Winter forecast... snow???

          We’re experiencing a little winter here with daily snow and temps ranging in the 30s (F).  We’re hearing that several feet of snow has fallen in the Hills, but we only have a 2-3 inch covering here in the foothills.

          The forecast is iffy... storm warnings for tonight, with snow depths anywhere from a few inches to a few feet!

         We talked with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) this week, and heard that our Notice of Intent on the Friday Gulch placer project has been received.  They haven’t looked at it thoroughly yet, so no progress report there.

          This is an important phase of the permitting process.  We will learn from this application whether there are any special, exceptional, critical or unique lands impacted by our mining plan.  Fingers and toes crossed… this has a lot of impact on the time frame for the permitting process!

          We want to take a moment to applaud Roberta Hudson of DENR, who is handling our applications.  She works very hard to establish and maintain a good working relationship.  Our Iron Creek placer project is still in the permitting process and the phone call regarded steps she is taking to assist in acquiring information to complete the permit. 

          Equipment is the other priority.  We’ve already adjusted the Iron Creek permit to reflect use of a trommel and/or shaker screen. There’s a possibility we (partners) have acquired a 50-ton per hour shaker screen.  The other option is to build one.  It needs to be portable enough to transport on a car trailer.  This is going to allow us to determine the most efficient means of processing gravels: trommel or shaker screen!  It is intended for the Friday Gulch project, but will ultimately determine which application to use on both projects.  It could result in a combination of both!

We’re going to lecture a little here on riffles, which seems to be an on-going discussion/argument regarding placer mining.  Expanded metal works great…. but how long does it take expanded metal to bind up and slough off the gold?  It could be minutes depending on material! That is why it is critical to have riffles in the sluice box to help avoid compaction with a larger vortex.  Expanded metal is only going to hold flour gold long term… larger stuff eventually just washes out!

In an operation where loader buckets are being processed as opposed to 5-gallon buckets, you can fully justify the relatively small expense of installing riffles by comparing to a full-time paid laborer on the sluice! Riffles are both a time and money saver.

Additional equipment in the works are a backhoe, a water truck and tanks, 25 feet of sluice, generators… just to name a few items!

I digress a little… several inquiries this week about Sunset Valley and claims for sale.  Please email us if you have doubts about their listed properties! I finally went to look at their Blue Moon properties near Jewel Cave which I had read so much controversy about in various discussion groups. Bob’s first reaction was, “You can’t claim a cave!”  They’ve got that covered… they call them limestone lodes and list a variety of minerals.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t really explain the emphasis on proximity to Jewel Cave (tourist attraction potential?) or the price tag attached!

But we thought, tongue in cheek, we’d offer to find you a natural cave entrance for a mere fraction of the price listed -- there’s only several thousand available! Let’s see, we don’t really even have to find one; there’s natural caves entrances on some of our existing claims. One even looks as if a mountain lion hangs out there; we don’t suggest exploration of that one!  Sorry, Teresa’s sense of humor goes south with the winter months.

So as the wind howls and the snow piles up, we’re doin’ what we’re doin’, getting ready for a summer of mining!

Road trip… Southern Hills!

          Every once in a while a plan falls together… this weekend was one of those times and we never fail to take advantage of opportunity!



Forgot to baby-proof Zia's ahir!



          We had word from one of our kids that they would be visiting over the weekend.  We had previously planned a trip to the Custer area, now it was a matter of making the plan work.  We spent Friday doing our best to “baby-proof”, knowing our 8-month-old grandson Rylee was now mobile! We got a call from them Saturday morning that said they would take off after work and arrive here late that night.

          I said I guess I could do some more cleaning or… we could head for Custer!  Guess you know how Bob answered that one.

          We haven’t been down toward Custer exploring for a season or two, but we knew what we were looking for… bench gravels hopefully exposed with minimal snow cover.

          There’s always surprises though… more development in the Custer area; more “red tops”; lots of logging trucks hauling timber; and a very small mining operation obviously shut down for the winter but pretty much ready to go with nice weather!

          Now when we head for a specific area like we did, we often get distracted by the site of old placer or lode workings.  This particular time we found both… one area clearly claimed as a placer, but also an abandoned pegmatite mine that will need further exploration.  We’ll go into what we look for in pegmatite mines one of these days!

          Creeks were looking dangerous, with water running through and under ice.  What snow cover we encountered was firm enough to walk, so that made hiking around a lot easier.  We actually were able to drive over a really shallow creek that with moderate temps had thawed and re-froze into an ice plain.

