Pans!

I don't know how many times people have come up to me and said, "All you really need is a pan to find gold." Technically that's true. All you really need to find gold is a pan. At some time, even with machinery, you will probably pick up a gold pan. Maybe not at the start, but more than likely at the end.

However, gold is a numbers game. The more dirt you process, the more gold you will find. Unless you hit the Mother lode, and are digging nuggets of gold. You are dealing with something much smaller. From flour to flakes to pickers. (Sounds like a double play team in baseball. “5-4-3 Double play!” I can almost hear the PA announcer.)

That’s where machinery comes into play. However, this isn’t about machinery, it’s about pans. Probably since the dawn of time, or at least when man first discovered gold, there have been gold pans. Sluices made of gold, were discovered in King Tut’s tomb. I would imagine there were gold pans made of real gold as well. But even before that, most likely pans were made out of slices of a tree trunk dished out. Wood has one problem, it swells, shrinks and cracks. So maybe the first real gold pans, as we know them, were made during the Bronze age.

However, where you find relics from gold rush times, you will find wooden pans. They could be turned out on machinery run from water wheels driven by long belts. Someone had a bright idea to go to the maker of a Knights armor and turn out gold pans. These would have been made of iron, as a Knights armor were iron plate. Eventually steel came into play, and I’m sure steel gold pans followed.

A mixture of steel and wood pans have been found from California to Australia. The Chinese prospectors are credited with introducing the riffle to the Gold pan. And you can still see a form of it today in modern steel pans. Prospectors really like steel gold pans because it served two purposes. First, of course, it was a gold pan. Second, it was their dinner plate. The pan could withstand heat, they ate off of it, cleaned it up and go back to prospecting. Maybe old time prospectors were the original , “Multi-taskers”?

Back in the mid-70’s, 1970’s that is, I’m not THAT old! I started with pie pans, which I liberated from my Mom’s cupboards. (Liberated sounds so much better than just helped myself, without ask asking. IE: Stole!) I had already been bitten by the Gold bug at age 10. However, I had no clue on how to actually find gold. (My first discovery was Pyrite, that I thought was gold.) I met a couple of guys prospecting the Whitewater River in Southern Indiana. They both had steel pans with grooves formed in the sides. They had found these in the back of “Popular Mechanics” magazine. (Might have been “Popular Science.” It’s been a long time for my memory.)

They are the ones that told me to,, “go get your Mother’s pie pans.” They had a wooden homemade rocker box lined with Shag carpeting! (This was the 70’s.) Back then, I didn’t know anything about flour gold. I thought all gold were nuggets, or at least pickers. So, I’d sift through sand from the river looking for gold I could see. I pretty much never did.

Fast forward to today. Today we have gold pans, still in steel. However, now there’s copper and the most one used are plastic. Plastic has opened up a world of new shapes, sizes and colors. (Again, another Triple Play team?) Today’s modern plastic pans come in round, square, rectangle, triangle, hexagon, U-shaped, to name the popular ones. And just about every color. Blue, green, red, black, purple, maroon, white and pink! Blue and green are the most popular, followed by black. Green and blue will make your gold stand out as well as your black sands. Black pans will make your gold “pop” out, but will hide fine black sands making final clean up difficult. The other colors, have their fans. I like blue, maroon and red for final clean ups.

Green is the most popular, but if you suffer from color blindness, then you want to stick with blue. Blue pretty much is still blue, throughout most color blindness. However, green can show up as various colors, including shades of yellow. They also come with various sizes of riffles. From no riffles to quite large riffles.

Sizes. Plastic pans range from 10” to 16”. Again, typically, bigger pans are used to work off the dirt and gravel and smaller pans are used for final clean ups. 16” pans can be a hand full, especially loaded with dirt and gravel. 14” can be as well, but is still easier to work off. 10” pans you can use one hand, but you’re limited to the amount of over burden you can work off at one time.

So, there you have it. Most small scale prospectors have many pans in there inventory. Lately there seems to be 1 - 2 new pans coming out every year. They always seem to have their supporters and their opposition. Like I always say, it’s what works best for you. I always seem to end up buying the new ones and trying them at least a few times.

Until next time, this is the old prospector.

Good Hunting!

Hello everyone. I am new to the site, but my father and I have been prospecting for a couple of years now. I have been thinking of offering a panning class through our local community education service. I have been thinking that with the renewed interest in gold prospecting, that it might be an interesting way to pay for our own prospecting. I would like everyone's thoughts on the idea. I will probably need to buy some concentrates if I do offer the class, as our area may or my not have much gold. I would be interested in finding out who has the lowest price on possible gold bearing concentrates also. Well, that is my first blog post here. I hope that everyone reads this and gives me their input.

Thanks,

Dan

If you feel that you have mastered your metal detector, or at least feel really comfortable using it.  Let your Law Enforcement know that you are willing to help if they ever need it.  Why you ask?  (Go ahead and ask why.)

Law Enforcement from time to time needs help.  Usually, there will be at least one officer with a metal detector on the squad.  However, if they are trying to find a stray bullet, or other item, one detector can't cover all the ground very fast.  That's where you come in.  Send a formal letter to the Chief of Police, the Sherrif and even if there is a State Police barracks in your town to the head Officer in charge.  Let them know that you are more than willing to help if they ever need it.  Years ago, I even included a nice photograph of some of my finds.

