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Date Posted: 21:57:15 03/13/02 Wed
Author: Majuba Tom
Subject: First Gold of the year

Hello Hello Glad to see Ralphs forum is back.
Thought I would share an e-mail my friend TinCan wrote about our trip Saturday. I figured this is better than my other stories of this years adventures. Which include flat tires break downs and walking out of the mountains and hitting a horse at 50 mile an hour :-(.

So heres the good story.
Ha-ha! Success!
My first gold of 2002 came out of the ground on Saturday, March 9th.
Myself, Buddy Tom, and Juan all headed out to the desert areas around
Hawthorne NV to the place where I had such good luck last year. Expectations
were high high as we made the 2 hour drive just ahead of a storm front that
was forcast to be moving into our area by the end of the day. Our first fear
of the site being buried under snow was put to rest early as the two snow
storms which hit Carson City during the week did not seem to have had much
effect that far south. The morning was only partially cloudy and slightly
breezy. By the time we had arrived at the "Camino de Oro", things were cold
but comfortable enough to get after some nuggets!
The three of us unloaded our gear and went to work searching the road. It
had been built by bulldozing through an old mine tailing pile which had
yeilded 22 oz of gold, including a two ouncer, to lucky nugget hunters a few
years back. Last year, I had found three nuggets in that road along with
another found by Tom in just a short while after we had unsuccessfully tried
to hunt the picked over pile itself. We were anxious to get back and hunt it
again! We all fanned out , Tom at the top, me in the middle and Juan down the
hill. After about twenty minutes of digging blasting caps and nails, Tom
found the first nugget. It was a nice one, nearly totally gold, with very
little mother rock. Amazingly, Tom pulled two more nuggets from the same hole
with more targets still in the ground! Showing more kindness than is rarely
found these days, Tom called Juan up the hill to have a crack at digging up a
nugget. Juan has hunted for gold with us for a long time but had never found
a nugget with a detector before. With Tom's help, he pulled out his first one
which placed a big grin on his face! Tom then called me up to have a crack at
it and I was imediately rewarded with a nice 4.5 grain nugget. This was the
first time that all three of us had found a nugget on the same trip!
The rest of the day was spent working here and there for another hotspot
but nothing could compare with the small area which Tom had located as he
continuously managed to pull out more gold from an area about four feet
square. In all, he topped us all by finding eight nice little gold nuggets !
I managed to find three plus three "mystery nuggets" Alas, Juan's luck did
not hold as he did not find another piece that day but he was happy none the
less for finally getting that first nugget monkey off of his back.After about
five hours of hunting, and facing the long drive home, we packed up after one
of the best gold hunting days we had ever had .
Once I was home, cleaned up, and my gear stowed, I proceded to work on
cleaning up my finds of the day. Hardrock gold tends to have various kinds of
oxides and the like including mother rock which must be cleaned off to reveal
the beautiful gold with in. I proceded to soak my three nuggets, along with
the three "mystery" nuggets in Lysol Toilet bowl cleaner ( which is nearly
10% hydrochloric acid) to remove the encrustations. The gold cleaned up well
and after weighing, I learned I had a 4.5 grainer, a 2.5 grainer, and a 1.5
grainer to show for my trip. The mystery nuggets cleaned up as well. I had
two nuggets of native lead ( which were far larger than my gold I am sad to
say) and one which may prove to be my best find of the day. Weighing in at
twelve grains, I have what appears to be a nugget of copper and gold. It is
hard to say at this point but I am still soaking it and will take it to work
on Monday for a looksie with a microscope to figure out for sure what I've
got. If it is only copper, then I am happy with the three gold nuggets I
brought home. If it does indeed have some gold in it, then I am a happy
camper with another oddball find to add to my small gold collection. I have
not yet seen my partner's gold all weighed out and cleaned up so I cannot say
what the total take was for the day but I can say that we will be back again
to hunt that "Road of Gold". Happy Hunting!
Your Buddy in the Desert,
-Pat

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