Next regular meeting on

February 9, 2008

1:00 - 3:00 P.M.

Elim Lutheran Church.

Port Orchard, WA

Need Someone to Prospect With?

Prospecting is not as much fun if you go by yourself and it is not always good from a safety point of view to not have a buddy with you. Western Washington Chapter of GPAA has posted a Buddy list on our webpage where you can pair up with another chapter member to go prospecting. Maybe learn a few tips on new prospecting techniques or equipment use.  Also if you are going out for the day and want to post the time and place, you can do so on the webpage.

If you would like to be on the buddy list, please submit your name and e-mail address to the web Administrator (on web page) and state that you would like to be posted on the list.

You can also call me (360-268-1852) or see me at the meeting and I'll add you.  I'll also add you to the newsletter each month for those without Internet.

Web page www.wwgpaa.org

  Volume 1   Number 6                                                                                          January  2008

February 23-24--MONROE, WA: 13th annual show, "Gold, Gem and Mineral Show 2008"; Washington Prospectors Mining Association; Evergreen Fairgrounds, U.S. Hwy. 2; Sat. 9-4, Sun. 9-4; adults $5, children 13 and under free with adult; exhibits, demonstrations, seminars, gold prospecting equipment displays and sales, gold prospecting services.

Chapter News

                        

                       Raffle Winners

Grant Reed                 14" pan and concentrate                         Bill Willette                 Gold Prospectors book and treasure apron

Ron Willerscheidt        10" pan, scoop & bag

John  Brockley     Pan & Concentrate

Jim Doyle     Gold Fever book & treasure apron

Lonnie Meadows  Gloves,scoop & concentrate               Tracy Brockley            Treasure apron,snuffer,gloves & picks

Darlene Doyle      Metal Detector

                                  Buddy List

1. Marci & Larry Antill  360-259-0009   360-339-2919

2. Jim Curtiss 360-427-7210

3. Dan Jones  360-697-9125

4. Jim Doyle 360-458-5812

5. Cal Blackburn 360-830-4613

6. Eric Snyder ersnyder@clearwire.net

7. John Dykstra 360-981-0078   johnd_1953@comcast.net

8. Rob Matthews 360-620-8337 kc7zzn@wavecable.com

9. Lonny & Doris Meadows 253 333-8931 ldmeadows6@yahoo.com.

Thank you to everyone who has donated raffle prizes. Also thank you to the Blackburn's for putting on a great raffle every month. If you have prizes to donate, contact them

Stories of interest as submitted by Donald Kirst:

Continued from December 2007 newsletter.

LOST MINES

           The Little River is not far from Port Angeles.  I was told about a guy that had a lode mine somewhere on Little River.  It was said that he was getting a fair amount of gold.  The story goes that one day he went into the mine to set some charges and there was an explosion.  Friends went up to investigate and never found enough of him to bury.

           I heard a similar story about a mine on Burnt Hill near Sequim.  There was a guy that had a mine there not far from Klink Bridge.  No one knows how good it was but he did make a living.  One day he just disappeared.  Some speculate that he got blown up.  We searched that area and did find signs of an old cabin, but we never found his mine.  There is a sand bar just below Klink Bridge, that I always wanted to work, but haven’t because of restrictions regarding fish habitat.

EAGLE MOUNT MINE

               There was a time that I knew the name of this mine.  I don’t remember it but since it is close to Eagle Mount which is between Discovery Bay and Port Townsend, I will call it the Eagle Mount Mine.  I went there the other day to explore around.  The buildings are decayed and falling down.  The mine actually goes under highway 104.  Years ago I was told about this mine.  A vein of ore was found and followed.  The vein was very low grade.  The owners of the mine got prospective investors to come and inspect the mine.  Several then invested large amounts of money.  The mine never produced a thing. 

