Chris Ralph

I finally got out in the last few days for a full long weekend and prospecting trip. We had a real late spring this year, I think the largest snow pack ever recorded this late in the year. I went up to a spot I had located last fall, and found I couldn't get in except the lowest of the workings, with snow banks still blocking the road way (at an elevation I would not have expected that problem). The road in was badly damaged by the rain and snow run off. Some ruts were up to 4 feet deep.

In spite of that. I did get a chance to do some serious prospecting, though not exactly in the locations that I had planned. Things started out real good at the only mine I could reach. Within 10 minutes I had found a real nice nugget and I felt that in spite of the limitations, I was going to do real well. Unfortunatly the rest of the weekend was iron wires, bullets, buttons, rusted can pieces, etc. I had hoped to do better but still, I got my one nice 4.2 dwt nugget. Next time I'll get in much farther and get to do some of the prospecting I had intended for this trip. Here is a photo of the nugget.

The area where I was detecting had been ground sluiced in the old days. Gound sluicing is a low pressure form of Hydraulic mining. This photo shows a ground sluiced area. The piles of light colored rocks (mostly quartz) are piled around - these are the cobbles too big for their sluice box. Works a whole lot better than dry washing if you have the water flow! At this location they built ponds to hold the rain and snow melt in the spring. Also attached is a photo of the ground sluiced area.

Chris