          What we found shouldn’t surprise us anymore, but it does!  Several areas that visually looked very promising turned out to be open for claims when we returned home to research!  We also posted a new claim, which is always an exciting event!

          We returned home via the Rochford route, checking out Mystic claims as we passed through that area.

          We may return to this area yet this week, as the weather man is telling us we have a cold snap headed this way!

         

What to do?

What would you do?

There’s a popular TV series which poses scenarios and films reactions to test people in situations which should incite political correctness, well knowing that humans often “overlook“ what should be done and choose to show indifference.

We though it would be fun to share some scenarios regarding prospecting protocol and how people overlook so much of what should be done and choose to ignore or feign indifference.

Locating a mining claim is a dream for many and a task often performed with little research or care for what the law outlines as a necessity. We often pull locations certificates for research and find them lacking not only the required information but not meeting physical (on-site) requirements.

What would you do?

Federal law states: STAKING A CLAIM--Federal law specifies that claim boundaries must be distinctly and clearly marked to be readily identifiable. (Argument 1: We have direct feedback from Bureau of Land Management that many location certificates do not define corner and side markers; and we know from experience they are not often visible on the claim itself). Most states have statutes and regulations concerning the actual staking and recording of mining claims so claimants should refer to the appropriate state agency for additional requirements before locating a claim.

Prior to locating a claim, a prospector should check BLM records for prior recorded claims (Argument 2: The overwhelming evidence using BLM LR2000 shows a lot of overstaking, most of it on well established claims). Ultimately, the prospector must check for prior existing claim markings on the ground (as addressed in Argument 1).

Departmental decisions require a discovery on each claim, based on actual physical exposure of the valuable mineral within the claim boundaries. (Also, each 10 acres on a placer claim, after a discovery, must be mineral in character). (Argument 3: So you can‘t just locate a claim anywhere! Also, if for instance Sunset Valley Mining Co. staked an 80-acre claim and is selling it by 10-acre lots, legally they have to have proved discovery on each 10 acres., not just the original discovery. Wonder if that has happened?)

So what would you do? We’ve talked this over time and time again. There are literally hundreds of claim locations in the Black Hills which do not even come close to meeting federal guidelines not to mention state requirements.

The law does, however, protect those ignorant of the criteria in that “good faith effort” is recognized, meaning for instance that you put in monuments but grazing cattle, a snowmobile or a vandal destroyed it.
It seems to us that good faith is used as an excuse a lot around here… if you can find no sign of a monument; if there is no visible paper anywhere on the claim; if the location posted misrepresents the area in which it is posted… there’s a lot of “iffy” claims out there.

So back to our discussion. These claims are technically invalid. The catch is you may have to prove it in a court of law.

What would you do?

partners...

Many of the inquiries we get about claims are asking for large claims… up to eight locators are allowed on a placer location. At 20 acres per locator, a claim can take in up to 160 acres.

We have claims we’ve located with friends/partners, and we have claims we’ve used just Bob’s and my name.

Here’s what we’ve learned. A friend, just like in a workplace situation, can become either a better friend or foe very quickly when it comes to gold!

One of Bob’s earliest partners taught him much about prospecting, staking claims, etc. They had a few differences of opinion and Bob located his own claims to avoid dispute.

About then Bob and I “partnered” up and we’ve managed to keep it pretty civil J !

Throughout the years since, we’ve sworn many times to NOT take in partners, but often the necessity of a larger claim means either bringing in partners or forfeiting a chunk of really good mineral ground to someone else’s location.

Probably the most irritating aspect of sharing a claim is not your fellow locator, but the “friends” they bring with them! I don’t know how many times Bob and I have started a promising dig, returning to find it gutted by friends and friends-of-friends!

Beware… if you find gold they will jump right in there!

I have my own idea of how a dig should develop. Once we find a promising spot by test pan, I try to clear as much overburden as I can to expose gravel layers. I’ve learned very quickly not to expose any more than I’m going to work that day. One friend-of-a-friend shadowed us to a good find. Several days later they had taken out about 3-4 yards of material!

So I learned that lesson -- expose only what you are going to work that day. Pile the overburden away from anticipated direction of digging. You’d be surprised how often I’ve had to remove someone else’s overburden piled in front of pay dirt!

Mark your hole in a way which will allow you to recognize new disturbance. Strategically arranged rocks will let you know immediately if someone else has been digging there. It doesn’t hurt to slough a little overburden in on top of the rocks. It will camouflage your digging and when you clean back to the rocks you placed, you know you’re back in “the zone.” Also, if someone test pans the overburden you knocked into the digging, they’ll probably get zip and go away!