               Years later there was a trial.  I don’t know if it was a criminal trial or civil.  The investors claimed they had been defrauded.  On the stand, the original owners were asked if they had purchased ore from another mine and then brought it to the site of their mine.  The answer was yes.  He then went on to say that he did this so that he could study the ore and when he was through with his study, he dumped the ore in his tailing pile outside his mine.  He never claimed to the prospective investors that those samples came from his mine and they must had assumed it on their own.

CACHE LA POUDRE CLAIM

               Jody and I worked all the creeks around the Sequim area.  One day we happened to be on the Jimmy Come Lately Creek.  This was the first Olympic creek that I found bedrock.  I now had a small sluice box and was anxious to try it out.  I had also purchased a classifier.  This is a screened device that fits on top of a five gallon bucket.  I filled the bucket with water, then shoveled dirt into the classifier.  There was enough water inside the classifier to wash the rocks and let the find sand fall through to the bottom of the bucket.  The larger rocks are examined and then thrown out of the classifier.  When the bucket was full of fine sand, we would take a cup at a time and dump it into the sluice box.

               I tested several areas this way and out of each bucket, I would get anywhere from 5 to 10 pinhead sized chunks of gold.  We continued to explore Jimmy Come Lately Creek working up stream.  The creek runs through a steep canyon and it is difficult to carry much equipment any distance.   Hoping to find a better source, we drove on forest service roads to a location that was a mile above our point of discovery.  This became an area we called the canyon from hell. 

               We worked ourselves down to the creek bottom and started working our way down stream thinking that we would come out near the point of discovery.  We came to a point where there was a waterfall.  The drop was about 40 feet.  We worked our way down, dropping off big rocks until we reached the bottom.  A short distance from there was another waterfall.  This one was more than one hundred feet and there was no way possible to drop over this wall.  We decided to head back, but found that we could not climb back up the shorter falls.  We were now trapped.  The canyon walls were two hundred feet straight up or more.  The west side of the canyon did have lots of vegetation and after a scary ordeal, we managed to climb that wall.

               On top we worked our way beyond the falls and back down to the creek.  This was the midpoint of what our claim would become.  The area below the falls produced more color per bucket than any other area.  There was also an old logging spur road into this area.  We decided to file a claim.  This creek runs through a steep canyon and after a heavy rain, it can become a raging river.  The Cache la Poudre river in Colorado is similar only on a much larger scale.

               Filing a claim proved to be interesting.  This hadn’t been done that often in Clallam County.   We finally located one of the older employees in the treasurers office that had done this in the past.  I mailed a letter to the District Forest Ranger, telling him my intent and also telling him that my operation would not be such that as per mining law, no notice of intent was required.   Four months later, I got a letter from the Ranger stating that he did not want me to do anything until he had a chance to review the area.  I had to write him a letter back stating that I had already gotten my hydraulics permit and that he hadn’t responded within the two weeks required by law. 

               We still have this claim.  We only hit one pocket that had a lot of gold in it.  I was working a sluice box and digging in clay on the bedrock.  I washed each hand full of clay in a bucket to break it up.  Most of it collected back in clumps in the bottom of the bucket.  I dumped small amounts into the sluice and watched as clumps never broke up and rolled out the end of my sluice.  I think I lost as much gold as I found.  What I did collect helped pay for a highbanker.  There has been several times that Jody and I were working the claim, usually in the area of the big falls.  The boys, Jasper and Dakota, hunker down close to us and their hair stands up on their backs.  You get that feeling that we are being watched.  You know how that goes, maybe big foot is out there.

               A friend came from California with his four inch dredge.  We took it apart and packed it up to a spot that I knew was good.  We dredged for two days and got nothing.  I think that because the gold is so fine it did not collect and was washed out the back. 

               I registered my claim with the GPAA. (Gold Prospectors of America)  It is open for members to work.  I’ve seen other people with small dredges working the claim and it seems they did not find anything to brag about and I have seen people with sluice boxes that did collect some good finds.