I'll give you a case in point.  There's a man I was introduced to, who bought a Side Scan Sonar system.  He had visions of using it in the Summer searching the lake he lived on for sunken motors, or just general treasure hunting in the lake.  He went around to the Marinas, and asked if he could put up a flier offering his services for items lost in the lake.  One Winter day, he got a call from the local Sherrif's office.  One of the Deputies had remember seeing his flier and wondered if he could help them out.  He readily agreed and loaded his equipment on their boat and went in search of what they were looking for.  (I'm sorry, I don't remember what it was, but he found it.)  The divers went into the frigid waters and retrieved it.

Now, not only is he called into help the local Sheriff's Dept.  But the Police and and State Highway Patrol.  All season, they call on him to use his equipment.  There was a missing girl and the State Highway Patrol presumed that the might have drowned in the lake.  They found her car parked near the water's edge.  So they called him in to start his search.  He laid out his grid pattern, and soon were searching the lake's bottom for any sign of human life.  They even had a boat with Cadavor dogs in it searching.  The dogs got a hit out in the water and he was called over with his Sonar.  It wasn't the missing girl, but it was a car.  Probably had been there for 20 years resting on the bottom.  The dogs were going crazy!  The car was pretty far out into the lake, but the divers were able to hook a cable to it and with the help of a crane, drag it to shore.  Inside the trunk was the remains of another woman, long since passed away.  They never did find the missing girl.  I'm not even sure that they found out who was locked away in the trunk of that car.

Don't you think that he has built up a good repore with the Law Enforcement Agencies?  I'm not saying you will find Jimmy Hoffa, but you maybe able to find a key piece of evidence!  Please note:  I would not do this if you just got your metal detector. 

Early this Summer, I wanted to search a Grade School that had been closed.  I pulled up with my van and metal detector.  In the parking lot was a Deputy Sherrif's car.  Not sure what the rules are in the town, I decided to go to him and ask if there was a problem if I searched the school grounds.  I also handed him my business card.  "Treasure Seekers International".  It has my name, web-site, address even my e-mail on it.  I told him who I was and that I wanted to search the school grounds and if there was a problem with that.  He said that since the school was abandoned, they didn't like anyone to be on the grounds, due to vandalism.  I expained that I wasn't there to cause any problems, and thanked him and I was ready to leave.  He told me that he had about an hour of paperwork to do.  That it would be alright it I searched while he was there.

I thanked him again, got my machine out of my van, and proceeded to search.  I was really hamped in my efforts due to the long grass.  (It was over a foot high and very thick!)  After about 30 minutes, I hadn't found a thing.  So I decided to pack it in.  I went back to his cruiser and expained to the deputy that the high grass was making it very hard to search and almost impossible to dig.  I thanked him and told him that I was going to go.  He handed me back my business card, and I told him to keep it.  That his Department should feel free to call me if they ever needed an area searched.  Now I don't know if they ever will.  However, if they do,  I'll be there.  (I'll also bring all of my machines just in case I run into long grass again.) 

The worse that a Law Enforcement Agency can say is, "No thanks". 

Until next time.  This is Charlotte49er saying, Good Hunting!

     Last week fed ex stopped by the shop with a box for me, aahh yes my Sandy has arrived!! Come to poppa my lil’ friend!! In the previous weeks leading up to this purchase I was pondering how little time I have to hone my detecting skills, between home and work there just wasn’t any time left for detecting, meanwhile reading in the forums about Terry in New York just killing it up there with his beach detector. Now I don’t know how he ended up stuck up in NY but him being from Arizona that’s just got to be brutal. What I do know is that Terry knows lemonade, in the beginning you could tell his spirit was a bit down, he wasn’t even on the forums for a while…then he started squeezing the lemons, got himself a Tesoro Sandshark and started working the beaches, with a good degree of success I might add, then his normal posts came rolling in to the forums accompanied by some photo’s and some youtube video’s, yep… ol’ Terry was back!!

          That got me to thinking …I got started in this hobby back in and around 94-95  beach detecting, and now I’ve kind of put it to the side and focused on gold prospecting, maybe Terry’s on to something and I should be too!! So there it was..sitting in front of me like the winning lottery ticket at the local SPMA door prize giveaway, my own Sandshark all wrapped up in bubble-wrap and waiting to be put together and put through its paces. I considered several models before settling on this one, nothing was based on price, it was just based on what was being said on the forums about the particular models I was considering, one high end model had folks talking about cheap dials that would break off and they were ending up replacing them with aftermarket dials (forget that!!) but there was one detector that everyone was happy with (Including Terry) and that was the Tesoro Sandshark. The Internet…when used to your advantage can be the greatest tool of them all for finding treasure!

           So now the game plan is to put this detector together and hit the beach this weekend and practice, practice, practice, needless to say 5 am is a bit too much for me so I opted for an afternoon run to a beach in Coronado,Ca. I took my 12 yr old daughter for company and to see if she would have enough attention span to work the Bounty Hunter I bought her a year ago, its hard to buy a kids style detector because they typically have a hard time swinging anything heavy and when you get a light kids version like this Bounty Hunter they typically don’t go very deep, and if a kid isn’t pulling coins out every two feet well you all know what happens... their attention span fly’s out the door, anyway when we arrived at the first beach we unpacked and found that the clouds and overcast had kept the beach fairly vacant which is perfect for us... we, or I should say (I) worked about a hundred yards with nothing but bottle caps…not good because my daughter gets her lack of attention span from ME!! So we left for another beach just down the road.

