December 2007
Letter from the Editor
Watch for some changes in our newsletter next month. Marcie has graciously turned over the newsletter to me. This is something I really enjoy doing and look forward to putting out a fun and informative newsletter each month. If anyone has any news that they would like put in the newsletter they can email me at jrc98595@yahoo.com or see me at the meeting. Our webpage is up and running and the newsletter will be posted there. We will continue to have printed copies at the meeting for these who need them.
Sandy Caldwell
Message from our Secretary
We did not have a regular meeting on December 8, 2007. We had our Christmas party which was a big success and a good time was had by all. Thank you Sandy and everyone else who helped out with the party. Also a big thank you to everyone who contributed items for the auction even though it was a last minute thought. I wrote a letter of thanks to the Shooting Stars for performing for us on behalf of the chapter.
Erick whose son plays for the shooting stars and who has prospected in Alaska won the door prize of the Buzzard special and will be our newest member, also Laura our shooting stars director is buying a Buzzard special for Devina and her family who watch the prospecting show on the real outdoor channel and have been wanting to join for a long time.
Next regular meeting
January 12, 2008
Elim Lutheran Church.
1:00-3:00 P.M.
See you all there.
Marcia
Secretary
Stories of interest as submitted by Donald Kirst:
Continued from November 2007 newsletter.
GRANDPA’S MINING RULES:
These are some of the old mining rules that Grandpa Kirst and my Dad told me. Most still hold true even today.
1. Never kill a porcupine even though they are good eating. Porcupines are slow and easy to kill even with a stick. Porkies are reserved for the down and out who are lost or starving.
2. Old unwritten mining law allowed that if you were down and out and needed a grub stake, you could work the tailing piles of a big companies mine for two days. Some mining companies still allow you to do this.
3. In tunnel mines set your charges off the last thing each day and don't go back until the next day. The old fuse system often would have hang fires and if you returned to the mine after blasting the blast from a hang fire could kill you. Also the gases from nitro caused severe headaches.
4. If exploring old mines, always be cautious to watch for old blasting caps. Never touch one.
5. It is common to grubstake a fellow prospector by allowing him to work your claim. The rule then and even now is that the guest would did test holes at different locations on your claim. Any gold the guest found he got to keep, but the claim owner got to check the hopper at cleanout and the guest would move and dig a new test hole when requested.
6. When working with a partner, one partner would weigh up and divide the gold at the end of each day. The other partner(s) got to pick which poke he wanted. This worked great in the days when nuggets were being found. Today with fine gold it is not so easy to separate it each day.
7. If you have grub to spare, never send a guest away from your camp hungry.
8. Never brag or lie about how much gold you are getting. It may cost you your life.
.
RON
Years passed and often I would find myself in the mountains. I would dip a pan in the rivers and try to find a little color. Usually without much success. This was mainly because I really didn’t know what I was doing.
As a Deputy Sheriff in Washington, I investigated an accident one evening involving a young girl who had taken a curve too fast and ran off the road. She tried to convince me that another car forced her off the road. Her father, a retired cop came upon the scene and after looking around, he agreed with my theory as to the cause of the accident. His name was Ron. We got to talking and somehow we got on the subject of gold. Ron was a prospector at heart. He asked me to come over to his house some day and he would show me his things.
In weeks that followed, I found that I was really getting the fever. Ron was feeding the fire by showing me his high banker dredge and his floating dredge and talking about his mining claim in Oregon. He then really got me started by showing me a bottle of nuggets that he had found on his claim. Ron invited Jody and I to come visit his claim and work it for awhile. This would be my first chance to see a dredge work. Ron had told me about his claim. He said that the creek was like a bank deposit. Each year after the spring runoffs you could dredge the same area that you dredged the year before and find gold. When spring arrives the gold washes down from the hills. The creek becomes a raging river. Hugh boulders roll down stream and vibrate the ground as if an earthquake was taking place. The gold you find in most streams is flat because of those boulders rolling over them. So, where is all that new gold coming from? Are there rich lodes somewhere up stream waiting to be found?
OREGON
Jody and I went to visit Ron and Pat’s claim. To get to his claim we had to drive over Bob and Judy’s claim. We met Bob and Judy when we got there. Their claim was a patented claim and they lived there year round. I always thought they were throw backs from the 60’s hippy generation. They were living there without most of the comforts of city living. They had a wind generator to produce power that recharged a bank of batteries, which ran the power to the house. Their water supply was pumped from the creek into a big water tank that was on stilts behind the house.
