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!