Remote Prospecting?

[Jim_Alaska]

Yes Chuck, in times like these most focus on the problems, rather than the solutions. Gold, directly from the earth offers hope, self reliance and the only real wealth to be had.

Lest any think immediately of wealth as in extravagance; I would preface my comment with the idea that the wealth I speak of is on a scale that leads to hope and self reliance.

[Geowizard]

Jim,

Understood.

There's more to come!

- Geowizard

[Geowizard]

Sweet and sour;


Stick around and find out WHY!

- Geowizard

[Geowizard]

Connecting the dots;


Stick around! There's more!

- Geowizard

[Geowizard]

Don't go away! There's more!

- Geowizard

[Geowizard]

Leonards Video;



Stick around! There's More!

- Geowizard

[Jim_Alaska]

Chuck, I wrote my reply below as you were writing yours about Manley

Wow, looking at that map, done that way, is a real eye opener. My eye automatically went directly to the Munson Creek/Salcha area. Probably because that is the area I am most familiar with and have the most experience with.

It is quite mind boggling to think of all the ground I walked over that had such potential. It also makes me think of all the mining that has gone on over the years in the headwaters of the Chena Valley. In getting to the headwaters, they went right past all those anomalies.

Some of the mining that went on over in the Salcha is interesting. I flew in to one mine in the spring of the year to recover a leased dozer; we landed on the river ice and walked up to the mine, which was a bench operation.

What made this one so interesting to me was, that although the actual workings seemed to be quite small; consisting mostly of drifts driven into the hillside of a gulch. Hand drifted of course, but they evidently did well enough to intend to stay permanently. I say this because they built a well constructed, decent size house, as well as shop and garden area.

I would have liked to stay and look around longer, but we were only there for the day. We flew in to repair a broken main spring on the dozer that would be walked out before the ice on the river broke up.

Fortunately for our purpose, they had left everything in place when they walked away from the mine. They left generators and welders, along with all the associated grinders and tools. So, all we had to do was to get ourselves in there and repair the main spring.

The spring had broken right where the main pin went through the center of the spring, so it was a quite tricky job to take the weight of the dozer off of that spring and prepare and weld the spring. Got it done that day and walked it out a few days later, all the way down the Salcha to the highway, mostly on the river ice. Only broke through the ice once

[Geowizard]

Wow Jim!

Thanks for sharing that!

- Geowizard

[Jim_Alaska]

Alas, if I had some way of drawing on my computer, I could draw a simple picture of the fix on that dozer spring, I think it would be of interest, if anyone ever had to do that. I used to use Photoshop, but it won't work with win 10. As anyone who has had experience with heavy equipment knows, those springs are very thick, they have to hold a lot of weight. Being so thick, you can't just do a surface weld, it won't hold at all. Also, being as it broke at the center point where the pin that holds it to the frame goes though, makes for a weak point that has to be done right, or it's all for nothing. Needless to say, it takes a lot of grinding initially and a lot of rod with lots of grinding in between each rod; you can't have any welding slag pockets left.

Fortunately, the original miners had bought good German rod, that was a big help. They had also left two large hydraulic jacks, without them it would have been real tricky getting the weight off and back on the spring.

[Jim_Alaska]

Yes Chuck, those were what is called, "the good old days". They are ancient history now and all I have left of them is that they may be of help to today's new miners. No way I could do even a small part of what I was capable of back then. In today's world I find myself in the place of the "old timers", except their time in history was a lot older than mine. I guess I'm a modern day old timer.

Pushing 80 real hard, can't walk without a cane and even then only on flat surfaces. Can't negotiate uneven or rocky ground. No stamina either, I wear out real easy. I have peripheral neuropathy, with no feeling from my knees to my toes; it makes me incredibly unsteady.

So, my knowledge and experience has to be centered around imparting it to others that can benefit from it. That is not a bad thing at this stage either. It allows me to live a miner's life vicariously and still be involved in mining to some extent.