Bob was known to be a champion gold panner. I think he told me he could empty a pan of dirt and not loose a flake of gold in less than 7 seconds. Now it took Jody about 20 minutes to empty a pan of dirt. She was so afraid of loosing the tiniest of flakes valued at maybe 1000th of a cent. So I thought it would be a good idea if Bob would give her a lesson. She would listen to a stranger better than she would listen to me. Bob took Jody down to the creek and proceeded to show her how to pan. As he bent over, his marijuana pipe fell out of his shirt pocket. He quickly grabbed it and put it back into his pocket and told her: “You didn’t see that.” He paused for a second and then said “Unless you wanted to smoke some.” Now Bob knows that I am a cop and Ron is a retired cop. I was amazed that he would make such an offer.
Jody loves to go off exploring when I am busy digging. One day she was planning to go off in the hills above Bob’s place. Bob saw her with a backpack as she was walking towards the road. He quickly caught up with her and warned her not to go off in the woods. He told her that there were crops hid in the area and that someone might think she is trying to steal the crops, marijuana that is. He also warned her that some growers have built traps that could kill you. Jody didn’t wander very far from camp.
What a beautiful spot it was in Sunny Valley. Ron’s claim was on Grave Creek. We pitched our tent right where the creek made a sharp bend. The water ran gentle and there was a deep hole just after the bend. I noticed several trout in the deep hole. It was hard to pass up the fish as I love fishing. I grabbed a pan and went below the hole. I cut a grass head from a rock in the river and worked the dirt out of it’s roots. My grandfather had taught me to do this as the roots and moss will often catch gold. We found gold! Hundreds of flakes were there. I took a snuffer bottle and picked up each little flake and put it in a flask. Each chunk of gold settled to the bottom yet there was hardly any volume there. I decided that at this rate, we would never make a penny. I changed my tactics. I would work a pan of dirt down to the black sand and not try to separate the gold. I would just keep the black sand. We could work out the gold at home this winter.
Early the next morning, I crawled out of the tent. Jasper our new puppy was cuddled up with Jody. Dakota was ready to go. I grabbed a fishing pole and we went to the deep hole. Dakota waded until he was belly deep and would paw at the fish as they swam by. With little or no effort, I had five nice trout for breakfast.
We explored around the area up and down the creek and noticed several mining operations. Most every miner seemed friendly once they figured out that you weren’t some environmentalist trying to shut down the mining. The area had a little tradition that we didn’t know about. Every Saturday afternoon, several of the miners in the area would get together and have a pot luck. Our first Saturday afternoon found Jody laying on a sand bar as naked as a jay bird. We had been there for almost a week and no one had even come near our camp. So Jody felt quite safe at getting a tan. The next thing she knows there is a sixteen year old boy standing by her. The boy was slightly retarded but he was able to remember his mission. He told her “Dad says dinner is ready.” She quickly covered herself with a shirt and waited for the kid to leave. He didn’t. He just stood there waiting for her to come to dinner. Jody called for me and I had to explain to the kid that we could find our way. This really confused him because his father had told him to bring us to dinner. He finally left and we went to dinner.
The weekly dinner was a lot of fun. We barbequed outside, drank a few beers and then everyone started producing their finds for the week. Bob had the best one. He produced a nugget that was about the size of a nickel and twice as thick. Myself, well my biggest “nugget” could barely be called a picker. And I thought it was a nugget.
Jody and I played around for about a week, panning and trying to get a little gold. Then Ron offered to let us use his high banker/dredge. Ron was working a floating dredge in the middle of the creek above where we were camped. I set up the high banker a short ways down stream from him. Ron was working deep and he had a air hose and wet suit. I found that the water was so warm that I could work for hours without getting chilled. Using a snorkel, I went under water as far as the dredge hose would reach. The creek bottom was solid bedrock. I started vacuuming up all the dirt and silt from the bottom. It was quite amazing to see all the dirt disappear up the suction tube and leaving a perfect clean bottom. I also noticed that I had a new partner. A young steelhead stayed close to me waiting for me to turn up some grub.
As I was dredging the bottom, I saw a really nice nugget become exposed. Before I could reach out it disappeared up the hose. I threw the nozzle down, and ran to the high banker. I shut the pump off and feared that I had lost this nugget. There it was shining brightly. It had barely entered the box and did not move. This nugget was about the size of my little finger nail. I found that I had collected more gold in my first cleanout that I had collected in a week of panning.
