A sticky situation

Meanwhile, back at the mine.

Things have been going pretty good.  Trommel has been running great, new water pump has allowed us to speed up processing.


However, looking at our current dig site we started to realize at this rate we were going to run out of material to run in short order.  We decided to start working on developing our new dig site.  It’s scary to abandon a site where the gold returns are reliable and move to untested ground.  While the magnetometer survey we had last year tells us there’s a good indication of gold, it’s not a guarantee.  We won’t really know until we start processing.


First step, we had to remove a few trees.  Drag them down to camp, cut them up for firewood, or save them for our dear friends the wood turners to turn into works of art.

We’ve been having very unusual weather lately, thunder and hail.  Fire crews have been out looking for lightening caused ignitions.  We even had a fire crew come into our camp fully armed and ready. They were relieved to find it was just our campfire smoke they had been tracking.

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The rain and the natural drainage at out new site ended up causing some problems for us.  It wasn’t long until the area turned into a soupy mess.  Mud to the top of the tracks on the dozer.  Digging into the bank, water started pouring out and causing a mud slide.  It was the stuff that would have made great reality television.  Me hollering at my husband on the excavator as huge rocks and mud start falling toward him. Him furoiusly trying to free the tracks from the mud so he can move out of the path of the slide.  While it may have been exciting for the viewer, it was not that fun to experience, we knew we had to step back and find a safer way to do things.

As we all learned in Sunday School, “the wise man builds his house upon the rock” and that’s something we DO have in abundance.  Rocks.

We are hoping that a good platform to work from will allow the hill to drain and also allow us to dig from a safe distance should things start sliding.  We’re going to let it dry out for a few days and try again.  I’ll keep you posted.

One good thing about the rain is that the forest has provided us with another treasure.  A great addition to steak night!

Once more

 Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more – William Shakespeare

After an agonizingly late spring, we finally got the mine back up and running.  And we’re finding GOLD!

Earlier this year, we made a promise to ourselves to not let things like breakdowns get us down this season.  First of all, it doesn’t make any difference, if your broke down – you’re broke down- attitude has nothing to do with it.  Also, we wanted to get back some of that feeling that made us become gold miners in the first place. We’re in God’s country, with the people we love, doing what we love – what’s there to feel bad about?

In the last post I mentioned that we lost the seal in our main water pump.  After hours of international calls, and finding out there’s a three week window to get the 200 dollar set of o-rings (highway robbery); we did the only sensible thing – we bought a brand new Honda water pump!  We should have done this years ago – water came FIRING out of the end of the trommel, we had to adjust the level.  Now as a result – we’re able to run a lot more dirt.  And we all know what that means….

Spring came in with a vengeance – I swear I could actually hear the plants growing.  Frosty nights turned into 70-80 degree days.  We even had to take a break and find some water for our crew to cool off in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It turns out we did have a little break down, we lost a hose on the backhoe.  We used the time to do some dental work on the excavator.  It looks much better with all its teeth

 

 

 

 

 

 

After running the trommel for a while we did a clean out.  We were happy with the amount of fine gold and black sand we were getting.  So we ran a little more.

 

 

 

 

 

After a few days of running, the carpets had visible gold in them.

 

Since Christmas we’ve been waiting to try out the mini trommel that Santa brought the crew from our friends at Gold Fox USA.  We were very pleased with how fast it was to run the concentrates from the sluice box, and how much gold it trapped.  I’ll do a video for you guys once we get it a little better figured out.

 

 

 

All in all, a good few days at the mine.  It’s almost time to start clearing our new hot spot that was identified on the magnetometer survey we had last year.  We’re almost out of dirt in our current spot, and now that we have everything else dialed in so well – I can’t wait to see what’s in there!

 

 

 

 

 

This is gold mining..

“This is gold mining. You love ALL of it, or you love NONE of it!”  

These were my husband’s words to me when he noticed the color drain from my face as 14 thousand pounds of bulldozer came slamming down on the tilt trailer.  He was teasing, but he’s not wrong.

I absolutely love the spring. I love dreaming about what we might accomplish this year at the mine.  I love seeing the first leaves come out on the trees.  I love seeing how the river has changed.