         This next beach is called “The Silver Strand” state beach and it usually charges 10 bucks to get in during the summer months and stops charging after Labor Day so I thought I was in good shape but when I arrived low and behold there was indeed a park ranger at the booth wanting ten bucks from ol’ Bucket. I told her I thought they quit charging after Labor Day and she said they charge year round now…no problem I thought to myself, I’ll just flash her my credentials (a Bucket&Boomer T-shirt) have my daughter giver her the sad eye’s and we’ll be on our way for free!! Anyway....so after getting the boot from the park ranger we were parked across the road in a residential area…for free I might add and making our way to the beach, when we got there we fired up our detectors and got to work, now being the first time I’ve ever used this detector I’m not about to slap on some hip waders and get waist deep in the hoopla (Pacific Ocean) I wanted to figure some things out first, and let me tell you that the learning curve for this particular beach detector…as is with most Tesoro’s  is very short!

              In no time I was yerking....yes "yerking" up bottle caps 10 inches down so I new I was on the right track, I worked the storm break of piled sand and in one three foot area between me and my daughter we pulled up 32 pennies, one of them being a 1927 wheat cent! At one point we were scooping pennies three at a time from their sandy graves…a bonified cache!!  (OK maybe that’s going a bit too far), and as the pennies thinned out so did my kids attention span so I was left to myself to work the rest of the storm break while she chased birds up and down the beach. As I headed south down the break I hit a nickel then a dime…at this point I’d swear I was “Loaming” as the denominations were getting bigger then I ran into a Heineken bottle cap , and another and another so I figured there should be roughly six of these screwing me up, if I can gather all six I should be clear of these little discouragers, well at around ten of em I was impressed with this guys drinking skills and knew I had a twelve pack to contend with, once I found that 12^th and final cap I was happy now and I could focus on this area…sure enough..no more bottle caps and shortly thereafter I pulled up a couple dimes, a quarter and a very thin (fake) gold (colored) ring!

     The afternoon had by now, given up to the evening and it was getting dark and time to call it a day, but I was very happy with the way that this metal detector handled the beach, it was very stable, easy to use, fairly light and best of all very reasonably priced, I would actually call it a steal!!  I plan on…in the coming months regularly using this Tesoro Sandshark  and posting on its successes. Terry motivated me and now its my turn to pass it on!! So get out there all you taters at home and make your own LEMONADE !!!!!!!         Bucket

A video showing this home built recirculating sluice / highbanker running and separating gold out of crushed gold ore. Visit http://prospectminingforgold.com for more information on how I built this sluice.

Gold Panning…The simplest way to prospect for gold!! Alot of recreational prospectors just simply “pan”, if you think about it, you grab a gold pan and find a river or small body of water and you have the ability… if in a known gold bearing region, to actually come up with some color in your pan!! Thats when it all goes down hill from there. First you find a little color.. then a few pickers, next thing you know your looking to buy a sluice and then a highbanker and when that doesn’t cut it anymore your packin in a 6″ dredge!!! So basically the meager gold pan was your gateway drug into the world of gold fever!! 98% of all gold prospectors never recover!!

JUST KIDDING!!

Sometimes as I begin to ramble I tend to look back on myself as an example, so work with me…as I am a recovering gold-a-holic, and I love to test out various types of gadgets designed to make gold recovery either faster..easier.. or funner, but one cannot forget where it all began, and thats with the very simple yet still effective gold pan.

Gold pans come in many different shapes, sizes, and colors, the round ones are the typical pan most people are familiar with, but all are designed to keep the heaviest material at the bottom. Back in the 1800′s the miners used round metal pans and more skill was needed to keep the gold in it until the Chinese miners invented the riffles, if you pound out riffles in your metal pan and get the angles and depth just right well… it sure is alot harder to lose your hard earned gold, and they (the Chinese gold prospectors) were some of the most efficient miners to hit the gold rush!! They went at it in a very methodical and well planned way, and left nothing of value in their path, when they were done working an area you better believe it was cleaned out.

Over the years my gold pans have served me well, as a hat..as a plate…(it holds alot of chunky soup, although the peas get stuck in the riffles…the potatoes are easily panned out)…and as a frisbee when bored, but after using alot of  gadgets and toys for finding gold, one usually ends up right back at the panning tub for a final cleanup, so don’t forget to always keep at-least a gold pan in your recreational vehicle just in case you come across a spot that just looks too good to NOT have gold in it, because its cheap and doesn’t take up much space behind your seat and its easy to use, and don’t forget there are plenty of articles and websites online that can teach you how to pan for gold, as well as video’s on “you-tube” under “gold panning” But its up to you to practice your gold panning, so get out there and pan for gold !! with a little practice you’ll be a gold panning pro in no time!

Not too long ago gold prospecting was all about a pan and a shovel and a lot of backbreaking work. But with today’s technology, the development of lightweight sluice boxes and hand pumps have made the process of gravel retrieval not only easier but a lot more efficient, which allows greater quantity of
concentrate gravels to be tested and processed to get a better understanding of how much gold is in the area your gold prospecting. This will help tell you, if you’re wasting your time or look for a different spot. Read more http://prospectminingforgold.com/

Gold Mining Equipment For any Occasion

Gold Mining is an excellent approach to to enjoy the truly amazing outdoors. An increasing number of hobbyists are trying to find gold mining equipment to aid his or her recreational gold mining actions. For these particular hobbyists, there is absolutely no better exhilaration as compared with hunting for nuggets regarding gold, similar to the enthusiasts from the initial gold rush during the Nineteenth century. [...] Read more

Amateur prospectors

Las Vegas residents are striking it rich, and it's happening nowhere near a casino. Amateur prospectors are using the desert to find a gold mine.

