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 Post subject: Greetings from California
PostPosted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 1:40 pm 
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Just found your site and decided to join. Not sure if anyone here is interested in posts regarding old gold mines I've located in the past and present. I do have some pics of 2 recent mines from the Nor Cal area I plan to return to and do some further exploration/assaying on.

Any interest in this field of mining?

TIA,
auminer


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 5:20 pm 
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Location: Winnemucca, NV
Hi Auminer and welcome to the forum! As a matter of fact we are very interested in the Northern California area, particularly the Mother Lode region. We will actually be flying out there in about a week and will be in Nevada and Placer counties. Please feel free to share any pictures or information you have from your exploration and assays.

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:11 pm 
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Miner Mike wrote:
Hi Auminer and welcome to the forum! As a matter of fact we are very interested in the Northern California area, particularly the Mother Lode region. We will actually be flying out there in about a week and will be in Nevada and Placer counties. Please feel free to share any pictures or information you have from your exploration and assays.


Thanks for the welcome. It just happens that I lived and worked at a hardrock mine in Nevada County for 8 years which had some very highrade gold. I did explore the area extensively and there are some old mines I located. Some I have explored and others I never had a chance to go back to after locating them. There are 2 in particular that I am very interested in checking out. One is an old hardrock mine that still has an 5 stamp mill in place. The other is a placer mine portal I located and finally found an old report that stated there was 2000' of drifts in the Blue Lead and White Channels.

Let me know if either of these interest you. The country is steep with access being by foot. Most of the area I've explored is in the North San Juan Washington and Graniteville, which covers from the South Fork of the American River to the Middle Fork,

Hope to hear back from you!

Stan


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 1:26 pm 
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Hi Stan,

I would be interested in hearing about your experience mining. How did you get into mining and what did you like or not like about the job? Is the mine still in operation?

We'd be very interested in checking out the stamp mill while we're out there. Perhaps we could meet up. We have some preliminary work to do and have some big news to announce shortly but we are planning on researching several sites.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 1:53 pm 
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Been mining since 1970. Finally decided to mine at the source and began hardrocking in 1988. Haven't looked back since :D

I enjoy the chase the most. It still amazes me that you can go less than a quarter mile from a mine and the circumstances will be completely different as to how and where the gold makes.

Being caved in and trapped for 3 days would be the part I didn't like. Worse part of that was is that I was solo and nobody came to check on me. I actually had no idea it had been 3 days, felt more like 1 long day. Luckily it was only 48' of serpentine on the foot wall that slipped.

At the present time there is no operation at the mine. Can't seem to get a new Plan of Operation approved from the Forest Service as well as all the Water Quality testing, etc. that has to be done prior to permits being issued. They are making life hard, if not impossible, on the small miner.

There are 2 different mines I found that have stamp mills. The one I mentioned and another one that had two 5 stamp mills. One has been partially disassembled while the other is still in tact. At that site there is also an old shaker table still setup but the canvas has for the most part rotted. It amazes how the old timers got some of this equipment to the places I've found it.

Looking to hear from you while you're in the area!

Stan


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:51 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2007 3:48 am
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Location: Stockton, Ca
Welcome to the forum! It's nice to have other west coasters on here. Hey Miner Mike if yal are coming out west I'd love to hang out with yal and meet in person. PM me and maybe we can connect up in the hills.

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Erik Novoa
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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 7:21 pm 
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Location: Hard coal region, PA
Damn, i'd love to make it out there and meet you guys.. i think theres definatly gunna be a Cali trip in order within the next year! I wanna see how the hard rockers do buisness!

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 7:28 pm 
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Location: Binghamton, NY
Ya, that'd be a great trip. I'd love to go into a bunch of old gold mines. Someone posted up some pics of one out west a while back with track and a cart that looked to be in fine shape for it's age. Almost like a movie set. I find gold mining very fascinating and would love to get out west to see an old mine in good shape.

I found one in the Mts. near Tucson a few years ago just by chance while roaming the desert. It was about 6 feet in only, just a wooden prop remained. Looks like a prospector dug a hole but didn't find anything.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 12:54 pm 
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Location: Winnemucca, NV
Auminer, that must have been an incredible experience to have to have endured. Certainly I'm glad you were rescued and hopefully without injury. Its also good that you weren't in the path of the serpentine when it slipped! It seems this hasn't deterred you from appreciating hard rock mining, and if anything hopefully helped in some ways to have had that experience -- you are ABLE to talk about it.

We decided to postpone our trip due to a snowstorm hitting today in the region we specifically wanted to go. We may just focus more south and possibly hit Death Valley. And if the weather is good (as in not snowy), we will definitely hit Nevada County.