CASCADE MOUNTAINS, WASHINGTON

FORTUNE CREEK

               Old Tony was a friend of mine.  I knew him when he lived in Quilcene.  He was raised in Rosland and as a boy he trapped in the mountains and even worked the mines.  Tony was probably the last of the old mountain men.  Born a century too late, but still a true mountain man.  Tony told me how he had built most of the trails in the Quilcene District of the Olympic Mountains and many in Eastern Washington.  He showed me photos of shelters that he built in these areas.  This was his job and he loved it.  He also told me how years later the Forest Service destroyed all those shelters fearing that Hippies would squat there.

               One year Tony was sent up in the Hoodsport district to build shelters.  He told me that he hiked in on snow shoes and worked all summer.  Where ever he camped he had a flag pole.  He would raise the flag every morning and take it down every evening.  There was many fires that summer and the pack train with food and supplies never came.  Tony remained true to his job and worked until the snow was again on the ground.  He was so mad at the government that he decided that he would never work for them again.  They had forgotten him and left him up there to starve, but instead he lived off the land.  When he packed out as an act of defiance, he left the flag flying.  As winter set in he started to realize that jobs were hard to find and he may want a job come summer.  If someone found that flag, the government would never hire him again.  He put on snow shoes  and in the middle of winter he hiked back and got the flag. 

               

                I had hunted several times up fortune creek (near Roslin, Washington).  I had notice several old mines around the area and had even done a little exploring myself.  One time I found a small vein outcropping.  I broke off a piece and sent it in for assay.  It came out with a high silver content.  I decided that when summer came I would go back and file a claim.  I returned that summer and found that someone had found the same outcropping and they were now working their claim.

               After meeting up with Ron and him giving me a bad case of gold fever in Oregon, I returned to Fortune Creek with Jody, my niece, Teri and her husband, Tim.  We mucked around on the North Fork of Fortune Creek.  We camped in tents.   It was early spring making camping wet and cold.  We did find a little gold but not enough to brag about.  We tried to head up the old mining road to Van Epps Pass but didn’t get too far.  The spring runoff had made the old mining road impossible for us to go very far.  We stopped and explored an old mine and Jody went off to collect rocks.  When we returned to camp, she showed me a piece of quarts which was full of crystals.  This quarts was almost orange in color from rust.  I later showed that rock to Ron.  Ron took a sample and later told me that it assayed out at 3/4 oz to a ton.  But of course, Jody did not know where exactly she found the rock.

LIBERTY            

If you prospect in Washington sooner or later you will go to Liberty.  We took several trips there.  Just before you get into town there is a forest service road that takes off to the right.  Just before you cross the bridge there is a prefect place to camp. 

               The town of Liberty still exists today.  On our first trips there, there was still one store in operation.  The store sold groceries and mining equipment.  Here is where I learned a little history about the area.  The gold found there was deposited in the bedrock of an old ancient river bed.  The area had changed through thousands of years and the exact location of the ancient river bed required early miners to “SWAG” for it’s location.  (SWAG- Scientific Wild Ass Guess).  In some places the ancient river bed was so deep that shafts had to be sunk to reach the bedrock.  Water became an ever persistent problem for those miners.  The store owner sold samples of “Liberty Gold”.  He asked a premium price for the gold, much higher than spot value.  The gold was what’s known as wire gold.  It is found in all different shapes and sizes.  Most placer gold is flat and does not have distinct shapes.  The liberty store had photos of a collection of wire gold, in which gold shaped like letters of the alphabet had been photographed.  An early pioneer lady had collected this gold and she had every letter of the alphabet, crudely shaped by mother nature.

               Jody and I camped several times at the spot just outside of Liberty.  Our first time we explored around the area and we found a mine that goes under the road.  This mine was still in operation.  That’s where we met Charlie.  Now Charlie is very interesting to say the least.  He would come into our camp and talk for hours. 

