to make a long story long, but we have now procured the area and will start pursuit of an exploration permit soon.  An exploration permit differs from a small placer mining permit in several ways.  The main reason we’re seeking an exploration permit would be that we don’t know that area as well as Iron Creek, where we have ten years of experience as recreational miners!  Bob has sound theories, but we need exploration to give us definite direction.

        Just a few teasers on what y’all missed out on and what we’ll be looking for…



There's still very little water... an isolated water hole.



1902 -- “There are a number of people working in a small way working the placer in this vicinity (Hawk-Wright Friday Gulch) and quite a little gold dust is being recovered at the bank.  Some of the men are compelled to haul their dirt quite a distance to water, but the clean-ups they make seems to justify them in doing so.  Nothing very big is being made, but all who are at work are taking out good wages and doing better than thought they would working for somebody else.  Friday Gulch, which has been worked for 25 years, continues to contribute not a little placer gold still.”

1903 – “From the Lucky Baldwin’s property which adjoins the Sunbeam in Friday Gulch some excellent ore is taken out and free gold specimens are numerously found.  Many openings have been made on the ledge and in all of them ore containing values have been found.  The deepest shaft is 65 feet, on which a day and night shift are employed.”

        Just a note… here in the next few months we’ll fill you in on the Mystic area and what we’ve found there!

Millions of years later...

        We’ve been here before, explaining a lode claim versus a placer claim, but we continue to get questions about what is lode, what is placer?

        Lode (pronounced load) gold, or primary gold, is gold still in place in the host rock.  Take a look at this rock… if a ton of it were crushed, there could be ¼ ounce of minute pieces of gold.  That’s what mining companies go after; they crush tons and tons of ore to create ounces of gold. 

        Nature does the same thing, it just takes millions of years!  The same host rock in a primary vein eroded out through a million years or so and was deposited in the Cmabrian sea, and thus became cemented gravel which concentrated the gold.  Another few million years pass and this cement ore decomposes and becomes high bench gravels. Some of these gravels erode and concentrate again as mid-level gravel benches. Further erosion brings them to the creeks, where they concentrate again in today’s modern streams.

        Therefore, gold concentrates can be found in high bench gravel, mid-level bench gravel, and the creek. Examples of all can be seen in the Black Hills… if you’re walking down a Forest Service road and the road gravel is well-rounded, not crushed limestone, those might be native gravel benches.

A nugget, obviously, would have come from quartz and/or schist, Pre-cambrian primary veins of visible gold.  This is probably a more recent event; the rock is more intact and erosion breaks it open to release larger pieces of gold.

You can judge the distance to the source somewhat by the characteristics of gold flakes or nuggets.  The “rougher” the nugget, the closer to the lode. The longer distance it travels, it becomes rounded and bears the color and characteristics of the gravels which surround it. 

Happy gold hunting, and don’t overlook gravels where it seems gravels shouldn’t be!

            Speaking of gravels, high bench and mid-level, we just staked a new claim which I of course had to be harangued about from a phone call… you’re claim jumping!  It is a simple matter of a location certificate stating one section staked in another section, plus numerous other “errors” which don’t add up in any situation! There is a “good faith” clause, but there’s way too much misinformation to give the benefit of doubt.  Even if the claim was valid on that property, a failure to file an Affidavit of Assessment in the year following location resulted in a closed claim. We feel it was a fraudulent attempt to claim ground without paying the piper (BLM) and we feel strongly that at least a good faith effort must be made!

We were nice enough to leave a good-sized parcel unclaimed… do you suppose they’ll follow up and pay the fees to file now?

A day's work...

        Sometimes I wonder what I did all day… well, most days I wonder that!  It would seem that I wake up, help get the kids off to school and then everything is a blur from then on!

        So I kindof thought it through and decided I DO SOMETHING, it just often sounds like not much!

        We’ve talked about what is involved in finding a claim.  It seems simple until you do a thorough job, then it becomes quite time intensive.

        So I’m going to give you a run-down on a typical day at the Fox home… on the surface being self-employed seems so glorious!  It is doing something we enjoy though!

        The kids are off to school. Bob starts out with, “I read about…” or “do you remember anything about…” and the search is on!