The southwest is a place where brush and cactus rule the land, but there is something else that brings people to the barren land.

It is a place that is so valuable, that we were asked to keep the exact location a secret.

"I live, breathe, and prospect," said former Las Vegas resident Doug Parker.

Gold prospecting is an activity that hearkens back to the old days of the gold rush. Today, it is alive and well,      miles from the Vegas strip.

"I took over for my father, learned (prospecting) from him, and taught it to my kids," Parker said.

He has done the 9-5 job, working as a slot take at the Flamingo for 25 years. Now, Parker and his friends are looking for a new kind of jackpot.

"We don't like to gamble, but we like to do this," said prospector Lorna Caldwell.

"There's gold out here all over the place," Parker noted.

The gold is found in small flakes, and believe it or not - large nuggets.

Watch the video and rest of the story at http://prospectminingforgold.com/new-prospectors-gold-prospecting-survives thanks for reading.

For though’s of you gold prospectors things to look for when locating or discovering an ancient riverbed gravels to harvest for the weekend gold prospectors. Might be common sense to some, but to others.. it might be helpful!

Gold prospectors moraine tips

For the weekend Gold prospectors this glacial rock, mud and gold materiel may have been pulled off a valley floor as the glacier advanced foreword or it may have came off the valley rock walls as a result of freezing and thawing wedging or landslides. Moraines may be made of deb-re in size from silt-sized genealogical flour to huge boulders. The debris is mostly sub-angular to rounded in shape as it is ground up by the weight of ice. Moraines may be on the glacier’s surface or left as piles or sheets of debris where glaciers has melted.

Glacial drifts in the Midwestern and North Eastern United States. These areas were previously not widely known for gold occurrences, but after increased attention they have surprised a lot of people with the amounts of gold now been recovered.

To give a little background, understand that during the ice ages, (both Wisconsin and Illinois stages), the glaciers acted like giant bulldozers pushing enormous amounts of rocks and (gold bearing) gravel down from the sources in Canada many states were completely covered by the glaciers and (left with) moraine (gravel) deposits in bands (see moraine deposits, maps of Michigan, etc.). we also show the Moraine terminus (Southern extent) in all of the Midwestern and northeastern states certain states have incomplete (NY, PA, NJ, MN), or no specific (NH, VT, MA, CT, RI, ME) Moraine information by researching state or regional glaciation books (. Available at college geology apartments or in state geological surveys), you can then determine more specific Moraine deposit locations. Another way of determining moraine locations locally is by simply locating area gravel pits.

read the rest here and video at  http://prospectminingforgold.com/glacial-drift-gold-prospectors-tips/

Obtaining the proper circulation is extremely important on using a sluice box. Too much water, going too fast will probably hold gold higher within the suspension. This scientific disciplines could be tough to go into detail, however fundamentally the top level water will not be impacted by your riffles just as much as the bottom level. As the lower level will be running behind a riffle, the top will be sweeping right above the eddy, even though the actual eddy by itself may slow the top part alittle, it is not as helpful by the actual riffle on its own. [...] Read more

New age gold prospecting

A new more modern time gold prospecting or gold panning rush is without a doubt started. Having price levels with an nearly all time record moment in time high a growing number of gold prospecting tend to be going in to the mining grounds in Arizona ( az ), The state of nevada, The state of california, New Mexico, Alaska and several other areas throughout the U.S. in addition to various other gold producing parts of the world.

When it comes to most of the mining or prospecting community you will regularly hear about both males and females yellow metal hunters shelling out 1000′s of dollars for prospecting equipment they may have never before previously used, owning zero practical knowledge locating gold and purchasing useless mining claims having dreams of hitting it rich.  Some people will tend to be mining the actual miners that’s usually where the true money is. [...] Read More

February 11, 2010

Schmidt Tunnel Adventure

This is quite a long post. Make sure you go potty first so you don't lose our place reading this! You may want to grab your favorite pipe and a glass of your best scotch, and plan to sit back, relax, and enjoy the story. For those of you who don't smoke a pipe (and I can't understand why not) here's the story!

Well, my brother-in-law Bruce and I, along with my son Cody left early Thursday morning to go visit Schmidt’s tunnel. We wanted to find out if we could find any remnants of any possible gold he may have encountered. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this oddity, here’s a 2 cent explanation: William Henry "Burro" Schmidt single handedly dug a 2,087 foot tunnel through the solid rock of Copper Mountain. Burro Schmidt Tunnel is located in Last Chance Canyon within the El Paso Mountains of the Mojave Desert, here in California. This one man, 38 year effort, supposedly began as a gold mine in 1906 but there is also reasoning that stated he wanted to create a shortcut from other mines in the area over to a railroad on the Western side of the canyon. For those of you who want the two dollar explanation, Please click visit the two links at the bottom of this post if you like. There is a lot of good information on both these sites.

