Day 2 in my quest to find a particular Placer Claim begain bright, sunny, and already hot. I couldn't get the four horizontal shafts I had found yesterday out of my head. I WANTED that to be my mine so bad. Even after checking and recalculating on the map and it saying I was 1,000 meters to far Northwest I had doubts, or refused to accept it because of thos dang shafts. LOL So I loaded up the stuff, a bit more prepared and set out for my claim.
These are the two hills on my claim. Actually that is the only part that matches the map.
So, I decided to look around and walk it all over again. I began on the Eastern side using the Jeep on a dirt two-track ATV trail. I was looking at a shaft up the hill and while not concentrating I moved left on the trail to avoid a cactus when I felt the Jeep tilt severely to the left and the right rear wheel begin to spin. I stopped as in stuck not by choice, I left out the left door and saw a large 10 foot wide by I dont know how deep verticle shaft that I had not seen. The left front wheel had broken off a piece of the road causing it to fall into the hole which caused the Jeep to tilt and rock precariously. I couldn't open the door because when I tried the Jeep leaned more into the hole and I couldn't get out the other side for the cactus that was right at that door. I couldnt go out the left door anyway because it was right over the hole. My heart was beating quite fast and my brain was going even faster.
I needed more weight on the right rear wheel to get traction which worked out well because I needed more weight on that side to keep the jeep balanced from flippig over into the depths of that hole.
So, very carefully I moved as far back between the seats as I could and still reach the clutch. I basically put the Jeep in low gear, revved up the engine and popped the clutch at the same time leaning back to the right as far as I could. Good thing I had some weight to use because it popped out of the hole and bounced down the trail (well sorta) while I held the steering wheel and let it die.
At that point I decided to move to a better road for a bit, park, and walk.
You have to look closely to see the Jeep. This is the view from the top of the hill.
I used the bonoculars to check out the area and walked around.
That cactus I asked you to remember is right at my back here, the two important features in this picture are the black stick right in front and the pile of rocks behind it.
The black stake is a boundary marker for a claim. This is the kind of stakes i have been searching for. I have found several but like this one not in the right place. All of the stakes on my claim are in the low areas and the entire 500 foot hill is within them. This stake is at the top of a 280 foot hill.
The pile of rocks is called a Cairn. This is how they marked boundarys in the "old days". Now they attach a metal plate inscibed with the location and name of the claim to the wooden stake. In the cairn they placed identifying documents in a container (usually metal) and would bury it within the pile. You cant see it in the pic. but when I looked inside that crack I saw the edge of something metal.
After looking closer I found this old tin with paper inside.
Not wanting to ruin or break the paper I carefully looked around the edges.
It is a legal location notice for a Lode Claim that was recorded July 1934.
Thats a pretty cool find and totally made my day. I even forgot about the four shafts, oh wait that would be the four horizontal shafts and the one verticle shaft that I found on the otherside of the hill today.
I walked and hiked around the rest of the day curious still but just exploring.
I hadnt realized it but the compass on my phone actually displays the grid coodinates at the bottom of the screen. So using this i finally convinced myself i needed to take another look at the map and reconfigure my search for tomorrow.
Til Then ,,,,,,,
1 comment:
Man I wish I was there trampin around the desert with you. Glad to see your having fun in the sun :)
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