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”!