I drove to the north-western entrance off the 14. There is a southern access road from Redrock Randsburg Road, but I couldn’t make out any of the roads well enough from the satellite image I had available, so we went with what I knew. I figured maybe we could attempt to navigate out the southern direction if we felt we wanted to try something different. Hell, being 2 unemployed guys, we could sleep in the truck if we got lost out there in the dark. Cody could have missed school Friday if need be. It took us about 2 hours to get from home to our exit point off the 14.

SO - We drove in a south-easterly direction on a dirt road for about 3 and half days. Ok – it was only slightly more than an hour. It seemed a lot longer because we were anxious to finally get to the tunnel. We had to put our plans off for a week due to the round of storms we just had. Along the way, we stopped at a location to search for a geocache that we wanted to log in the database. If you don’t know what geocaching is, then read my next full blog entry in about a week. After finding the cache, we continued on our way bumping, leaning, splashing, and rocking in the truck. It’s a great truck for off-road use. It’s nothing special, but it’s very dependable, comfortable, and strong. And, for those of you reading with baited breath, I’ll tell ya – It’s just a 2002 Nissan Frontier 4x4 Crew Cab. Yep! Like I said – nothing special, but she’s a great friend off-road. We finally pulled up to the adit (that’s the term for a mine opening) and pulled out our flashlights. I had purchased a one million candlepower rechargeable pistol grip flashlight, and we also had 6 other regular, not quite as powerful, but very bright flashlights and extra batteries with us. They remarked that the rechargeable flashlight was indeed, VERY bright in the tunnel, but I didn’t notice it. More about that in a bit. We locked the truck, walked in the tunnel, and started looking at all the remnants of drill holes where dynamite was used to blast through the mountain. Old man Schmidt used a small jack-hammer to make the holes, and then inserted the TNT with very short fuses. From what I’ve read on other internet locations, he didn’t like long fuses because short ones saved him money. I also read that on some occasions, he didn’t quite run fast enough out of the tunnel, and was struck with granite shrapnel, to which he had to go to nearby camps of his friends to get patched up. At any rate, we were looking at all the various veins of quartz, copper oxidation, wider and more crumbly areas, and also found an offshoot with a door (later installed by the Bureau of Land Management) to keep it off limits. Well, it wasn’t locked or chained by any means, so, like countless others before us, opened the door, and traveled into it. It was short. Bruce walked in, and Cody followed. I tripped on a railing used by the ore carts, and damn near broke my ankle. By the time I got up, and took a very careful step forward, I see (hear rather) Cody telling me it’s a short offshoot and they already hit the end, and we have to turn around.

Cool! Almost twisted my ankle to see nothing! We then continued in the direction we were headed, and after seeing some areas of the tunnel that were very large, and high, we also bumped our heads a few times by the lower sections. We had to keep the flashlights toward the ground, because we didn’t want to trip on rail ties used in the past for the ore cart. The rails were stolen about 5 years ago from what I remember. Bruce and I aren’t sure whether they were stolen for the metal value, or because someone was getting interference on their metal detector with the railings being there. Still, 2,000 feet of railing is a lot to take, and you have to multiply it times 2, because there’s a left and a right rail. We found another offshoot to the left, and decided to go that way, knowing the exit was to the right. About half way thru,
Bruce says “STOP!” Cody and I both were going to ask why, and just as Cody said the “wh” part of “why” Bruce said “Hush!” He said he was looking at some kind of nest. I took a step forward to get past Cody, and closer to Bruce (not because I was scared, but because I
couldn’t see this “nest” he was talking about. As I took a step forward, Bruce again said “STOP” but with a bit more authority. So Cody and I didn’t move. We didn’t speak, and we tried to breath real quietly. It hard to breath silent when your more than 1,000 feet in a tunnel, and there is no sound except for your breath. It was on odd moment. Bruce raised his flashlight to the ceiling of the tunnel, and scanned the walls, and the floor, and the ceiling, walls,
and floor out in front of him. After about 2 minutes of silence, except for our breathing, he asked me what I thought it was. I looked at it, and man, was that the goopiest, fluffy mess I had ever seen. It looked kind of like a bird nest, but was oval shaped and about the size of a dinner plate. There was this greenish blackish whitish goop running down the walls and puddle on a ledge below the main portion of the nest. It looked very shimmery, not dusty or dirty is if had been many years old. This looked relatively fresh! “Yuck” – I said! “That’s Gross”, came from Cody. Bruce asked me what color bat guano (bat turds) are, and I said I think they’re brownish, but not being batman, I really wasn’t too certain. I told Bruce that I doubted it was a bat nest, because everything I’ve ever read and seen led me to believe that since bats are mammals, that they bear live young, and since they hang from the ceilings, they most likely wouldn’t build a nest. To top it off, where would a bat get all these feathery, furry, stringy looking things? “That’s NOT anything bat related” I told him. I then added “And if bats hang upside down, wouldn’t they pee and poo all over their heads?” Boy, I’d hate to be
a bat! I then scanned around with my million candlepowered flashlight, and saw a large quantity of rat crap in piles all over. They were neat little piles, almost as if the rats wanted to keep a tidy residence. “But – Why would rats be this far in the tunnel, which is already out in the middle of nowhere?” I thought to myself. Something didn’t sound right. He asked if we should continue on, and I, of course, said “Yeah! I wanna see what’s at the end of this branch!”.

