New prospect

[chickenminer]

I'll be prospecting a new little pup this summer so I had to move equipment and fuel this Spring. Just finished up so I'm getting itchy feet to start digging, especially with this high gold price.
Some photos from the last few days....
Moving the small trommel test plant.


Hauling a pump.


Moving excavators...


I had hauled fuel up in March with the snowgo ...


This bench I'm going to test had extensive hand mining back in about 1905. Never any equipment on it.
Going to be like Christmas

[Slatco]

Wow, thanks for sharing Dick and quite timely. My new area I am looking at has winter road access only and I have been musing on the absolute necessity of having a dozer or if I could could use a plow tractor with chains or even go over top with a low impact vehicle like a nodwell. The length (90 miles) makes it hard on undercarriages.

Thanks again, these real life posts get me excited to start! I will be going in to my usual claim May 9th!

[PickaxeCA]

Wow, the real deal. I'll be following along. Good luck this season!

[chickenminer]

Always neat prospecting in a new area, especially one that had old workings!

This is a drone view from last summer showing the bench area the oldtimers worked.


Couple photos of on the ground view showing the old workings.

[Slatco]

Wow looks awesome!

[Joe S (AK)]

It sure is nice to see (and learn) from you "Big Boy Pants" guys about this.

At my operation I have to haul my "stuff" sometimes as much as 20 yards from the Polaris six wheeler to "The Spot". All those round trips to hand carry the highbanker, Honda 2" pump, 2.5 gal portable fuel container, True Temper #2 Hand Held Sweat Maker as well as all the rest of the stuff really could use some professional upgrade suggestions. I'm watching all this equipment of yours and it really makes me appreciate a truly professional operation like yours.

*****
Say Dick, in your first photo (the one with the highly polished Cat blade) what's with that purple flag in the back? Something special that you big guys learned about?

Joe

[chickenminer]

*****
Say Dick, in your first photo (the one with the highly polished Cat blade) what's with that purple flag in the back? Something special that you big guys learned about?

Joe

Joe.... man that's the secret hand shake flag !!

Alaska State Flag

[gabbie]

Thank you for the photos I'm itching to get to our claims 100 miles north of fairbanks looks like you don't have much snow hope the ground isn't frozen real deep for you thanks Doug

[gabbie]

any update on how your new cut is going
thanks doug

[chickenminer]

Doug ... as you know can't really do too much this early. Lots of water running in the creek now though.
I have been stripping off what is thawed so far and I did get to dig into the side of the old timers cut where they quit. Interesting deposit on this bench! Appears to not be an alluvial bench deposit that I thought it would be. Instead it looks like an eluvial or colluvial deposit.
Stripping so far ..


This is the pay layer I am seeing so far. Looks like a highly fractured and decomposed basalt with random pebbles of quartz or a granodiorite...


Close up of the pay layer ...


This is a pan from this pay layer. Looks like some decent pay!