               Charlie is operating a drift mine.  He is tunneling along the bedrock of an ancient stream.  For two bucks he would give you a tour of his mine.  You had to pay him in change because he won’t let his hands touch currency.  Has to do something about our currency not being legal tinder anymore.  Charlie was busy fighting the government and they were trying to move him off his claim.   Charlie was living on the claim and this had the forest service really upset. 

               Charlie told me that one winter it got so cold that he moved his bed into the mine.  The temperature is the same year round inside the mine.  Charlie showed me some samples of his gold.  He took us there and we found that he had electric lights in there.  He also had several candles placed in various locations along the way.   He said that the lights have gone out on him several times and it’s a son of a gun to get out when you can’t see anything.  Charlie had a pump system set up as he had to pump the water out of the mine before you could go in it.  Just inside the entrance he had a sluice system set up and he collected all his tailings in buckets and hand carried them out of the mine. 

               Charlie told me that he spent the entire winter digging for gold and he had collect quite a jar full.  Come spring, his old friend Toby came by to visit.  Charlie was most anxious to brag about his winter finds so he took a gold pan and set it on the tailgate of Toby’s pickup.  Charlie then dumped his jar of gold into the pan.  They examined the gold and separated the nicer wire gold from the more plane pieces.  Toby then produced a bottle to celebrate Charlie’s winter labors.  They began to talk about old times and who know what else.  After finishing off Toby’s bottle, Charlie produced his own bottle and they proceeded to polish that one off also.  It got pretty late and Toby decided he had better head for home. Toby jumped into the pickup and drove off.  Both Charlie and Toby had forgotten all about Charlie’s gold being on the tailgate.  Charlie found the gold pan about 1/4 mile from his mine, but he never found any of his gold.

               On one of our trips to Liberty, Jody’s parents Harry and Debbie came along.  Charlie offered to show us all inside his mine.  He had to hook up some pumps to pump out the water before we went inside.  Charlie had wires running into the mine and had hooked up a string of lights.  I don’t know exactly how far back his mine went, I’d guess around 300 feet.  We were close to the end and something caught Charlie’s eye.  He exclaimed “Oh! Oh!”  Assuming the worse Debbie and Jody exited the mine as if they had been shot out of a cannon.  Charlie picked up a tool that had fallen into the water and was getting rusty.

               My daughter, Kim came to visit one summer.  We had already planned a trip to go prospecting, but she came anyway.  So, I told her that she would just have to come with us.  I had a tent trailer now and it was just fine for her and the grandsons and Jody and I.  Oh yes, and the boys.  Now Kim lives in New Hampshire.  I don’t know if it’s because she’s an easterner or if it’s because she just hasn’t camped but she was very unhappy with the trip.  She thought camping consisted of putting a motor home in someone’s back yard and hooking up to their power supply.  “Camping“ in a tent trailer really isn‘t camping either.  I call that just being comfortable away from home. 

               Jody wanted to go up the mountain where there is an area just full of crystals.  We invited Kim to come and she flatly refused.  I guess by refusing she thought we wouldn’t go.  We loaded up the boys and Corbyn, my grandson and off we went.  We were not gone long, maybe two hours.  When we returned Kim was extremely upset that we had left.  That is after we got her to unlock the door on the trailer.  She had been terrified that some animal might come and get her or some crazed felon would come rape her.  At night she was afraid of every little noise.  That’s the shame of divorces.  I wish I had been able to raise her, maybe then she would be more comfortable with the outdoors.   I felt as though Kim was going to do everything possible to make sure she didn’t enjoy this outing and she made it impossible for us to enjoy it much.  There is quite an age difference between Jody and myself and this has been a thorn in Kim’s side.  This added to the problem. 

               I had my dredge set up in the creek and was having a great time.  Not getting much gold, but what the heck.  Kim complained that this was boring and pouted around camp.  She wouldn’t go off exploring, she just built a huge camp fire.  I don’t know why, it was warm out and we were not using it to cook anything.