        Out come the topo maps, a U.S. Forest Service private property map and Terrain Navigator opened on the computer. Bob gets a good idea of what he wants to check out, then we discuss what we remember about physical features of the area (we’ve probably been in the area at least once).

        The next step is BLM LR2000 to research active and closed claims. This gives us a good idea of what claims exist but also tells us who and what kind of history the claim has. Bob can tell a lot by how claims are described on LR2000 and it gives us a good idea if anything is available.

        Somewhere about here we get a phone call or an email; this particular day a phone call from someone who recently purchased a claim and needs further information followed by an email requesting information on lode claims, followed by a drop-in visitor to discuss mining ventures.

        Back to our research… it’s probably past lunch time so we need a break.

The next step is BLM Glo records to confirm private property as shown on the U.S. Forest Service map (this can be a real eye opener!).  There's a lot of juggling going on here, back and forth from map to topo to LR2000...back to GLO!

Now comes the question of picking options.  Bob does a little sketching in claims while I play a game or two on Facebook J. Maybe we have another email, this one wants to visit the Black Hills next summer (we get a lot of these) and talk prospecting.

Bob explains what he’s come up with and we start preparing location certificates to have on hand when we go on-site or in most cases re-visit the area we’re interested in.

If we didn’t know the Black Hills so well, all of the above would be a waste of time.  It’s called desktop prospecting by us and a lot of others. 

We do know the gold producing areas well.  We’re also pretty familiar with access, terrain, established claims and local sentiment toward gold prospectors. Twenty-five years of panning on every creek and a lifetime of driving the back roads of the Black Hills is a definite advantage!

It’s about time to pick the kids up from school and start homework, preparations for their next day and whatever miscellaneous activities are on the schedule.

That’s an in-house day, but we still have to schedule in time at the proposed claim before we commit to it.  Then if it ptoves up, there’s notorizing, filing…

Now that’s a day’s work and we might merit a claim, or on a good day more than one claim.  Usually after we go on-site there are adjustments to be made.  Right now we’re finding as much as we can because weather might halt the whole on-site experience!

The one thing you can count on, seven days a week, is Bob saying, , “I read about…” or “do you remember anything about…”

WARNING!!! 

STOP

We have had several inquiries about buying claims on-line!  We'll make you a deal that could save you thousands of $$$!  Before you buy... for $100 we'll research the claim and tell you if it is a legitimate claim, what we perceive as the gold resources on the claim, access, campsite availability, etc.  Considering that we see claims ranging in price from $1000-$25,000, that's a really good deal!  One contact stated they had been offered "their choice" of another claim after they found out what they bought wasn't legitimate... will their next "choice" be legitimate?  Think about it!

Going underground...

　
This blog is credited mostly to Bob, since it goes into geology that I can comprehend but not communicate!

We’ve talked about the unique and varied geology of the Black Hills. The Homestake Mine, active in the Black Hills for over 100 years and now committed to an underground science lab, worked underground as well as open pit.

We were lucky enough to play host to some geologists who were very interested in the Homestake and thought we would share some of the information we have accumulated on the subject.

Here is a 3-dimensional model of the Homestake formation.
　
We were lucky enough to have an underground tour before the mine closed and are grateful that happened. It’s was awesome, hot, humid and amazing all at the same time! The tour started (after a safety orientation) with a ride down the Yates shaft to near 5000 feet. We continued to the #4 winze shaft which took us to about the 7000-foot level, then walked to below 8000 feet. It was an experience I don’t know if I’d want to repeat, but definitely a chance in a lifetime!

This diagram shows the plunge and complex folding of the underground workings.

The geologic makeup of the Homestake is shown below, but the majority of this is visible in the historic Open Cut as well.

What is equally impressive, though (as portrayed by red dotted line on topo below), is how much underground real estate was developed. We know they went 1-1/2 miles into the ground, but how many surface acres were involved? This map gives you a rough idea, though it is by no means a true model. Work was most concentrated in the Lead area, but progressed to the southeast with depth. Strawberry Hill, if you are familiar with local landmarks, marks what might be the southern boundary of underground activity.

So the open cut, though huge, is just the tip of what happened underground.

