If they could see us now...

An email from Joel prompted this blog… what would the old timers think?

He was talking about the “gold hog” matting recently released for retail sales. He said, “Tested gold hog mats with SD material, quite impressed.” He then speculated, “If the old timers had some of the new stuff, it’s hard to say what they would have defined as wages on a placer.”
I replied, “I am thinking about those old timers looking into the future with our sluices, 4-wheelers, a metal detector... they would certainly call us a bunch of pansies!

So I envisioned the traditional prospector from gold rush era. There was usually a mule loaded with a pick-axe, gold pan and a shovel. Anything else they needed they used local resources to make. There’s still a few remnants of old sluices here and there in the Hills. They look to me, a lightweight, to need at least two men to transport them. I suppose that’s why the remnants are still visible… they’d just build a new one when they moved on. By the way, they started with felling a tree, not buying wood at the hardware store!

Some of them would take their metal pans and bang riffles into them… I can almost hear it echoing around the campfire!

And what a solitary existence… our prospecting is a family and friends outing! If the old timers got a pouch of dust and nuggets, they had to be pretty careful to not only guard their gold but not let anyone know the source. No wonder they trusted only their mule!

Gold Bug Nelson as portrayed
in "Gold Pans and Broken Picks" by
Christopher Hills.

We take a lot of things for granted. We load up our prospecting supplies in a 4-wheel drive vehicle, stop at the local convenience store, gas up and grab some drinks and sandwiches and drive to our claim. We set up our lawn chairs, unload prospecting supplies and get digging.

If we camp at the claim it’s in a camper with a stovetop to make our morning coffee. I love campfire coffee, but it’s sure nice to have an instant flame! The frig is stocked with whatever we want to eat and there’s a heater if the evening gets too chilly. The camper is also great refuge from storms.

So maybe that has more to do with modern-day recovery methods than anything… I don’t want to work real hard, a good cup of coffee is more important than the weather because shelter is right there.

Now with all the conveniences we enjoy so much, you’d think we would recover a lot more gold. But to recover gold you’ve got to put in those back-breaking hours, no matter what. I’ll just about guarantee that the old timers did a lot more digging and recovered a lot more gold in a day’s time!

　

Safe and sane...

Pine bark beetle damage.

The Black Hills are at risk! Sound like some doomsday prediction?

I’m going to post this as an “extra” blog because I figure some will accuse me of nagging… but I can’t stress how critical this issue has become.

The current year “2012” poses some intimidating scenarios in the Black Hills. There’s a lot negative going on with pine bark beetle infestation growing at an ever-increasing rate. The far-reaching consequences of tourism and timber, therefore the economy, are devastating to contemplate.

We want to stress the importance of safe thinking in the forest. Man-made fire of any sort is a risk. Our worst August weather under normal conditions cannot compare to the risks we see building as spring breaks here in the Hills.

Red tops of the last season, stark black silhouettes of a former Ponderosa Pine… the fire danger is already extremely high. We’re usually cautioning everyone about spring flooding. This season it is a double-edged sword. If you go into the woods, don’t put yourself at risk by being in a remote location that has no alternative escape route. If it floods, you’re stuck… if a timber fire starts, you’re burned out!

As children, Bob and I learned that you don’t have much of a horizon or “window to the weather” in the woods. You might not hear thunder or see lightning until the storm is almost on you, then look out! The same can be said for flood or fire, whether man- or nature-made.

But the bigger picture needs to be considered. When trees die, erosion increases.

The plus side of that for a miner is that increased erosion deposits gold in the creeks. It also exposes bedrock and rock outcrops. We try to find something positive in everything and that’s about the only positive note to the beetle story!

The minus side of erosion means increased flooding of trails and roads, culverts and bridges. It means that all that soil held in place for the age of the forest might move, and move big! This year we will begin to see consequences. Out of necessity, areas are being more or less clear cut to try and stay ahead of the bugs.

Please be cautious. Logging trucks are everywhere. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around a logging operation, but these guys get paid by the ton. Needless to say, they don’t anticipate meeting much traffic on a logging trail. They’re thinking about how much time is left in the day, not how many cars they might meet!

If you’re going into the woods where “bug trees” exist, carry a saw to be sure you can go out. It doesn’t take much wind to bring a dead tree down!

Avoid parking in tall grass, especially since we didn’t have enough snow to “lay down” last summer’s undergrowth.

Any spark… from a campfire to heavy equipment, can start a fire.

Cell phones don’t get a signal in many parts of the Hills, so don’t rely on being able to call for help. It might mean a hike to the highest peak in sight before you get a signal.

If you do see a lightning strike, try to assess the fire potential, then get out and report it! Fire lookouts in the Black Hills are, I believe, usually staffed primarily in the summer. They will spot fires and report them, but outside of the season the watch may not be as active. Irregardless, I’m thinking as early as a potential fire can be reported, the better!

What is it about lode?

The old-timers sought it… the elusive “vein” that meant untold riches.

