Start of day: 39843
End of day: 39909
Day Total: 66 miles
Total Trip: 1615 miles
States: (11) Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama
Gas Prices:
Okay, when I got to the Omni Hotel in Atlanta, I was upset that I couldn't park my own Jeep. They only have valet parking.
So in my haste to collect all my stuff and turn over my vehicle, I left the log book that I use to track mileage in my Jeep.
However, I did grab the camera so I'm able to update pictures. Of course I'll update the mileage stats later.
After Noah left, I proceeded back down the little road to the now
not-so-little creek where I planned to mine for more gold.
This is my highbank operation. They call it a highbank because the
machine sits higher on the bank of the creek. The gas motor to the left
pumps filtered water to the machine.
This is the dirt, rock, and gravel pile I got my shovels full. It was
deposited there by a backhoe from near the creek side. I suppose
they have to make it easier for the amateurs to get the goods.
This is the highbank machine I used. It's a Proline! According to Miner
Mike, it's the best style on the market. It had a list price of $1,495 in
the store, but was marked down to $995. The gray hose feeds the water
into the blue sprayers on the top. A grill stops the big chunks. Then a
sloped ramp over which the water flows catches the finer sand, black
sand, and gold.
This is what a shovel full of dirt, gravel and sand looks like. There
was a lot of clay in it to. It reminded me of a concrete mixture. The
surrounding rocks are what has been washed out of the highbank already.
Placing the tip of the shovel near the front allowing the dirt mixture to
wash off the shovel. You can see the muddy water flowing down the ramp
in the top of the picture. The trick is to try and keep an even flow of water.
An uneven flow causes a faster rush of water taking too much sediment
with it.
After the dirt has washed away, the rocks and smaller stones are left.
For each shovel full, I had to remove the dirt from the larger rocks
and sweep out the smaller rocks out the back. I'm guessing the water
temp was about 40-45 degrees. The outside temp was in the mid 50's.
About a half hour after I started, a big tree fell into the water with a
loud bang sounding like a shotgun blast. Scared the crap out of me
as I thought I was alone. The rain of the last two days has caused
the creek to fill up and flow at a faster rate. The water has eroded the
bank away at the roots of the tree. I quickly accessed the stability of
the trees surrounding me and felt confident they would remain upright.
After about three hours, my back, legs, and arms were so tired I
couldn't shovel any more. Miner Mike, the resident expert shutdown
the pump and begins the breakdown of my highbank to gather all the
useful sediment.
Carefully he removes the catch mat that has a texture that resembles
a Brillo pad making sure all the sediment falls into the black plastic pan.
Then the highbank is re-assembled.
Miner Mike quickly does a test run, panning to see how much, or if
there's any gold.
There is a little. I knew there wasn't going to be alot, but I thought
there was going to be more than this. Now I take all the sediment back
to the base camp and use the panning trough to separate out all my
gold.
They didn't tell me that I should pan all my sediment into another pan
and then repan it at least twice more. So being an amateur, I'm sure
the sediment with the richest content of gold is sitting in the bottom of
the panning trough I used.
So after panning for a few hours and after highbanking for three hours
the fruits of my labor (at least that of which my panning skills were
sufficient to find) lies at the bottom of a 1 oz vial. I'll just keep telling
myself it was fun and educational...