We always enjoy talking to the old Homestakers; do they have stories to tell!

Pan it out!

          The creeks are ice-rimmed, which makes me shiver just looking at them.  I’m not about to dip a toe, or a pan when frost-bite is the most likely result!

          So, if you’ve ever spent a winter in the Black Hills, you know there are always breaks in the weather and you might get a 70 degree day perfect for panning!  That doesn’t mean the creeks are … that’s why with each outing this time of year I try to bring home a few buckets of material and throw them in a tub with a lid. Winter arrives, we get a nice day and I’ve got material to pan.  It’s a bit like looking for discovery… you don’t know what’s there until you run a pan!

          Today is a nice November day.  I can’t get to the creek for various reasons, but I can take a break, run a pan and see what I see.  It’s a great reward when you can’t get out there, but need a break from tedious chores!

     The material I am panning is from layers near bedrock on a creek that floods in the spring, then quickly dries up. Amazingly, we do less prospecting there when the creek is running than later.  Flooding moves gold, but it also saturates everything.

          We usually do some “bedrocking” later in the season.  The same principals apply as those in working a gravel bench.  The top layers may have a little recent flood gold, but the deeper you go the more plentiful the gold. 

The best way to approach this is to start digging in the “gut” of the stream where the flow is strongest during flooding. Digging down isn’t much fun, but as you do you can expand the hole horizontally to make the process easier.  I recommend expanding across the stream.

          Sample as you go, looking for black sands or nodules. This will tell you which layers have gold. Bench gravel in the creek is the same as outside the creek. There can be layers of large rock (bigger flood years), layers of grey clay (decomposed rock or forest fire ash), layers of red (mineralized) rock… every stream differs.

          Generally you’ll need to get below large rock and encounter a hard-packed small sized gravel layer to find good gold.  This is the layer I would recommend hauling home for some off-season panning!

          Do you remember the movie made in South Dakota and Nebraska called “Twister”?  They chased tornado(s) and knew they were getting close by “we’ve got debris!”  That’s a good indicator in the creek also… rusted tacks and square-headed nails have been there a long time and are heavy enough to settle to the pay zone.

          When and if you’re lucky enough to reach bedrock, you’ll be able to see the “landscape” left by years of flooding.  Erosion will have loosened layers, eroded crevices and craters… I usually work this area with one of those automotive broom and dustpan sets… letting it dry first if necessary. Keep working back and forth across the streambed, getting an idea where the best gravel dropped out.

          Whatcha gotta love about this is… next spring it will flood and fill your diggings and you’ll be hard pressed to know where you started and Mother Nature left off!

          Congrats to Joel on his new placer claim and we hope Katie and John are enjoying the Black Hills experience... Happy digging!

Creekside...

        The most often asked question by those new to prospecting has got to be, “where do I dig?”

        We’re going to talk beyond the commonly given advice of inside curve of the stream and behind large boulders.  If you’re out to pan one weekend, that might merit you a few flakes and you’ll be content for the rest of your life that you found gold!

        The more likely scenario is that it gives you the bug… gold fever, and you want to find more!  Curiously it is finding gold, the hunt, that strikes a cord with most prospectors.  We’ll repeat… it’s a lot of work for a little gold; we don’t do it to get rich!

So now you’re serious, right?  You prospected as a guest on someone’s claim or paid for a pan or the right to dig.  Someone somewhere started that process by prospecting.

We’re going to explore gravel bars as left by the process of erosion:  freezing, thawing, fire, flood,.. just a few of the elements that contribute to placer deposits. Most of this occurred long before the gold rushers, but each year of flooding adds a new layer.  A major flood, however, can strip those layers and re-deposit them elsewhere!

Each spring when we re-visit one of our claims, we have to reorient ourselves because the spring floods are extensive enough to re-arrange things.  That big boulder that someone dug behind last year might be 100 feet down the creek; our previous year’s diggings may have been flooded and the entire creekbed re-landscaped!

The reason you are instructed to look to the inside bend of a creek is obvious… water slows and drops out the gold.  Now if you are looking at it with the right perspective, that happened not only last spring but every spring since the creek adopted its current route.  If the stream has been at it a long time, a gravel bank has developed.  So where would the quantity of gold have deposited… in the stream or the gravel bank?