               Charlie came to camp and talked for a little while.  He is either very perceptive or he had observed some of the tension in our camp.  As we sat around a campfire, Charlie picked up a stick and started drawing in the ground.  He drew a stick figure of two girls and put a roof above them.  I asked him what that was and he replied, “Two women under one roof the Chinese symbol for trouble and you have it here.” 

               Lowell came over and camped with us on one of our trips to Liberty.  (Lowell is a longtime buddy of mine.}  Lowell had never messed around looking for gold.  We went up a side road and saw some guys working their claim.  They had the claim posted and it said no dredging or sluicing.  So I got out and asked them if they cared if we did a little panning.  They told me to go ahead.  We went up creek a little ways and I saw what looked like a good spot.  I moved a huge rock and started dumping dirt into pans.  Our first two pans were just loaded with several nice pickers.  (A picker is a piece of gold that is too small to be called a nugget  but bigger than a flake.  You usually can pick up a picker with your fingers.)  The gold fever hit Lowell hard.  We dug up that area and couldn’t hardly find another piece.

               One thing about the Liberty area that always seems to be true.  With not much effort a person can find a little gold quite easily.  I never, however,  found any quantity there.

TEANAWAY:

               On one hunting trip, my father and I went to the Teanaway.  Dad brought a couple of his friends and we used all my camping equipment as they were pretty much a bunch of greenhorns.  I have an old ten man pyramid type tent.  It looks just like the one on Mash.  By myself, I can pitch the tent in 30 minutes.  With help I can get it up in about one hour.  After we got the tent up, it started to rain.  Not just a little rain either, but one of those that makes you think that Noah might float by.  That tent is the best thing that ever came my way for staying dry.  A little wood stove keeps it nice and toasty inside.  We set up a cooking area, a table, and still had room for all of us to sleep.

               I never prospected the Teanaway area, but I wanted to mention it because on that hunting trip, I thought I was really on to something big.  I was walking up a ravine and I noticed a quarts crystal.  I picked it up and it was about as long as my thumb nail.  I looked around and found another.  Then I started following a trail of crystals.  One here and one there.  As I walked up the ravine, the trail of crystals quit.  I back tracked and then I noticed crystals on the bank.  I started climbing up the bank following crystals.  I came to a big rock.  It was a little over knee high.  I saw a hole in it and peered inside.  Wow, this was the biggest geode I had ever seen.  I tried to move it.  I thought that if I could roll it down hill, I might be able to roll it to somewhere that my truck could get to.  I couldn’t budge it.  I often thought I’d go back some day and try to find it again and this time take some cables and a wench.   Continued next month

"What's this knob for?"

Beginning next month the chapter minutes will be posted on the Chapter Business page of our web page along with a  financial report.

Where is the treasure of the Lost Blue Bucket Mine?

On Aug. 25, 1845, a large party of settlers crossing the plains on their way to the Oregon country left the established trail and traveled along the previously untracked Malheur River in eastern Oregon. In the weeks that followed, the group happened upon a spring in which shiny yellow pebbles were found. Some of these pebbles were tossed into a blue bucket carried by one of the immigrants but were later lost.

Three years later when gold was discovered in California, this incident was recalled by some of the party members and thus began the search for the mythical Blue Bucket Mine. Gold was discovered, but in other locations. To this day the location of the Blue Bucket Mine remains unknown.

The search for the Blue Bucket Mine has been going on since.The mine is believed to be on a tributary of the John Day River in Oregon, but it hasn't been yet found.

Note from editor:

My great great grandfather was a child on that wagon train, and spent his adult life looking for the gold.

              Tip Corner

Panning tip:

Adding a few drops of dish soap or Jet Dry for the dishwasher will settle the mud and sediment faster. It also makes the water wetter to keep flour gold from floating.

If you have tips, news or pictures for newsletter, please let me know