One night as we were sleeping in our little tent, Dakota sat up and started to growl. The light was dim in the tent, yet I could see that the hair on Dakota’s back was standing straight up. Then we could hear a splashing sound in the water as something crossed the creek behind our tent. I grabbed my pistol and waited. The animal passed very close to our tent. It did not seem to have an interest with us and headed away up stream. I got out to explore and found large cougar tracks. I reassured Jody that the cougar had just passed through and would not return. She didn’t seem to buy this so we loaded our sleeping bags into the back of the truck. Jody felt that the trucks canopy would protect us. We no sooner got settled down and the cat returned. This time the cougar explored around the camp before he went on.
At the end of our two week vacation, we had a five gallon bucket full of black sand. The gold fever had really hit Jody also. She had filled five garbage bags with grass heads. Before we left, Ron came down to see us. He told us that he had heard about someone down stream from us that had got a rock stuck in his dredge nozzle. He tried everything to get it dislodged and finally resorted to hitting the nozzle against a tree. The rock finally broke free and the guy picked it up and found that if was a quarts and gold nugget valued at $37,000. Now that will really give you a bad case of gold fever. I don’t know if Ron saw the grass heads that Jody had picked up, but he just happened to mention that taking grass heads wasn’t allowed any more.
Back home, we spent many a day washing small amounts of black sand in a pan. We would pick out every tiny flake of gold we could find. Then Jody would pick out every garnet that was in the dirt. If garnets were of value, we’d be rich. After washing the grass heads and removing as much dirt as possible, we let them dry and then set them on fire. We then had more dirt to work with.
GIFTS
We had lots of black sand loaded with tiny flakes of gold and there were even some pickers in the sand. One year I decided to send some of the relatives some gold, but I thought I’d make them work for it. I filled baggies full of the un-worked black sand and sent it off as Christmas Presents. This turned out to be a big hit.
OLYMPIC PENINSULA WASHINGTON
MCDONALD CREEK
We started checking the areas around the Olympic Peninsula. Near the mouth of McDonald Creek, we found several streaks of black sand on the beach. We gained access to the beach from one of the land owners and had to work our way down an extremely steep bank. We didn’t want people to know what we were doing there, so we had filled our backpacks with zip lock baggies. We took a garden trowel and scraped the surface where the black streaks were. When we had filled so many bags that we couldn’t carry anymore, we would work ourselves back up the bank and take the sand home. We were surprised to find how much gold was in the beach sand. There wasn’t enough to strike it rich, but enough to make you smile. We did find enough gold there to cause us to make several trips back. We checked the mouth of several other creeks on the northern part of the Olympic Peninsula and found gold. McDonald Creek was the best producer that we found.
RUBY BEACH
After researching some local history, I found that there had been a large mining operation on the ocean beach at a place called Ruby Beach. I talked with a few old timers and I was told that at Ruby Beach there was a placer operation there in which several possibly 60 or more people were hired to dredge that section of beach. I was told that they dredged the same section of beach each year for several years during the depression and that the winter storms replaced the gold on the beach.
We went to Ruby Beach to explore around a bit. The sad thing is that this area has been stolen from the people and made part of The Olympic National Park. At Ruby Beach there is a parking lot at the top of the hill. Then there is a trail to the beach. This trail is heavily traveled by tourist and beach combers. We followed the trail to the beach. Just to the right of the trail there is a lagoon at the bottom. We struck out headed north. About 100 yards from the trail is a rock face cliff. At high tide the water is up against the cliff, but at low tide you can walk past these rocks. After we walked past the rocks we found an area at the high water mark. I had been looking for black sand and had not found any. I did notice a spot where the sand was kind of pinkish orange color. I picked up a rock that had this odd colored sand and looked at it with a magnifying glass. To my surprise the rock appeared to be covered with tiny specks of gold. The odd colored sand appeared to be crushed up garnets.
Working this sand is different that any other panning. One could fill a gold pan with sand and holding it under water, shake the pan violently. Then without care just wash the sand from the pan. The entire bottom of the pan was now yellow with gold. Each flake is small and very flat. The gold is stuck to the bottom of the pan. A squirt bottle will wash away the gold into whatever you use to catch it. There is not a single bit black sand with this gold.
On another day, I contacted the Park Ranger. I told him about the mining that had taken place at Ruby Beach. He seemed to know some of the history there. I then asked him if it was legal to dig a hole on the beach to look for clams. He said it was, but one needed to fill the holes afterward. I then asked him, what if I dug a hole, “looking for clams” and before filling my hole, I ran the dirt through a pan. He paused for a minute. Then he told me that he was in charge of a large area. He stated he would not bother me if there was no sign of my activity after I left and as long as no one complained. He also warned me not to take any equipment there, only a gold pan.