        So get out of the creek and wander around, looking if there is sign of old digging on the banks.  Those old-timers didn’t keep digging unless it was worth it! 

        First on the agenda is to remove sloughage… try to get a look at what they were digging for by depth of digging.  That will be a pretty good indicator of how deep they needed to go for good gold.  It’s also a lot easier to dig into the bank vertically rather than horizontally!  This top from someone, who out of necessity, applies herself to digging in the most efficient manner since I don’t have the size or muscle for heavy work!

Now take a good look at what you’ve exposed, then sample, sample, sample.  Recent floods, again, may have deposited in top layers.  I prefer to test pan each layer exposed, but have become pretty good at selecting what will probably pay.  You don’t need gold in every pan… black sands or nodules will tell you if further testing is merited.  Better yet, if sands and/or nodules are present, classify out a bucket and sluice!  It’s faster, and if you use ribbed matting you’ll probably see the gold as you sluice!

One word of warning… if there are clay layers, which will usually be red, gray or yellow, pay attention to if they dissolve in the pan before running it in the sluice box.  If they “ball up” in your pan, they’re going to do the same in the sluice, gathering gold as they go! Here’s another reason we like to use a piece of ribbed matting sized to the funnel of the sluice, but not glued in.  The matting can easily be pulled, cleaned and re-inserted before you run suspicious clay material.  That way you’re not out your previous hard labor!

Once you isolate the pay zone or zones, it’s your decision whether to run all the material or “high grade.”  You move the same amount of dirt, it’s just a matter of how much you want to run through the sluice box.

A final word of caution… it’s easy to get excited and want to mine only the gold zone.  Remove overburden as you go.  We’ve seen too much unsafe undercutting trying to mine out the pay zone.  It’s not safe… Black Hills history tells of several incidents where placer miners were buried in gravels as they tunneled in.  Some lived, some didn’t.  It may not look like that much, but a half ton of gravel falling on you could be fatal.

Alaska gold... Black Hills style!

        These past two weeks have been interesting… as flagrantly portrayed by lack of a blog!

        I had prepared a blog on an interesting situation in the Tinton region, waiting to update it until proper paperwork was filed. We also had an inquiry about a similar claim location situation and did a bunch of research on that area.

        This morning I was checking in with my daughter and she was filling me in on the season opener of “Alaska Gold.” 

        The irony of the show was that it closely paralleled our recent activities; legal technicalities that present problems for claim/lease holders.

        If you haven’t seen “Alaska Gold,” you might have read an earlier blog discussing last year’s season… greenhorns taking on a mining project.  We don’t have cable or satellite here, so my daughter encapsulated the season opener by telling me that the greenhorn group ended up missing a lease payment, proceeded to mine and were informed they no longer have a lease which has been picked up by another party.

        This paralleled so closely with what we have discovered in the Black Hills recently.  Several undisputed claims in the Black Hills have been found to be “inactive,” a term used by the Bureau of Land Management when claimants fail to maintain claims and the paperwork entailed.

        The first instance was a group of highly acclaimed locations well known in the Northern Black Hills, originally staked in the 1900’s by what we are going to refer to as NMF (noted mining family).

        As the generations developed, the claims were pretty well established until the late 1970s, when a lot of claimholders were confused by a dictate from BLM that $100 assessment had to be paid for each claim.  This situation leveled off by declaring a small miner maintenance waiver.

        The NMF, in the meantime, failed to file necessary paperwork and ended up contesting a BLM decision to declare their claims invalid.

        Someone (we’ll call them PS for pretty smart) tuned into this situation and staked a large claim encompassing multiple NMF claims.  The NMFs then re-located their claims over the top of PS.

        Now we don’t know the further detail of this situation, but the NMF technically no longer have their historic claims.

        Oh, and while we were at it we managed to find a gap in the NMF and PS claim blocks that we were happy to stake!



Newly discovered adit.

         A phone call Monday focused on another area with a very similar situation!  What was perceived as an existing claim in the Central Hills, researched out to be a claim post from another claim in another section!  There was no valid claim on a property which has seen extensive placer mining the past few years… all with permission from the non-existant claimholder!

