FIRST QUARTER, FEBRUARY 2012 VOLUME 26, NUMBER 2
By Alan Mash
I was really excited when Dave Mack confided in me and another long time 49er member, Jim Yerby, that The New 49’ers were considering buying three mining claims along the South Umpqua River in Southern Oregon. Since Dave was occupied on a project in Asia, he was asking if Jim and I were willing to go on a prospecting trip to confirm that gold can easily be found on the new properties. Dave didn’t have to ask twice. Jim and I were already biting at the bit to go take a look after reading Mark Chestnut’s story about the South Umpqua in the December newsletter!
We looked the areas up on Google Earth before we went up there so I could program the coordinates into my GPS. Looking at the areas from a bird’s eye view on the Internet, I already suspected we were not going to have much difficulty finding gold. The South Umpqua has a good history of gold production.
Jim and I are sworn to secrecy until the Club has a chance to get some new signs up and add these new areas to the growing number of places on the map for New 49’er members to prospect on the South Umpqua. So I am not going to tell exactly where these new claims are for the moment. We were not trying to find high-grade deposits on this trip. That will come later. Our job this time was just to make sure the gold is there. Dave also wanted to know if there is some camping available. Dave was relying upon us to tell him if the claims were good enough to buy.
We stopped at a local market soon after arriving on the river; and to our delight, the owners of the store also happen be gold miners! I kind of get that the whole area surrounding the South Umpqua is miner-friendly. Jim and I talked to people at the local store for over an hour, gathering a heap of information about the area. They told us a lot about local gold mining and even suggested places to camp. They also suggested some places to stay for extended periods. There is an RV Park only a few miles south of the store.
In all, these new claims take up a few miles of the river. It is quite a lot of area. So Jimmy and I had our work cut out for us. After leaving the store, we followed the road alongside the river, keeping a careful eye out for camping locations and places for easy access to the river for prospecting. We found several nice large pull offs and some primitive side roads; good places to park and perhaps even set up some small campsites. We also found a larger, more developed campground which will accommodate larger vehicles. Dave Mack was going to be glad to hear about this!
We found a really nice, smaller campground located at our most northern destination. There is a wonderful gravel bar there with easy access to the river. There is also a developed day-use area just downstream where the river presented Jimmy and I with some very nice decomposed bedrock and cracks. We agreed this was a good place to start our sampling.
After getting our gear out of the vehicle, we immediately started digging out this one enticing-looking crack in the exposed bedrock. And to my amazement, which you will see in the following video sequence, I found gold in the very first pan! Eureka! I thought to myself, “I better grab my camera!”
Jim kept on digging and I kept panning. We found gold in seven consecutive pans! Yeah; gold is pretty easy to find in this place!
Gold from less than a full pan of the moss!
There is a great deal of moss all along the river, which adds to the beauty of this place. Panning some of the moss we were removing to get at the bedrock cracks, I got the best pan so far of the day, yielding some nice fine gold and black sands from just my first moss-pan! That gave Jimmy the opportunity to capture my excitement in the following video segment:
This place was so beautiful; I took a moment to turn the camera on Jim Yerby in this next video sequence:
We then drove back downstream looking for the next area we had planned to prospect. It didn’t take long for my GPS to sound off as we arrived at the pre-planned location. The sun was just going over the hill, so we did a few quick pans in this area and found some fine gold in a fast-water shoot that swept over a bedrock bar. Gold is here, also. That is all we needed to know.
Having only about 30 minutes of daylight remaining, my GPS sounded off once again as we arrived at the third location that we had planned to sample. Isn’t the modern world great? This place had a fairly large bar with one side made up entirely of exposed bedrock. There was some streambed towards the lower-end. A quick test off the bedrock only yielded a tiny speck of gold, and I was thinking, “Man, I hope we can do better than that!
Not giving up, Jimmy and I decided to test the gravel bar. We were looking for hard-pack and layer changes in the streambed. I personally have attended so many of the New 49er high-banking weekend projects that I eventually became one of the team leaders, showing what I learned to others about how to find gold in the contact zones. Jimmy also knows a lot about proper sampling techniques. Without much time remaining, we were only going to get one more chance on this day.