Placer vs. lode... placer has separated and is re-deposited; lode is still in place.

But the majority of prospectors who flocked to the Black Hills during the rush of 1876 had no more idea of what they were looking for than the modern-day greenhorn!

We’ve talked about “nuggets for the pickin’,” and the very first to the Hills might have seen that after a “gully washer” of a rain. A smart prospector, however, would have looked for the source or lode, doing one of two things… both a promising way to pursue lode gold.

The first and most labor intensive method we see still visible near almost any free milling lode mine that existed in the Black Hills. They will have one common factor. The gulches leading to the mine were placered, with digs going off to each side of the drainage. What were they looking for?

Think about it. As they dig up the drainage they occasionally encounter an area that has more gold. They would expand their hole sideways to recover as much as possible. If good gold recovery continued so would digging!

Now what would happen when they continue digging and recovery keeps improving? Maybe they’d eventually encounter evidence of the source, the lode!

Now if you’re digging up through a drainage and the gold stops, you’d best look further to see if the rock formation has changed? Your source, or lode, might be right under your nose!

So, placer mining often resulted in lode mining!

Now this wasn’t always the case! Maybe the source is at a distance, or maybe they found lode first and the placer mining happened later.

The other possibility for discovering lode is a surface outcrop which, ideally, has visible gold! More than likely though, that surface outcrop was crushed down to a fine powder, panned and showed gold.

These days, a lot of old mines have small to large dumps that appear to be lode ore. Historically, these dumps may have been left for many reasons including low-grade ore and low gold prices that did not justify processing; the mine shut down for lack of money, an accident, lack of local processing, etc. etc.

These dumps, however, are classified as placer by the U.S. Forest Service. The rock is no longer “in place” in the lode! It makes sense, just took us by surprise the first time we were told.

So which came first? Kindof like the chicken and egg question… but that one’s been answered! All we know is that stories of the old-timers often told of following a placer deposit quite often led to discovery of the source.

Another story we often read is of a vein “pinching off” and being left, only to have another miner digging feet further and finding a bonanza! I took the opportunity to photograph a quartz vein to give you a visual of how this might happen.

You can see that although the vein travels from top to bottom, it pinches off to almost nothing at points then “blows out” again. If you imagine this being gold-bearing quartz, the pay would be pretty frugal when it narrows.

So goes the story of lodes… a placer might get you there!

Congratulations this week to Autumn and Dave, pround owners of two placer claims!

Run-off?

The local weather channels have just officially declared this the warmest March in recorded history. We’ve been discussing it with you for a while, but now it is official!

A subtitle of that would put moisture at an all-time low also. We haven’t kept record, but a couple of small snowstorms, a couple of rain showers would constitute moisture this month and be about the average for each month this winter.

So we noted the dust in the Southern Hills last week. This week we checked out the gulches of the Northern Hills.

It all started with a couple from East River who are interested in a claim. We met them at Cheyenne Crossing, then took the roundabout way into the Tinton area due to continued road closure past Roughloch Falls.

First I want to say that although self-proclaimed “greenhorns,” the couple had done their research and were pretty sure what they wanted to find. That’s pretty helpful.

So I can establish status quo in the Black Hills… a trip to Cheyenne Crossing this time of year usually means driving between snow-plowed drifts, the top feet being fresher snow atop at least a couple feet of winter-packed ice. These are some of the harder hit winter areas of the Hills. When they measure annual snow pack, this is the place!

 We found relatively little snow, northern exposures with some snow pack but the majority open of snow. Spruce-filled gulches were a beautiful spring green as long as you stayed at eye level. Higher on the hills were patches of “red tops”. Sprigs of green grass were coming up everywhere!

We’ve been this way many times in the spring, and the norm would be gushing creeks if not still frozen, seepage in every road cut!

We stopped at Little Deer Creek and saw the only spring run-off of the trip! A trickle came over the bank to the creek, creating a slightly muddied flow.

Hiking in the clearings was no problem… a few remnants of drifts up steep gulches and under groves of trees.

We didn’t drive off the main roads at all… it was still soggy enough to rut up roads.

A little to add here from Patricia and sons, who emailed about fishing and picnicking at Deerfield Lake, the most oft reported for extreme winter temps… “mostly an ice covered lake except for the edges but that didn't stop Gerald, lots of bites but no dinner!”

So we don’t know what to expect… a blizzard is always still possible. We can recall just a few years ago a blizzard causing a three-day power outage. The reason we recall it so well is that it happened a few days before Robey’s birthday in late April. We found him a Power Ranger bike, and when the power guys showed up to restore power told him the Power Rangers must have brought it for being such a good boy while the power was out!

We’re going to hope for rain… no lightning and thunder please! The last thunderstorm that blew through started multiple fires!

Permit updates include an on-site inspection at Friday Gulch in May.

And a big congratulations is in order for Ronnie, Casey, their baby that Bob calls their "little nugget", Trent and Julie on acquisition of the “Lucky 7” claim. They’re all looking forward to weekends in the Hills.