Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on April 12, 2025, 02:46:48 PMIngenious approach, Lori! My father was an obsessed prospector. He plotted the shoreline of Lake Missoula (an ice age lake that flooded the entire northwest when the ice dam broke) and pulled samples from likely looking places along the calculated shoreline. Sometimes, he found gold. As for me, I love to see a flash in the pan but not enough to hoard prescription bottles.
Starting around 2010, I would spend all winter researching old gold claims, mining and geology maps, and old mining journals. I would plot 100-125 locations on the map throughout the Black Hills. Then when summer came, I would drive to each location and do a test sample. Then on to the next.
As my knowledge of the area grew, I was able to narrow down my search to a smaller area. That left more time for panning and camping versus driving all over. I moved here in 2015 and had narrowed my search to a single creek. Then I did the same thing, walking the shoreline and looking things over. I had the most success at 5 -15' off the shore toward the middle of the creek, so that was the line I followed downstream.
One day, my buddy and I had packed up and we went back to my truck with gear in tow in a metal garden cart. There was an old prospector in the parking lot and we had a chance to talk. He co-owns a 60-acre hard rock claim up near Mystic, SD.
He told me that back in the 50s he was a fur trapper in that area. He knows every inch of that creek very well. In 1972, we had a raging flood that destroyed Rapid City. In 1973, we had a drought. He said the creek water was so low, it was barely a trickle. He saw gold in the cracks in the bedrock but had no tools with him to go after it.
He showed me exactly where it was, but over the years mud and sand have buried it. He said that to his knowledge no one has ever dug in that spot. Because of the way the water flows in that part of the stream, I wasn't able to get to it. The water was too deep. So I sampled upstream to locate the source. I never found the source, but I found plenty of deep pockets to keep me busy each year.
One year, we had another bad drought. The water was low enough that I could dig where he showed me. I dug a hole up to my hips and I still had not hit bedrock. It was deeper than what either of us estimated. Someday maybe I'll hire a team of young studs to go out there and dig up the whole bottom.
Right. Wishful thinking.