We had to begin ducking quite a bit more than before. I kept looking for little sleeping things
hanging from the ceiling, but luckily, didn’t find any. All I could think of was that if bats started flapping their wings all around our heads and making that squeaking sound so often shown in horror movies, would I be better off running over Bruce to get out the back of the tunnel or trampling over Cody out to the front. Poor guys didn’t even know I was planning to get the hell out of there - through them if they got in my way or following me or not if that happened! It’s really weird traveling down the rest of this branch of the tunnel not knowing what it was that created this nest. Was it the ever elusive “Cave-Beast” that grabs unsuspecting victims, and sucks their face off? Did it use the peoples sweaters to make this next? I hoped it wasn’t some long thought extinct “super-rat” that dragged it’s prey to the deepest, darkest part of the tunnel, and fed off it’s body with a group of it’s family members. I thought, “Maybe it’s something that paralyzes you, and makes you feel completely numb, but not dead, like a spider does, and I’ll have to lay there watching it eat me, waiting to have it gnaw my eyeballs out, and then I would only hear it ripping my flesh while I lay there, unable to move – but in absolutely no pain”. I was wondering if it was something I’d never even heard of or seen
before, and if it got Bruce, who was knocked down by my furious pushing and trampling, would I be able to tell the authorities what it was? My mind was racing with thoughts like this, and I chuckled to myself after each new, but very strange thought. Those who know me can attest to this odd quirk of mine. I let my mind run off in any direction it wants, as long at it leaves me a note as to where it went should I need to find it.

Still ducking, we got to the end of that branch, and decided that since there was nowhere left to go, we should turn around and bravely make it past the “nest of the unknown” and out the back passage. Cody took pictures of the mess, so if any of you out there know what it is, let us know. He didn’t get the nest part, but got the poopy part. I guess Cody likes to take “shitty” pictures. We did find either additional, smaller nests or several pieces of nests scattered about the rest of the tunnel. We’re still not sure what this mystery being could be.

We reached the end of the tunnel, and MY GOD IT WAS BRIGHT! We took pictures, Bruce and I had the celebratory cigarette for making it through the tunnel alive, while Cody found
a distant bush that looked like it was in need of watering. After he helped it with salty liquid
nourishment, he walked back over to us, and started taking pictures. He took a video with his camera, but kept it short because he didn’t want to use up his memory card. Looking back at the video, it was 17 seconds long. I’m not really sure what it was he video’d because he panned from right to left, and back to the right very quickly. We noticed a very sharp dropoff about 50 feet from the tunnels exit. Bruce and I questioned each other, with Cody chiming in, about why someone would “make a shortcut” through a mountain, and then just find a cliff,
basically. There’s no way in hell that this was a shortcut to some supposed railroad tracks with a steep drop like this. I video taped the area, and got some good, clean footage including the dropoff, and the dry lakebed that was off in the distance while we pondered.
We couldn’t answer each other’s question, so we decided to walk back through the tunnel. This time, I video taped the walk back through, just for the heck of it. I was tempted to go back to the off-shoot, but decided I’d just keep walking straight. About half way through, Bruce mentioned that we could have gone over the top of the mountain instead of returning the way we came. I think he was secretly scared to go past the “nest of the unknown” again. I told him to go ahead and go back, and hike over the top, and Cody and I would meet him on the other side. Bruce politely declined.

Cody, in his never ending quest for a scaring people, mentioned that it would be cool to hide in the off-shoots, and when people come by, to jump out and scare them. Both he and I
began the scary sound from movies. Tss tss tss – ahh ahh ahh – kill kill kill! I agreed that it would be really funny to do! Mostly, because we wouldn’t be US having the crap scared out of
us. He also thought it would be hilarious to leave one of our walkie-talkies in the tunnel, and when someone goes in, to whisper “Get out of my cave” to unsuspecting visitors. Yes, that too, would be funny but I’d probably pee my pants from laughing so hard as they came running out! Speaking of peeing, Cody was determined to go find another plant that he could help, because the last few close-together storms apparently hadn’t given them the amount of “something to drink” as Cody would have liked. Maybe tunnels cause this for him? We’ll have to find more tunnels to visit, and test this theory.

Don’t tell him though - I want him to think he’s along for the fun – not as a part of dad’s homespun science project. Anyway, I unlocked the truck and lifted the lid to get to the ice chest, so we could have some lunch, and then I removed my sunglasses so I could - Wait – What the….? My SUNGLASSES? Damn it! No wonder it seemed that the flashlights weren’t putting out much light. Here I was complaining to myself that the place I bought my batteries from, and where I got this “Million candle” flashlight sold me batteries that aren’t that good, and a light that really ain’t all that bright – and I had my sunglasses going through the tunnel in BOTH directions. When I brought this to the attention of Bruce, he said he hadn’t even noticed I had them on. When he returned, I told Cody that the reason it was so dark for me was because I had my sunglasses on and he also told me he hadn’t noticed. Man! -
Do people even look at me?

