January 26 2011
Desert Hues Mine.." On Location"
After a little over an hour driving off the grid on packed dirt roads, sandy washes the truck decorated with more "desert pinstriping" ...
.... We arrive at the base of a small mountain
where The Desert Hues Mine awaits...
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| If you look closely you can see little people hiking towards the top. |
Than the hike. Up, up, up to the top
where the the quartz veins are
nestled between solid granite rock ...
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| Did I really say this was "Fun" ? |
Before anything else you have to just pause...
and take in the view...
The quartz vein is fairly easy to spot but not so well in a photo so I darkened the image where the vein is to make it easier to locate...
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The vertical line of lighter colored rocks
within the dark area is the quartz vein.
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The higher percentage of gold deposits within the
quartz vein are not found at the surface tho....
Solid granite must be removed on one side of the
quartz vein to expose it so it can be removed...
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| It is a heck of a lot of work to make the quartz vein accessible to remove the ore... |
And we do it with a hammer and steel mallet, chisel
and pick ax just like they did over 100 years ago!...
It's NO PICNIC!..
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It takes several hours of removing the granite to get one or two 5 gallon buckets of ore out. And there isn't necessarily many "nice specimens" every time either. To actually collect gold out of it we have to crush it down to the size of sand and then pan it.
So unless there is a real nice chunk of solid gold in there this is not a good thing to "invest" in. Yes it's a gamble. But we already knew that going into it.
Yes enjoyment as crazy as it sounds.
While Robert "nibbles" into the granite I
have my own "project" going,
Path Building! ...
I have put about 3-4 hours into it so far and gained about 40 feet of pathway 1-2 feet in width. I am making switchbacks so we can walk easier up the side of the mountain.
It is a very steep slope and it is covered with loose rocks. Your feet slip out from under you if you don't take each step very carefully. It takes some time getting up to the mine because of this. (Probably why no one else had never discovered this location in the first place.)
I may never get the path finished but it's another challenge to add to the adventure.And I make more progress that chipping at granite!
We have also been spending a lot of time educating ourselves about gems and minerals and prospecting. Slow but sure we are learning how to identify rocks and how they were formed.