Johnr, California is said to be a mining enthusiast's paradise. There is so much history there and unlike in many places particularly on the east coast, there is a lot of appreciation for it here. We have taken a few trips out to Arizona but explored within the surrounding area of Phoenix only. We originally planned to visit a mine within the vicinity of Tucson on the way to the city but were running low on time.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 1:24 pm 
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Mike, it was an experience I hope to never repeat. No injury to me, just a wake up call I suppose. The vein system in the mine makes gold when the strike changes to intersect with the serpentine dykes. It always makes quite a bit of water at the serpentine. This has been the only place in the mine where the serpentine slipped.

Sorry to hear you may have to postpone your trip to Nevada County. There wasn't much snow, less than 6", and I'm sure it has melted off by now. Problem is it looks like another system will be moving into the area Wed. through Fri. I was looking forward to an excuse to head up to the area as there are a couple of mines I located a few years back and haven't been back to further explore them. Both mines are on the north face unfortunately and the snow sticks around longer. There is one mine on the south face, off Poormans Creek, that has the two 5 stamp mills onsite. Crossing the one fork of the creek to get there may present a problem with any significant rainfall though.

Stan


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:36 pm 
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Hey Stan,

How is the snowstorm so far? Do you think it will clear in about a week, 2 weeks? There are two mines in particular that we MUST hit in the Nevada County area even if there is some snow still on the ground. But if there are 3+ foot drifts, then maybe we'll wait until the snow settles down (mostly for photography reasons). If we have to pack snowshoes, then we'd rather wait. heh. I look forward to meeting up with you. Whatever comes of the snow, we'll be back there in the spring for sure.

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"If you thought old, abandoned mines were only in the west, then you haven't been to IronMiners.com!"


Last edited by Miner Mike on Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:43 pm 
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Storm didn't happen yesterday. Small system for tomorrow with next to nothing for snowfall. If you don't mind my asking, what area of Nevada County are you thinking of? Access is usually not too bad from Malakof Diggings to Graniteville via Graniteville Road. It would be the roads that access the South Fork or Middle Fork.

Stan


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:51 pm 
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In fact, we will be close to Malakoff Diggings so however the weather is there, will be a good indicator as to how the weather will be at the 2 mines we are visiting. Thanks.

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"If you thought old, abandoned mines were only in the west, then you haven't been to IronMiners.com!"


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 1:08 pm 
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Just checked for an update and Friday has been upgraded.

A WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH LATE FRIDAY NIGHT.

* TIMING: PRECIPITATION WILL BEGIN AROUND MIDDAY FRIDAY AND CONTINUE THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT. SNOW LEVELS WILL INITIALLY START BETWEEN 5000-6000 FT FRIDAY MORNING BUT THEN FALL TO AROUND 3000 FT BY FRIDAY NIGHT.

* WINDS: LOCAL SOUTHWESTERLY WIND GUSTS UPWARDS OF 65 MPH WILL DEVELOP FRIDAY MORNING AND CONTINUE THROUGH FRIDAY AFTERNOON OVER SIERRA RIDGETOPS.

* SNOW: OVER THE HIGHER MOUNTAINS... A FOOT OR TWO OF SNOW IS POSSIBLE... WITH 6 TO 12 INCHES BETWEEN 4000 AND 7000 FT.

* IMPACTS: WINDS OF THIS MAGNITUDE MAY BE DAMAGING... AND STRONG CROSSWINDS MAY MAKE TRAVEL HAZARDOUS. HEAVY SNOW CAN CREATE VERY SLICK CONDITIONS. THE COMBINATION OF LOCALLY HEAVY SNOW AND GUSTY WINDS COULD CREATE BLOWING SNOW CONDITIONS OVER THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS AND MAY REDUCE VISIBILITIES TO NEAR ZERO AT TIMES.

Not much after this storm passes for the next 10 days. Only concern I would have would be access to the Washington and Alleghany sides of the ridge. Snow drifts are likely in the shaded areas of the roads, especially on the north face (Alleghany side), and could stick around with the colder temps. Moores Flat, Bucks Ranch (one of the mines with a 5 stamp mill in place is in this area) and Haggerty Ranch are where I'd be concerned about hitting deep drifts from my past experiences.

Hope this helps,
Stan


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 2:24 pm 
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Thanks Stan for the forecast. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I was curious how far and in what region are the 2 mines you posted in the Photos section? (http://www.ironminers.com/mineforum/viewtopic.php?t=20694) Do you by chance have any pictures of the stamp mills? Thanks.

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