So we had a sandwich, some soda, and a smoke (well, not Cody – he just had the sandwich and a drink). Bruce finished up his, and pulled out a nifty little device he created to try and find gold remnants, whether it be gold dust, gold flakes, or – a nugget or twelve. This thing is
great! You put your dirt and whatnot into it, and it’s all separated by size. Then you sort thru the materials and find gold if you’re lucky. He basically wanted to just try it out, and find any potential areas he should modify by doing a real “field test” rather than using dirt, pebbles and any dead or weedy grass from the backyard. This thing is great! We filled it - it sorted and rinsed. We checked and repeated! Wonderful! Have I mentioned, that “this thing is great”? We had a few visitors come to the tunnel, and attempt to walk through. What they forgot (for whatever reason) is flashlights. Although I would have loaned them mine if they had asked, they, instead, decided to tell their kids and each other (about 6 times) “we can’t go through it kids, because we don’t have any flashlights”. They also said “I wonder what they’re doing” and really – they were close enough to us that there’s no way we could Not hear it. Each time they said it, it was a bit louder, but they never once said “Hi” to us, or acknowledged us. I hate that. Instead, they just kept dropping hints as if we were supposed to say hello to them, introduce ourselves, tell them about the tunnel, explain what we were doing, and offer to loan them the
flashlights they need to enjoy “their” day. I sure as hell wouldn’t have traveled all those miles on bumpy, twisty, mud-puddled roads without the means to get through over 2,000 feet of darkness.

Maybe I was petty, but I think they should have been prepared, or at least been social enough to initiate a conversation, then ask for help instead of throwing hints around. I don’t have time for people like that. There were others who came by on their motorcycles, and one felt the need to play “Park Ranger” and give a history lesson to the 2 people he brought with him. About 15 minutes later, he too asked what we were doing, and offered to give us a history lesson when he came back out of the tunnel because he was a frequent visitor and comes there a lot. We politely told him that we had researched the area and the tunnel at length, and declined his history lesson (that we had just heard anyway). Well, lo and behold – 2 minutes later they all came out, and while walking toward their dirt bikes “Ricky the Ranger” was saying to one of his “students” that “if we had brought our flashlights we could have walked all the way through”. Again with the idiots! How can you bring people to show them a historic landmark that you’ve been to many times (remember, he said that – not me), give someone the low-down, and walk them in 50 feet only to realize that – Yep! It’s Dark in there.

We had a guy on a quad come to the tunnel, and he was really polite. He said “Hay, how’s it going”. He spoke to us, we chatted, he pulled a flashlight out of his backpack, then went into the tunnel. Yes, you read that right! He had a flashlight. He walked through the tunnel, and upon exiting 15 or so minutes later, again asked how we were doing, and if we were finding anything. Wow! He didn’t ask us “What” we were doing but IF we found anything. How observant! No stupid question, and he had the required item needed to complete the tunnel tour. This guy must be on the ball! He knew what we were doing, knew what to do, spoke to us with the intent to have a conversation – not just some idle chat to get the scoop and then complain. Wow! We had talked for about 10 minutes about the area, and toward the end, he told us that he knew the lady (Tonie) who took care of the area and the tunnel after William “Burro” Schmidt had died. She died in 1994, and he said he had met her in about 1992. He gave us some insight to her, not about the area. It was something that was not “just on the internet” and that’s the only thing people know. It was interesting to hear this bit of information that I’m sure very few people are privy to. He asked us how we came across the tunnel, and how we accessed it. We told him about our internet searches and our desire to get out of the house and do something, rather than just sit idly on our collective asses. Bruce asked him how he came into the area, and he pointed to a mountain range quite a distance away where he was camped with some buddies. He also told us how his buddy was climbing a steep incline on his quad, and as he turned it, it rolled….. ALL the way down the side of the hill. His new quad, was in about 100 pieces he told us. Luckily - His buddy jumped off to the side,
and was not hurt in the least, so that was good to hear! They had been there since Saturday the 6^th, and were leaving Friday afternoon. He showed us a map he had with him for the area that actually showed the dirt roads. It was something I was not able to get online (with any detail) nor from Auto Club.

We looked at a way to get to the southern edge and end up at the highway we wanted to take home. The map showed (in detail) the roads and the condition of those roads so people know
what to expect. There was a good size length that showed as being very poor condition. Well, we looked at what we had already driven through on the map, and there were areas designated as very poor as well, and yes – they were indeed, poor. Bruce and I took a mental
note of the direction, and planned to leave via that route. We said our good-byes and he left to go back to his camp and his buddies.

Meanwhile, Cody was busy with my pickax going to town on a vein of quartz that was running up the slope of the hill. It was about 6 inches wide, and about 15 feet long. He cracked out several nicely sized chunks. We brought them home, and I cleaned them up with a scrub brush in the sink. They look very clean, and I’m going to try my hand and see if I can polish or buff them some how. Since I don’t have a rock tumbler, I’ll just try something with a wire grinding wheel and then maybe some different polishing compounds on a buffing wheel and see what I can accomplish. If it doesn’t work one, I’ll stop, and then just keep the rest in their natural state. They’ve got some nice veining and color to them. No gold in them though! I’d crush them if there was an outward sign! We took a heap of the small debris from Cody’s pickax-ing, and found nothing of note. After all our stuff was packed back into the truck, we decided to get a few last pictures, go by and visit the cabins that were the residences of Burro Schmidt and Tonie (the caretaker) and see what was left of them.

The pictures I saw on the internet do not do it justice. They show the vandalism that they’ve
sustained in the last five years, but man – when you see it – it’s horrible. It really is! We saw old “before” pics and we also saw the latest ones (maybe a couple years old). We took some, and it was just so sad to think that a mere 5 or so years ago, this place looked like it had when he was alive, and tunneling through this mountain. 5 years ago - It had looked like it was a piece of history, and now looks like something that would be condemned and red tagged in any city in the nation. 5 years ago, you could look at “His” things and at “Her” things in their respective cabins. 5 years later and all we get to see is the interior walls ripped apart. We get to see the floors removed of many of the floorboards. We also got to see where people had tried to burn sections of the outhouse – parts of the side of the cabin – and where they broke out all the windows, and pulled the doors, and all the hardware out. I’ve said that it’s sad to see – but you simply can’t imagine seeing it that way.