We returned to Ruby Beach and walked past the rocks at low tide. I thought that being winter, there wouldn’t be any tourist. I was wrong. There were people all over the beach. We waited beyond the rocks for high tide to return and block us from the trailhead. While waiting we explored the beach and found remnants of old mining equipment. When high tide came, we were all along. Now I am not claiming that I took any gold from that beach. I suppose that if I did, having permission, I would have been legal, but just in case, I wouldn’t want to get that Ranger in trouble. A hundred people could come there and work that beach for a day with only a garden trowel, a gold pan, and squirt bottle and each could easily put a quarter ounce a day in their pocket. It would play out in about a month, but the next spring it would be there again. It comes and goes each year. One year the pinkish orange sand was everywhere along the high water area and the next year it was hard to find, but it’s always there if you look real good.
The National Park System steals land away from the citizens and curtails its use. Here is a spot where they could allow recreational prospecting. People could go there and dig holes and never disturb the environment. High tide comes again and erases all evidence that you were ever there. We have so many poor and out of work people in this country and here is a place where some could easily earn $125 for six hours at the beach. I would be so happy if the government would do away with the National Park System and put it all under the control of the U.S. Forest system.
AGNEW DITCH
As a Deputy in Clallam County, in the winter of 1999, I received a call from a guy that wanted to report that all the fruit had been stolen off his fruit trees. This guy drove up from Florida to harvest his fruit and everything was gone. I tried to explain to him that he was several months late and that our seasons are quite different than in Florida. As we walked around on his property he told me that someone has been playing a trick on him. He said that someone keeps pouring gold into his sump and it keeps clogging up his filter system. Mention gold and my ears perk up!
He showed me a holding tank (sump). Inside the holding tank is a pump that he uses to irrigate his trees. The Agnew ditch is nearby and he diverts water from the ditch to his tank. He then told me that about twice a year he has to clean all the gold out of his filter and he thought someone was pouring gold into his tank as a prank. The gold was so fine that even though his filter was covered with gold, there was hardly any quantity or value there. This made me think that there is gold moving down the Agnew ditch. We discussed putting some type of sluice box in the bottom of the ditch and checking it every so often. I don’t know if he ever did that.
BIG PEOPLE
There is a road in the Blyn area named Jimmy Come Lately Road. This road goes up into the Olympic Mountains. The road supposedly got its name because there used to be a peddler that came through the area every so often. His name was Jimmy. The local Indians would come up into the area anticipating Jimmy’s return. They would contact the settlers and ask “Jimmy Come Lately?’ The settlers apparently named the road after that question.
A friend told me a story that was related to him by one of the local Indians. He said that when the Indian told him the story, the Indian was quite old and couldn’t pinpoint the exact location that he was talking about.
The story goes as follows: When I was very young, my father took me up into the mountains to take some supplies to a trapper and his family. We started up Jimmy Come Lately Road that then we went off into a canyon. The trail was very narrow and as we were walking I noticed that the canyon walls that we were walking along sparkled with what looked like gold. He constantly had the feeling that he was being watched. His father told him not to worry that “they” won’t hurt him. At the end of the canyon was a clearing and there was a trappers cabin. The trapper had a young boy that had bright red hair. The trapper told how the “Big People” often came here. He said that they would sit near the trees at the edge of the clearing and watch the boy play for hours. One day the “Big People” came and brought rocks that were full of gold. They made loud noises outside the cabin until the trapper finally came outside. It took awhile, but the trapper finally figured out that the “Big People” were trying to trade the gold for the boy with the red hair. The trapper refused the offer and the “Big People” went away. He said that they still come and watch, but not as often. The trapper was never able to find where the gold came from.
OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK
I’ve never seen any sign of lode gold in the Olympics. I haven’t really explored that much because most of the Olympics are in the National Park. Prior to it becoming a National Park, I did hear about several mines on the west side. One story that keeps coming up by the old timers tells of an area that was so rich with gold that two Rangers worked the mine on the “QT”. The versions very as to what actually happened. The one that I have heard the most is that they hired an airplane to fly in and pick up their gold. The plane crashed and they were forced to pack everything out. They were caught and $50,000 in gold was confiscated. I was told that they went to prison. That $50,000 would be worth something around a half million on today’s market. The more popular version is that most of the gold was lost in the crash and never recovered.
To be continued.
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