Who's ready to go mining?! New trip added 8-24-13

Cool rig! I used to have an across the road neighbor at our old ranch who was a gold miner. He'd have his wash plant running with rocks rattling down on his head while he stood on a wet metal grid and complained about always getting shocked by the electric motor. Then he'd run his spiral for hours and get his gold, about enough to fill a teaspoon after all that work. That's when I decided to was too dang much work for the reward, I'm too dang lazy, and decided I'd just buy bonds. Gold mining is hard work!....Mel

I have the very same scoop (best thing in the bucket), classifier and straight sluice. I wanted a high banker but ran out of energy before I got one (they are awesome). I also have a blue bowl and 12 volt pump to run it. When I switched from carpet to the miners moss I got twice as much gold and it was ten times easier to get the gold out of it.

You have an awesome setup and I wish I was there to pack in with you. How long of a hike? I did not see any food, are you going to carry that in your stomach. lol With the battery (way to heavy for me) and the drinking water you are going to have a pretty damn heavy load.

I hope you come back with only the bucket full of gold. Good luck
Jim

Thanks everyone. It is a lot of work. My whole body hurts today. It was a four and a half hour ride out to the creek, over a mountain and through the biggest blueberry patch I've ever seen. Acres and acres of ripe berries. Surprised we didn't see any black bears. The trail down the mountain died off and we did a mile of bush whacking. Very slow going. Once we got to the stream we followed it two miles down to where it joined a stream from a parallel valley. We did four hours of digging and didn't do great. The best spot we hit was when my buddy started digging into the bank. It was his first time out so didn't know that was against the rules. I let him keep all the gold he panned out of out concentrates and I bottled up all the black sands to run through the blue bowl. He found maybe 40 flecks. Nothing over 30 mesh though. It was a stream I've never worked so didn't know what to expect. Even though we didn't strike it rich, it was a great trip. Its amazing how far in to the mountains the salmon get. Saw a bunch of silvers. I'll post pics tonight. I'm at the airport on my way to work now.

When I hike in I carry a quart of water and a bottle of iodine tablets and a bottle of critic acid. Easier to make my own water than hike it in. This trip he brought meat sticks from his moose last year, apples and some peanuts for us to share. When I hike I just bring a bag of sunflower seeds and eat berries I find.

I got the pump from West Marine. Its their brand, 54 bucks. I just dropped the cartridge into the body of the Johnson that came with the mini highbanker.

Carrying the pack isn't so bad, if you use the waist strap right most of the weight rides on your hips.

Let me preface this post by saying this stream is not on the anadromous waters list.

Riding up the mountain



It's nothing but acres of blueberries







Head waters of Purches Creek



Action shot!



Never saw the bear, but we found a lot of fresh tracks









Up top is a Keene 48 inch sluice, on bottom is my mini highbanker, in the middle is a salmon all up in the way





Me, sampling the creek.



The black sands I brought home to process

Tell me more about this halogen method.

Nice setup Geoff. Must be nice to have have a Gov. that does not have their heads up their enviro asses to far. Here in Canada you would lose your left one and all you equipment if they caught you with a stream sluice in the creek. We have to be a min. of 30 feet outside the riparian zone to run a highbanker. Pan and shovel only in the creek/river.

Using iodine to dissolve out the gold.

I totally agree with you Jim. Thats what happens when Governments listen to much to the greentards. They are worried about silting up the rivers or creeks. A miner might leave a hole for the fish to use and that would be a bad thing in the greens eye's. I could go on and on with their idiotic excuses.

A stream sluice is outlawed in Canada, but the stores still sell them. Go fig. You can only use a highbankerand 30 feet outside of the riparian zone. A waterpump maybe used as long as the suction inlet is not greater than 1 1/2" and must be screened to 10 mesh for fish protection. Can't remove gravel from the stream and take it to the HB either.

Here is the best-est rule ever made by a greentard.
A gun is allowed for bear/cougar protection as long as it is not LOADED. Can only be loaded if you have a bear tag and is in season.
Man sometimes I would just love to bootf7ck a greentard!!!!!!!! And leave them in the woods after dark. Maybe a big Teddy will bend them over and f7ck some sense into them.

Thanks foe explaining the halogen method. I just use my cleanup mini sluice. It grabs gold down below 100 mesh. If you want smaller just build a miller table. No need to fus with chemicals. Save you black sand and sell it to a smelter. Could be more than just gold in it. Platinum, lead, silver, they pay you for the metals they get.

Mini sluice 4" x 36' L


My highbanker







Test run of sluice this spring after mods.



click for vid.

Looks like some nice color there, Billy!

Just ran a bucket of sand yesterday collected from one of our prospestors club's claims, trying out the home built highbanker. Looks like it'll do the job! Will get that 12v pump from West Marine Geoff spoke of, but for use at home, it uses a 110v sump pump. Shot a video of it running, but have to edit it down yet. Still have to pan the results. Have several more buckets to run.

Billy, I'll do that. Here's the total haul from six buckets of dirt that our friends collected at the same time.



This stuff is so full of tiny mica flakes, it's a bear to pan the concentrates.  We'll get it done eventually. 

This is something that you just have to do for the fun of it.  Not only are you never going to get rich (at least around here), you're not even going to get your gas money back! But, just maybe, you'll get lucky!??