Another lesson to learn: Alert fellow claimholders from Day One -- DO NOT dig in my diggings! It will save a lot of grief!

Probably most irksome to me personally is to return to a digging and find the pay zone gutted from underneath with a shovel, six feet of overburden collapsing into the pit! You probably don’t want to be ANY WHERE near when I discover this!

Pick your partners carefully. If you operate independently, set some ground rules right up front. It’s probably most prudent to designate portions of the claim to each locator. Gold may not be magnetic, but it does magnify the worst character traits in a friend or partner!

Let’s see… we’ve lost a nice nugget when a friend tripped over the pan (accident?) and later saw that nugget displayed by the friend thinking we wouldn‘t recognize it. Must have tripped right into his boot! We’ve had digs gutted and left to cave in multiple times; had digs cut to within inches of a flowing creek which we had to reclaim to avoid diverting the creek; failure to expend labor for assessment; failure to help establish monuments and maintain paperwork… the list goes on!

Choose carefully… a friendship might not be worth it’s weight in gold!　

First time out!

Patricia, an email and website friend, was reluctant to guest blog but allowed me to edit parts of her emails for publishing… I like the way she tells a story and hope you will enjoy!

How naive I was when I look back and how I thought like so many that you dip a pan in the creek, slosh it around a little bit and expect that pan to be filled with shiny nuggets!

My first experience was more like this: A friend of mine had two rusty older pans and we decided to pick a creek this past summer and dip in! Well, fall in was more like it as I kept slipping on mossy rocks trying not to get wet! I gave up since I was soaking and sat down on a large wet rock in the middle of the creek and proceeded to dip my pan in the creek on the downstream side of the rock. Each time I did, the pan went "clonk" as I was hitting large golf ball size gravel, not the soft sand I thought I'd be scooping up with gold in it.

Lesson one learned: this was not going to be as easy as I thought, and probably a lot of other newcomers have found this out also.

It was good that it was a warm day, as I was now pretty much soaked up to my waist hopping from rock to rock, so I just waded in. (hencethe waders as a Christmas present from my sons).

We finally got down to some finer gravel sand and proceeded to pan away for a couple hours. I have to wonder now how much I washed away not really knowing what I was doing.

So off to the library to check out every book they had on Black Hills gold, and cruised the internet and youtube for "how to’s" on panning and placer mining. That’s when I discovered the creeks may have some gold, but better yet to find out what gravel benches and old diggings look like and try that out!

Finding available unclaimed places to dig/pan was not easy, so when you offered to lease the Tallent, I was ecstatic. The Tallent has so many unusual features with the cut /old diggings/gravel benches, so much to actually see and learn first hand about what I was reading!

I have to wonder how many people who stake claims actually realize how much work is involved in finding a claim let alone working one? For me the work is enjoyable, the locating part frustrating. Still have a lot to learn, and I have been grateful for your help by email, and the info in your blogs. --ttyl, Pat

Pat added this when I sent her a copy to look at…

I know that in finding you and Bob on the web was truly amazing. Not only are you both incredibly knowledgable but your willingness to share what you know with every one and being so supportive in the search for a claim of one’s own is amazing and seldom found in a world where people seem so self centered. I enjoy reading your blogs not only for the knowledge you two impart, but because of the enjoyment you both seem to get in sharing what you know with others as well as really enjoying helping others find a claim! I know a few of us who have tried to find one on our own have found the maze of information to finding and filing a claim frustrating and almost impossible and it wouldn't have been possible for me and others to find one without your help. You and Bob understand men & women who truly enjoy prospecting with their friends and families, and sharing and encouraging them and realizing it’s the enjoyment of the process of looking for that gold, with the emphasis on the process not just the finding of the gold or silver or mineral one is looking for.

We’ve asked a few of our friends made through our website and blog to share their prospecting experiences… Joel sent this:
February 2, 2012 
DIGGING FOR GOLD IN THE BLACK HILLS
for no other reason other than, we just like to….. 

I spent a few months in Colorado back in 1978 with a long-time friend, mostly rock climbing and trout fishing. It was the summer before my senior year in high school, Volkswagen Camper all the way! (No flowers)

We had a goal at one point of fishing a different trout stream everyday as we traveled throughout the state.  We failed on several occasions because we came to streams that were so good that we couldn’t leave… we caught a lot of trout and on many occasions were catching four species of trout within the same creek system.  

Then one day along a creek in Gilpin County. Colorado, I came upon an old timer running a sluice box. I knew what it was that I was lookin’at and what he was doing, but my knowledge of working placer ground ended right about there.  Trout fishing was gonna have to wait for a bit!