Jimmy and I scraped off the first 3 or 4 inches until we got down to the first layer of hard-packed material. My first pan there didn’t turn up any gold. Skunked! But Jimmy and I know from long experience this only meant that I did not find gold on the first test-pan. It takes more than a single test to evaluate an area. But since darkness was not long away, I dug further down to the bottom of the hard-packed layer. There, I spotted the familiar color-change and a harder composition. This was the contact zone between two storm layers. Cool! My first pan on top of the second layer resulted in the largest piece of gold of the day! Jimmy was right there capturing the moment on video:
Being tired, hungry and out of daylight; it was time to head back home with the satisfaction of a successful prospecting trip behind us! We found camping, and we confirmed the gold. From my experience; if there is gold in the gravel and bedrock cracks up on the banks, there is also going to be gold in the river. Let’s see who gets there first this next summer with our suction dredges!
Announcements from Dave Mack
We are Buying New Mining Properties in Oregon! Since we are not predicting that the moratorium on suction dredging in California will be lifted in time for the 2012 season, as you can see from the story above we are actively buying some dredging mining properties in various locations in Oregon. In addition to creating some exclusive dredging opportunities for our members, we are also hoping to provide more camping options. Stay tuned; because you will be hearing some exciting news about this over the next few months! Once all of this settles out, we will add all of our new properties to our existing map of the South Umpqua, along with detailed claims guide information.
High-banking in California: While Oregon is more user-friendly towards suction dredging; our best high-banking opportunities remain along our extensive properties along the Klamath River in northern California. Therefore, Our Weekend Group Mining Projects will take place near our headquarters in Happy Camp. They are scheduled for the upcoming 2012 season as follows: June 2 & 3; June 23 & 24; July 14 & 15; August 4 & 5; August 25 & 26. These events are free to all active Members, and everyone is invited to attend. Please contact our office in advance to let us know you will be there: (530) 493-2012.
We are Giving Away 3 Ounces of Gold! Here is a reminder that there is not much time remaining in our ongoing legal fund-raiser This drawing is going to be for three ounces of the beautiful gold which I personally dredged along the Rogue River during this past mining season. The drawing will take place on 9 March, 2012.
The girls in our office will automatically generate a ticket in your name for every $10 legal contribution that we receive ($100 would generate 10 tickets, etc). There is no limit to the size or frequency of your contributions, or to the number of prizes you can win. Contributions can be called in to our office at (530) 493-2012, or they can be mailed to The New 49’ers, P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, CA 96039. Or you can do it on our web site by going here: Make a Donation
We greatly appreciate help from you in regenerating our legal fund!
Our new Web Site is Up! With the help of another very experienced Internet specialist, after more than three months of round-the-clock work, long time supportive member, Jason Inks, has finished rebuilding our entire web site from the ground up, using all of the latest technology. Our web address is the same. This new site is linked directly to the main social networking systems. Please take the time to check out our many interesting stories, and don’t forget to click on the “Like,” “Tweet” and “Share” buttons found at the top or bottom of the pages you like. This will help spread the word around about us.
How about this: We intend to soon announce an entirely new program about being able to find real gold by prospecting on our new web site! Stay tuned in; because you guys are soon going to be able to find real gold by prospecting over the Internet!
2012 Group Insurance Policy: All Members are eligible to sign up for $10,000 of accidental medical Insurance which covers you while camping, prospecting for gold, and also during any activities which we sponsor. Dental accidents are included, along with $2,500 for accidental death or dismemberment. The policy has a $100 deductable. It is an annual policy which extends through January of 2013. This insurance is available for $30 per year, per person. More information can be found here:
Sign up for the Free Internet Version of this Newsletter: We strongly encourage you to sign up for the free on line version of this newsletter. The Internet version is better, because you can immediately click directly to many of the subjects which we discuss; because the on line version is in full color; because we link you directly to locations through GPS and Google Earth technology; and because you can watch the free video segments which we incorporate into our stories.
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The New 49’ers Prospecting Association, 27 Davis Road, Happy Camp, California 96039 (530) 493-2012 www.goldgold.com
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