        So the lesson might be… if you have a claim, stay on top of maintaining it.  If you want a claim, do the research and you’ll probably find one!  Better yet, we can research it for you, help you locate it and advise you on procedure!

        Just to give you an idea of what you might find, we realized 60+ acres of prime, unclaimed placer ground with these two sessions of research.

        We’ve been a little negligent with congratulations on acquisition of claims to Wendell for three and Mary two new claims, Jody for three, Glenn on a placer and a lode.  Happy prospecting!

Geologic anomaly...

        We’ve talked about the interesting geology of the Black Hills – so diverse that university geology departments throughout the United States schedule field camps for students to this area.

        Bob was mentored by several mine geologists who had extensive local knowledge, having written their thesis on anamolies they found interesting.

        I had reported earlier that we recently staked a claim in the Tinton area and found an unexpected bonus of an adit (man-made cave) on the property.

        We took the grandkids and my daughter (a geology student) back to do a little further exploration Monday, all of them having a “day off” from school.

        My intention was to dig a little to further expose the partially collapsed adit.  Bob and Robey (10) took off walking to further explore.

        I started in, removing some larger rocks near the entrance, shoveling debris out of the way as I went.  I probably wasn’t too far into the operation when I removed some branches in the way and looked up to notice rounded river rock between layers of rock in the face.  My daughter, in the meantime, had discovered the same thing a little to my left!

        I’ve learned patience, kindof, and proceeded to continue clearing for ½ hour or so, noticing that certain layers of the rock contained river-rock.

        I was pleased to hear Bob’s voice as they returned from their hike, and removed a small shovelful of the rounded rock, went to meet them and told him I had found it between layers.  He gave me kindof a weird look, so I said, “come on, you just have to see this!”

        Bob says it appears to be an ancient stream conglomerate with two fractures (well defined in photo) coming to meet at the entry point of the adit.

        He could see that gravel had been forced between layers of silt stone, and cemented as time passed.  Obviously this is a rich part of the ancient stream that came across the Tinton, Cement Ridge and Negro Hill area and proceeds to go down Bear Gulch and probably forks near Bear Town Hill.  One leg of the ancient stream goes east down Potato Gulch and the other north following the Bear Gulch drainage.

        The adit was at the head of what we call Sloan Gulch, which has yielded small to medium-sized nuggets.  This deposit should be interesting to crush down and evaluate the gravel bands within this deposit.



What appears to be a pillar of ore left for support...



       

         He said this doesn’t appear to be a pre-Cambrian conglomerate.  It appears to be a localized flood event that created this conglomerate.

        We’re excited to test the layers of gravel, especially in the fracture area.  Previous workings indicate they ran all the gravels, evidenced by at least 6-8 inches of “gravel” in the tailings pile; that’s only as far as we dug.

        Access is our first issue; we are walking in so very limited as to what equipment we can carry.  The closest water is down the gulch in a swampy area. We will probably file a Plan of Operation with the U.S. Forest Service to allow for motorized access.

An investment

　
A really bleak weather weekend has us prospecting from our desktop instead of on foot!
We don’t mind the weather… a lightning strike in the foothills near our home started a fire this week. Response was quick, but we’re glad this weather arrived to dampen any further sparks the lightning and wind might have fired!



X's mark sections blanketed with lode claims.

 We’re taking on a tedious task of choosing prominent gold producing areas, researching existing claims and looking for available claims. As we progress on this project, we’re seeing a considerable amount of property in the Northern Hills being staked by companies blanketing sections with lode claims. Several sections we were interested in are already staked.

Out intention is to sget ahead of those companies… one really valuable placer claim was staked this past week by a friend. The placer is only one aspect, however, as companies have no compunction about staking a lode claim right over a placer claim! We are recommending a lode claim over this friend’s placer as it looks to have gold-bearing quartz and schist.

Another placer claim we staked this week, in that same general area, surprised us while walking the boundaries with a well-established adit into quartzite and shale, which is prompting us to consider a lode over this placer also!  A return visit Monday sparked a geologic discussion that we will share with you later this week!