The next three days he taught us how to run a sluice, how and where to dig in the area, all the basics. I was fascinated by the process. 

The old timer was getting by, making his grocery and gas money selling one ounce jars of gold to tourists and anyone else curious enough to stop by wondering what he was up to.  I wanted to buy one of those jars so bad it was killing me, but if we could cobble together enough cash to fill the gas tank we were grateful. 

In fact we ran out of money along the way and found light construction work in Aspen a few weeks later, enough cash for the return trip home to Minnesota.  The old timer built us a wooden sluice box that we still have to this day, that was a long time ago. 

They say this is incurable. They are probably right, I never got over the feeling I experienced looking at the old timer’s gold and I did not forget the stories he told.  We didn’t actually recover that much gold, most of it probably went out the bottom of our sluice but that’s ok. 

The gold we did recover remains to this day in the same glass tube with a cork in it, I glance at it once in a while and think of the old guy and still thank him for helping us out.

Over the years I dabbled panning here and there, nothing very serious. Now it’s time to catch up a bit; which I have done in the Hills over the past few years. There’s success on some days and less on others, it’s all good.

My daughter Luella, aka Lala, or Lalabuggy now wears her Gold Nugget earrings quite often, a great reminder of one of our trips to the Hills this past summer.  We were fortunate to find two pieces of similarly sized and shaped gold to make a perfect pair!  We brought them to a jeweler and had posts soldered on.  This was last August when we camped out with tents in the Black Hills National Forest very near the location we were digging and finding gold. 

That dig site now lies adjacent to my first actual gold claim in the Black Hills!  We named this claim GALA GOLD, after Lala and Gabe, her older brother.  In addition to the GALA claim we now also own claims in the Northern Hills, named LALABUGGY and NUGGETCITY.  The detailed stories about how these claims were acquired would find us at the bottom of at least one bottle of wine or several beers, not enough time here today, subject for another blog…

 I pondered and dabbled with the idea of owning a mineral claim in the Hills for a few years, believing that eventually I would have a small dig to call home.  The learning process started out slowly. I read several books and talked to various people about the subject, those that would lend an ear and actually offer up an idea to help me along my way. I also spoke with several folks that were like asking a trout fisherman where you would go to catch 16” brook trout… these secrets are well kept.

I traveled through various websites and investigated several companies that offer these services and claims for sale. All proved in the end to not be worth dealing with for a myriad of reasons, some unscrupulous.  I kept asking questions and digging deeper and learning what I could, sponge-like with desire to learn how to “really accomplish” what I was after. 

I have some training with the US grid system for land surveying, plotting, description and map reading, so I considered attempting the process on my own.  However, there is far more to this process than knowing how to read a map, and recognizing a posted claim site that may or may not be valid.  Proper research through the local governments (county) and governing federal agencies (BLM) is required to gain full understanding of private property boundaries, existing valid claim sites, and other roadblocks such as monuments and areas not open to the staking of mineral claims, not to mention finding an area where there is gold to the extent that the ground is worth staking. 

In step Bob and Teresa Fox, the team who made my mineral claim ownership a reality.  I could not speak more highly of their knowledge of the interworkings of this entire process.  I learned volumes working with Bob and Teresa over the past several months, details that experience only can teach.  They guided me through the process and advised me along the way and tailored the claims to fit what I was looking for. More importantly they became great friends during the process.  If you are considering a mineral claim in the Black Hills, I would not look anywhere else.  The experience was a lot of fun and I enjoyed every minute of it along the way. 

I enjoy everything about searching for gold in the hills: the history, the hunt, the dig, the adventure, the geology, finding a flake or a nugget, and revisiting digs that may not have been worked in 130 years.  Then there’s also some fantastic trout fishing, hiking, camping, and a myriad of other things to do. 

In our diggings, we’re picking up where they left off… those old timers who searched for gold during the rush and during the years that followed.  What we wouldn’t give to talk to them now as I did with the old timer in Gilpin County.  What questions would you ask? “How ya doing?” or “Find any gold in this area?” Maybe you'd inquire, “Did you do well in your diggings up on that bench gravel?”  These old miners have all gone home, as they say, returned to the very ground they spent their lives working.  Like our ancestors past, we can’t ask them any more questions; we have to go learn it for ourselves, discover and have our own fun.

It’s our turn. Heck, I can’t wait for Spring! We’ll be out there digging and having fun and I hope you do too!  Maybe you’ll see us along the road with our old red Cherokee. If you do, stop by and say “Hello” or “Are you finding any gold?” or “Do you know where I can catch 16” Brook Trout?”  

I might tell you…good digging!  

Joel