Springtime Visit

Don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that Super Bowl Sunday is a special day for us at the mine.  Years ago, we snowshoed into the claims on a Super Bowl Sunday and decided right then and there to buy them.  Ever  since its been kind of an anniversary for us, we visit, roast hot dogs, hike around.  This year, because of a scheduling conflict and the fact one of our team is a Bronco’s Fan, we did it the following weekend.  There are definite signs of spring, even a wild violet decided to sprout.

river

 

The Creek is open, the water is really low.  I was tempted to jump in there and check out some of that exposed bedrock and creek bed.

 

 

 

IMG_1164Though the glory hole and the staging area are not quite ready to get our operation going.

 

 

 

 

We did manage to get a few buckets of paydirt from our stockpile, lots of folks got dirt for Valentines day this year I think and we were running low..  Not quite ready to start the mining season, but had a great day nonetheless.

 

paydirt spring

 

Lets get ready to MINE!

Hey guys,

Its early for 2016 to be updating the Blog, I know. The sun is shining, there’s hardly any snow, and I want to get ready to mine!  I think we’re in for an early season.

2016 prep

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We pulled the trommel out of the ice and snow, and took it down to our friends at Adams Fabrication.  Rich is always ready to fix what we broke last year and implement our crazy ideas.  He built our new sluice box last year and we couldn’t be happier.

2016prep3

 

Going up to the claim tomorrow to see what needs to be done to get ready up there.  We’ll keep you posted!

 

That’s all folks

I hate to say it, but we have called it for the 2015 season.  Its hard to do when the gold has been so good, but we’ve worn out some pulleys on our trommel  and its not something we can fix in the field.  Although I must admit the cold and the rain haven’t been that fun to work in anyway.  All that’s left is to move out all our stuff and get a big pile of the “good stuff” stocked up for you guys to order.  It wasn’t the best season we ever had, but we are all healthy and happy and we get to look forward to next year, so I can’t really complain.

Its almost done…

Leaves are starting to turn yellow, and there’s termination dust on the mountains.  We are trying to use up the last of the season while the gold is so good, we are getting better returns than we have ever gotten.  One day has yielded what two or three days of running normally give us.  No more big nuggets but we are hopeful that guy has a big brother still hanging out in there!  We are hopeful for a change in the weather, but we probably have a week left in the season.  Oh well the gold will be there in the spring.

In the meantime we are stockpiling this stuff up for you guys!

The Nugget

Hey Everyone!

I have to really apologise for not updating you all in a while.  Sometimes when stuff is going so bad, its really hard to talk about.  Remember a few posts back we had to get a new final drive for the excavator?  We ordered the new drive got it installed, everything was great.  Then the bolts all sheared off for some reason and we ruined that brand new 3k dollar drive.  That’s pretty much when I stopped updating you.

All is better now, got another new final drive, and with the help of Doug at minifinaldrives.com we got the pieces we needed to get the one we ruined rebuilt.  Doug even helped us diagnose what may have happened to cause the bolts to shear (track tension setting wrong in the owners manual).

But none of this is what you want to hear about is it?  We’ve hit upon a bedrock ledge, in that ledge we found a depression and that’s where this little guy came from.  I’ll never forget this this shining in the sun when I looked at the sluice box.  (Sorry my phone was dead, no photo).  We got as much gold in that one day as we normally get in two.

image1

 

 

 

 

 

 

I cant wait to get back in there and see if this little guy has any big brothers.  Stay tuned…