Day 3 (still looking) 4 (found it) and 5 played prospector 8)

Wednesday was another sunnty,and already hot at 7, type of day. Last night I had worked on the map, coordinate thing again and even used Google Earth to plot it so I felt much better. Armed with a real GPS this time I headed out. Imagine my surprise when I found the NW stake about 1/4 mile from the hill I wanted it to be so bad. The road in was torture on the poor Jeep so I decided to go out another way on a much better looking road. I was really tired today and did not feel like hiking all over so I sat in the Jeep and used the binoculars figuring I'd come back tomorrow. That other road out turned out to be better but ,,,,,,,, there was a place where it was about 200 feet down at about a 45 degree slope then right back up at the same slope for about the same distance. The bottom was so narrow that the front wheels were going up before the rear wheels hit bottom so no chance to get any momentum. About halfway up the Jeep died, it took some finigaling to get it started and moving again being on that slope. I had to milk the clutch so much that it was smoking when I reached the top. I decided I was not going back to the claim again and would just sell it.

So I retreated to my now favorite wi-fi location where they not only knew I drank Pepsi's they gave me free refills. Even knew the burger I liked. LOL

I did some more research but now for curiosity since I was not liking the mine anymore. I found that Google Earth was programmed for NAD 83 not NAD 27 as the GPS was. The result was that plotting on Google Earth was off by up to a full click. So back to the drawing board.

So with new coordinates (again) I headed out and found the NW stake within 10 feet of where I plotted it. In this pic it is the hill on the left.

The 500 foot hill was there and if you look at this picture taken from the top of it the Jeep is on the road and the slope on the right (above the cactus) is actually the slope to the mountain I wished it had been. So, as many times I was off I was quite close and not having any reference points thats pretty good. If you use the cactus I mentioned a sentence ago and go down the hill to the left youll see another single cactus. About 50 feet left of that would be NW boundary stake.

I walked from there 1/2 mile east to find the NE stake (which was the corner stake I had found yesterday thinking it was the NW stake of my claim) then 1/2 mile south for the SE stake then decided to cut back over the top of the hill. I felt pretty certain I had actually got it right.

I got home (RV) and had an e-mail from the guy I bought the claim from. (I had sent him one a couple days ago asking for the actual coordinates) The e-mail contained the proper coodinates and some reference points. I was quite happy to see that my NW coordinates were right on and the others within a few feet. So with renewed confidence Jimmy and I headed out to play prospector.

But before we could play we had to work and repaint the corner stakes and flag them. Jimmy was in charge of flagging and as you can see got into it a bit. I chose to paint the stake black as required but added 4" of yellow at the toop to differentiate it from others.

After our 2 mile rough country hike we decided to play prospector for awhile. I used the metal detector and Jimmy would dig where we got sign. It was a fun morning hanging out with Jimmy. All we found were rocks but he had been (by choice) cooped up all week so we had fun being out in the mountains. At one point I was looking up at the mountain when I noticed a stake up there. The map said there should have been one but I hadnt seen it yesterday and didnt worry about it as it was a locator stake not a boundary one. I got the binoculars and checked it out. Looked like there was a document "can" attached to it so back up the mountain I went. Jimmy decided to stay in the shade of the Jeep and i was able to pull it closer and up on an adjacent hill so the walk was down then up but a lot closer.

Turns out it was just a stake. 8)

Look closely and you can see the Jeep about 1/2 inch to the left of the rock near the bottom.

Well, we found, we came, we played, and in a couple days we leave. But next winter I hope to come back for more adventures on Mothers Gold the Placer Mine.