I don’t particularly enjoy hauling all our equipment down winding mountain roads 70 miles from our home.  The price of getting to mine in the National Forest is that everything has to be removed at the end of the season, and staged again in the spring.  So we pay that price.

 

 

But we survived, we got all the equipment there. Then it was time to stage the trommel, muck out the settling pond, unroll the hoses.  Getting the level right on the sluice box and trommel is always an exercise in trial and error.  “Where is ____ tool?”  “Did you remember the ______ .”

There’s nothing like when that first water comes down the sluice box.  That’s when, in my mind anyway, it’s really mining season.

We got the water going, the only thing left to do was run some dirt.  We had our friend the welder make some plumbing changes to the trommel, and it seems like it’s really going to make a huge increase in our production.  The trommel processed the material as fast as I could feed it.  I never once had to use my trusty 2×4 to push a rock through the hopper, or get off the excavator to undo a jam.

We decided to call it for the evening. We enjoyed the first campfire of the year.

The next morning, we loose the pump seal, and everything stops.

I don’t care how big your mining operation is, how shiny and new your equipment, it can still come to a grinding halt over something as simple as an o-ring.  And so it did.

This is gold mining.

And I love it.

 

 

The Mountains are Calling..

“The mountains are calling, and I must go.” –   John Muir

Welcome to the start of the 2017 Alaska mining season!  To those of you just joining our story, we are a family of gold miners from Alaska.  For some reason that I will never understand, folks like to hear about our trials and tribulations while trying to dig our fortune out of the ground.  For those of you who have followed us in the past, thanks for tuning in again!

I understand what Muir was saying about the call of the mountains – I’ve been hearing it for some time, though the snow didn’t seem to be cooperating.  Thankfully though, Spring is finally upon us and its time to start setting up.  First piece of equipment – the recently repaired backhoe- is on site.

While there is still snow in places like the creek – there are some signs of Spring – we even found a patch of violets.

The camp looks pretty lonely right now, looks like we shouldn’t have left our supply tent up (we lovingly call it the taj mahal) I guess we had a big snow load here this winter!

The dog couldn’t resist a wallowing in the settling pond.  We’re not the only ones excited to be back at the mine!

Both our new and old dig sites are not quite thawed out, but that is ok, as we still have a bit of staging to do.  You may remember that last year we had a magnetometer survey done to help us find that “good pay”  and we are really looking forward to following up on one of the “hot spots” from the survey and seeing what kind of values are there.  This spring I can tell you why there is most likely good gold there – the water is just pouring out there, draining from up on the canyon rim.  You can literally hear the water trickling down.

 

More to come – just thought I’d let you all know the news.  IT’S MINING SEASON!!!!

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In the meantime

Bet you didn’t think to see a post in March?  No, we’re not mining yet.  The claim is still snowed in.  Spring is in the air though.  We’re getting more daylight.  I’m seeing puddles here and there and we’re scrambling to get all the routine maintenance and minor repairs done on the equipment.  In this post, wanted to share with you something we’ve been working on over dark days.

Have you ever gone crashing off through the brush to try a pan in an out of the way creek you’ve had your eye on, got the good stuff panned down, and SHOOT- you forgot the black sand magnet? Most black sand magnets are pretty bulky and don’t just fit in your pocket.  This winter, we set out to solve this problem.

Technology is great, in today’s world, its almost like you can just imagine something and -boom-it appears.  Meet the Kudo 3d Titan 2.  Its a DLP printer, which basically means it uses a light projector to harden a resin and bring your creations to life.  While that sounds pretty easy, this project had a lot of failures before we got a workable prototype.  We also had to find the right magnets, springs and glue to assemble the pieces we printed.

We’re calling her “Ruby” until we get a better name.  We’re pretty pleased with the outcome.  At six inches long, it fits right in your pocket or prospecting kit. The magnet is pretty strong, and its great for getting that pesky black sand out of the way. It doesn’t seem to pick up the gold like the bigger magnets do.  One of our friends that has the blue bowl says it’s the perfect size for getting in there without messing up the flow.

 

If you decide to try one, be sure to give us your feedback.  We’d love to hear of any suggestions you have to improve the design.  The next post will be about the operation, I promise. In the meantime best wishes to everyone and hopes for an early mining season!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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