So why all this anxiety? History is repeating itself. Miners rushed to the Black Hills in 1876 to stake their claim. What they found when they got here was that they were too late, the best claims were gone! Mining companies then proceeded to buy those claims out, one at a time, until the major mining companies owned mineral rights to pretty much the entire Northern Hills! That situation cleared up a few years ago when a major mining company dropped huge blocks of claims before they left the region.

Now the average placer miner just wants some place to go, pan some gold and enjoy the forest. Those opportunities are disappearing fast in the Northern Hills. Once a section is staked with lode claims, the placer opportunities are gone. You might also want to think about it as investing in some mineral rights that would provide recreation AND might lead to negotiations with a company interested in lode mining!

        The fall season always brings mixed feelings… beautiful colors and the crisp mountain air are a joy.

        The flip side, of course, is that winter approaches and so does hunting season… so wear bright colors out there prospecting! 

        We ventured back to the Keystone area Saturday and were reminded of the legend of the Holy Terror.

        First of all, did you know that what you see from the road in Historic Keystone is not the Holy Terror, but the Keystone Mine?

        So the story goes that Franklin’s daughter discovered gold-bearing float on the surface and he proceeded to develop the Holy Terror, thought to be named after his wife Jenny who often had to “escort” him home from the local bars.

        Did you know also, that the town of Keystone is located on the site of a large placer deposit?  It was mined out and the historic town located on the site.

        (More recent photos of the Holy Terror on our web site at http://)www.blackhillsgoldmines.com

        A lot of the rich placer area has been removed from mineral entry, we think probably because of its proximity to Mt. Rushmore.

        We spent a considerable amount of time discussing the politics of mining with a new-found friend at Keystone.  It is a tangled web of federal and state politics, with a pinch of local politics thrown in for good measure.  We do have a mining company that has expressed interest in our lode properties, but whether they decide to brave this frontier of politics will be interesting!

        Meanwhile, almost daily we have e-mails expressing an interest in placer claims.  To this end, we ventured to the Tinton area Sunday to explore some open ground.  It is a double mission, having found a claim for a friend who needs direction to his new prospect! 

        Iron Creek up through Tinton was a vista of color, dwindling to past-peak as we approached upper Spearfish Canyon.  There were tons of cars at Roughloch Falls, but the colors were much better further down the canyon.

        Keep contacting us for claims…. Time runs out as the winter months approach!

Claims available!!

　
Our weather has been sensational and we’ve been taking advantage of the moderate fall temps to get out on the creek and do some panning!

Before we get into that discussion, we have scouted out some very desirable Northern Hills claims. Bob has personally worked these drainages with friends during past years. There are somewhat remote and good claims for someone physically fit! For obvious reasons, we are offering them for sale, meaning we will prepare claim certificates, give you direction on filing, and help with discovery! Everything in this area is spring-fed and therefore intermittent streams.

We’re also happy to receive word from the U.S. Forest Service is that they are ready to sign our Plan of Operations for our small-scale placer mining permit! Each step we take we learn, and we’re elated that one portion of the permitting process is nearing completion!

We’ve been hearing from the media that a hatch of Pine Bark beetles is going to happen.

I’m not an entomologist, but by the description and photos I’ve seen, I think it has happened… my panning tub seems to attract them, so I have beetles bouncing off my head into the water every time I pan!


I’m not sure if they are suicidal or not, they are great swimmers and get back to the edge of the tub to crawl out, then usually end up dropping back into the tub. Diving antics intersperse attempts to escape.

Seth Bullock, among his many other enterprises, was the Forest Service manager in the Black Hills around the turn of the century (1900).  There was a Pine Bark beetle infestation at that time and a lumber camp employee noticed that the Pine Bark beetle swarmed to a can of turpentine left open, landed and died out in the turpentine. Water in my panning tub did not seem to have the same result.
A later outbreak (1960s) was treated extensively with insecticides that are no longer approved for use in the U.S. Forest.

Despite bouncing beetles, we had a very enjoyable weekend! The colors are at about 50% of their peak, and we suggest a drive sometime this coming week to wherever your favorite viewing spot might be. The traditional drive up Spearfish Canyon is a “must” for many, but any drive will present a plentitude of colorful aspen, birch and undergrowth.