Hard to believe, I don’t have much to report. We didn’t break anything, got good gold… Looking for a piece of wood to knock on…
The weather was nasty and raining, but you hardly notice sitting in the cab of the excavator. We’ve been getting a lot more gold attached to the quartz, which we find pretty exciting. It means we may be getting closer to the source.
It’s been a rough week.
Broke the coupler that connects the motor shaft to the trommel. Multiple trips back and forth to town. Rained so much we started thinking about building an ark. To top it all off, had a round of the flu.
After four days, the sun came out, we got the trommel back together, and had a perfect run.
Ran into some rotten bedrock. Started breaking it up and it is full of chunky, crystalline gold.
We even found a piece with quartz still attached. I never thought to find that in an area that experienced so much glacial activity. Guess I need to go back and give those quartz rocks in the tailing pile another look.
The gold mine is a magical place, it is full of wonder and amazement its a place that just draws people in. Is it the mystery and beauty of quartz creek that brings people here? We get a lot of visitors through out the summer months, even during thanksgiving weekend we had some visitors drive up. Usually not anyone we know, but normally very friendly. So all visitors heed the following warning. There are some elusive creatures that dwell in the the shadows of the trees up there at our quartz creek mine. Mischievous little creatures. You may find your full soda that you just set down is now half empty, or that shovel that you put next to the rock is now leaning against the tree. So keep a sharp eye out you may even catch a glimpse of one of the mystical beings, in fact I got a picture of one with my camera, it was peeking out from behind a tree and I am posting for all the world to see as proof that there is a reason that your coffee cup is not where you left it.(or maybe you just forgot where you put it.)
Well while we were up at the mine for Thanksgiving, I thought boy it sure would be fun to get the dredge out and find some gold. So I wandered on down to Quartz creek to see if there were any good spots to slip in the water. As the creek came into view I had to thoughts, “Brrrrrrrr” and “Boy I am glad the state does not allow dredging in the winter months.” This photo is what I saw. Just so everyone knows, I am really only allowed to dredge in the Salmon creek/streams from May, 15 – July, 15.
Remember the Post about the LARGE quartz vein we found up the hill from our current dig site. Here is a picture of a grab sample off of the vein, we kept this one because it is a very neat quartz specimen with great crystal formation. This chunk is about 9″ long and about 5″ wide, very pretty. It took a little work to get it cleaned up, but it was worth it. It has now joined the ranks with the rest of my specimens on the shelf.