Brr...

 

        This weekend is confined to home with temps in the low 30s, a bit of snow and wind.

        We’re not really complaining, though, about two days of inclement weather compared to what the rest of the country is experiencing!

        The last several weeks have been spent on a prospecting venture of another sort, but I have had an opportunity on those nicer days to do a little panning, see a little gold.

        Our Iron Creek project progresses and weather may still allow us some mining this year.  The trommel has met safety standards for a small scale operation and Bob is certified as an experienced miner, so things are happening that at least get us closer and closer.

        We’re hearing, indirectly, that a court case has ruled lode claims are allowed over placer, but not vice versa.  We had heard rumblings of this before and it makes sense, to a point. If you have to have discovery, it’s pretty easy to either find gold or not find gold by placer mining. Proving discovery for lode is a lot more difficult, involving sampling, crushing and assaying. The obvious exception would be to find visible gold in ore… an experience we’ve had only a few times through our prospecting ventures!

        What I find really ironic about that is we have a few lode claims with proven gold. Those same lode claims have old dumps, both ore and waste. To process those dumps we would need to file a placer claim, thereby voiding our lode claim? Some things just baffle the mind!

        An apology to all those out there reading… blackhillsgoldmines.com has expired. We hope to get back up and operating, but we’ll keep blogging until that happens!