We had a very fun, bumpy, muddy, enjoyable ride on what we believe is a road worse than what we drove in on. It was a mess. We very slowly climbed over large rocks in the road so as not to damage my oil pan, my axles, my running boards, or my anything. We had a lot of close together humps in the road – perfect for dirt bikes and quads. There were areas where the turns were almost too tight for the truck to maneuver. And, there were about 50 or so very wide and long mud-puddles which I enjoyed crossing. The mud splashing out to the sides as I drove through them was really cool. I hadn’t done that in a long time, as my wife really hates being off-road. They weren’t too deep, but it was deep enough to cause mud to be splashed onto the side windows a little bit. Oddly enough, my truck isn’t all that muddy. I’m kinda disappointed in that it looks like I only went through a single mud puddle, rather than a whole bunch of them.

In the end – Bruce and I – along with Cody – had a terrific day out together. We’ll have to plan
something again very soon. Maybe next time, we could go out toward Mitchell Caverns, between Needles and Barstow. That would be fun, huh? Or – how about maybe cruising the area outside Barstow or Calico or around the dead volcanoes? Those too would be a great way to kill a day. We did hide a couple geocaches – one at the tunnel and one in Randsburg (an actual living ghost town) on the route home. Randsburg is a cool short trip. People actually live there, in the small cabins they now call home. There are MANY antiques all over the town from old cars, mining equipment, the old roads, the old motels, the old saloons, the bank and the post office - and everything is being used, and lived in today, as it was over
100 years ago. The only thing different is that the people have some of the modern conveniences if they choose to use them, like hot water, propane, swamp coolers, and most likely – retrofitted electrical.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog about our adventure to Schmidt’s tunnel. Included with this blog post are just a few of the pictures we took. I didn’t post the picture of the device Bruce created because I’m currently sworn to secrecy. I’ll have to drive back up there, go into the tunnel where that unnamed creature lives, and eat a spoonful of the gooey stuff. I’m sure you can imagine why I never applied to be on “Fear Factor” or “Survivor”.

Well, thanks for reading, and be on the lookout for my next in depth blog post, which will be about my interest in geocaching, which I’ve touched on in this essay. My weekly post that’s normally longer than my daily posts on my blog. For those of you who don’t visit it, the blog is located at http://pipes4mike.wordpress.com if you’d like to read some of my other posts.

Have a great day!

Until next time…..

I’m Pipe Mike

www.pipes4mike.com

http://www.burroschmidttunnel.org/

http://www.bickelcamp.org/BurroSchmidt.html

Did you know that Death Valley has more abandoned mines than any other national park? Thousands of abandoned mines are scattered across the park’s 5,200+ square miles.  It’s not surprising when you consider that gold, silver, lead, zinc, antimony, flourspar, cinnabar, Epsom salts, mercury, tungsten, copper, borax, talc, sodium chloride, and manganese all have been mined here over the years. Most mines are closed to the public and in need of safety improvements, but the Eureka Mine has been stabilized, making it easy to follow in the path of the early gold prospectors. Take two flashlights when you enter the tunnels, one for use and one for backup.

Old-time gold prospectors got started the same way— they looked for veins of quartz or seams of red or yellow iron-stained rock. Miners followed these veins, drilling and blasting to break the ore loose, they then sent the ore to mills to extract the gold. A profitable mine would yield about an ounce of gold per ton of ore. Too bad the old-timers didn't have the modern-day gold prospecting equipment and technology we enjoy today!

Of all the prospectors and miners who toiled here, only one— Pete Aguereberry— persisted. Born in France in 1874, at an early age he read about the wonderful gold discoveries in California and couldn’t wait to become a prospector. He realized his dream at age 16 when he set sail for America and made his way to California. Beginning in 1907, Pete worked his claim for 40 years, mostly by himself. Historians estimate that he extracted about $175,000 worth of gold (then valued at $20 per ounce) during his lifetime (he died in 1945). Aguereberry camp still stands in a state of decay, so stop and take a look around when you explore the Eureka Mine. Pete’s original two-room house, including an antique gas stove and refrigerator, are still in their places. Outbuildings and two other “guest” cabins are next to it.

Not far from the Eureka Mine is Mr. Aguereberry’s Cashier Mill (shown in photo). Powered by gasoline engines, the mill pulverized the ore, then chemical processes using mercury and cyanide extracted the gold. To reach this area in Death Valley National Park, take Hwy. 190 past Stovepipe Wells and up Emigrant Campground. Turn left following the signs to Wildrose. In about 10 miles there will be a turn off for Aguereberry Point. Turn here and you’ll arrive at Aguereberry camp a mile down the road. Eureka Mine is within walking distance; Cashier Mill is a short drive. The park’s interpretive signs and maps point the way. The Eureka Mine is closed by a bat gate in the winter due to hibernating Townsend's long eared bats. The mine reopens again in spring.

Touring mines and ghost towns is a great way for families to have fun and connect to America's mining history!  Travel safe!

Story by GoldRushTradingPost.com