I just found this and hope it is of interest to others. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/...?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl12|sec1_lnk3|104960
Yeah, since gold has gone up, several old mines are being reopened. Most out west. Several are finishing up the permitting process. They are very closely regulated by the EPA and state agencies.
This is actually pretty old news. Nonetheless, this location is actually in the Charlotte metro area where the nation's first gold rush began in the very early 1800s. There was a discovery of a 17 lb gold nugget that a farmer near Charlotte was using as a door stop. This led to gold mines all over the city and ironically Bank of America and the former First Union/Wachovia bank HQ skyscrapers are built on top of these abandoned gold mines. (they are sealed up) There are old gold mines all over the area. This was why the US government opened a Mint in Charlotte which minted gold coins until the Civil War. It was too expensive and dangerous to move all the gold being mined in Charlotte to the main mint in Philadelphia hence the decision to open one in Charlotte. After the Civil War was over, the Charlotte Mint did not resume operations and was turned into a museum. Reids Gold Mine, where the original 17 lb nugget was found over 200 years ago, is open to the public for tours.
I went to Philmont Scout Ranch (Cimarron, NM) in 1974. We flew into Denver and made a two day bus trip to Philmont, making tourist stops along the way. We saw the Garden of the Gods, Royal Gorge, Pike's Peak...but we also panned for gold! I still have the tiny gold nuggets I found. I didn't find a lot, but they're probably worth about $30 today. Not bad for a couple hours work!
I went to Philmont back in 1997 we drove on a charter bus from Grand Island Nebraska to cimarron new mexico overnight basically...left at 5pm went through Denver which was the 1st time I saw Denver by the way it's a pretty metro at night and got in to cimarron about 7am or so and ate breakfast at a fairly famous restaurant that is famous for it's breakfast (I forget the name now)... anyways on about day 4 of our trek on number 15 we were helping with clearing a mountain trail and also building up the mountain trail edges to stop erosion (big project everyone on that trek had to help for 4 hours) we were digging up rocks and moving them and I found a glittery looking rock and thought I'd ask if I could have for a souvenir and the trail master of that area said sure...well long story short it has gold flecks in it the whole rock weights 18 grams and most likely the gold total is like 1-2grams if that much and it's only 19k but still I was thrilled to find out and glad I got such a keepsake of my trek there 168kilometers in 10 days at an average elevation of 6700 feet
Philmont was a great experience! I still keep in touch with some of the guys from the trip. Our trip was from July 27th to August 10th. There was an old copper mine on the shoulder of Mt. Baldy, but we weren't allowed to explore. Did you go to the top of Mt. Baldy (12K feet)? ...spectacular views!! We camped out on the top of Mt. Philips (10K feet) on the 2nd of August. When we woke up, we were covered in two (2) feet of snow...unbelieveable! Once we got below the tree line the temperature was back up in the 70s. The most amazing thing about the trip was that we were probably the last group of people in the civilized world to know that Gerald Ford was the new President! ...quite a trip.
here's a rough itinerary of trek 15 http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/philmont-trek15.html we went up on baldy and that day the mine was closed off but we did have a clear day to the east and could make out the boyscout lighthouse in oklahoma...that day was a HARD day the mountain just didn't end!! I was in lead for that hike up and and one of the other kids was trying to be a bully here and there during the trek and kept running past me saying I was going slow but then one of the times he ran past me he tripped over himself and fell face 1st into a bit of mud....it was hard to hold it in but I was thinking that's what you get! YEA! and his friends started telling him to chill out that I was going a good speed and not too fast to completely wind them...I do remember all the adults stayed in the back the whole time and were 1st to call out breaks....lol....man I wish I had the energy I had back then...I'm 31 now and have fibromyalgia but I would love to be able to go back one more time...I'd just take a BIG bottle of Motrin with me...
Before you invest, read up on Bre-x. Some mining companies up here in Canada seem to be pretty desperate for cash. They buy airtime on Canadian TV promoting their promising mines and looking for investors [suckers]. Their low budget sales pitches are similar to the rare clad coin commercials.
I've done a lot of panning and dredging for gold around the Carolinas. I have NEVER gone home empty handed. I am not rich and it's hard work, but I will never forget the day I found my first nugget. The last picture is of me holding a chunk of ice from the frozen over river. It was down to 15 degrees the night before. You can see my pry bar laying on the ice in front of me. The things you will do when Gold Fever hits, LOL.
Back in the '60s, maybe until 1971 or so, I was subscribing to Boy's Life, which was actually a publication of the Boy Scouts. Unfortunately, there was no Boy Scout troop in my home town at the time (just Cub Scouts), so all I could do was dream about joining "Pedro the Burro" and the scouts at Philmont. At least Boy's Life had some neat coin (and stamp) ads in the back (which was the place I always looked first when I got my magazine). I think there was even a Flintstones episode about Fred and Barney camping out at Philmont, or whatever the Stone Age name was
I went to Philmont in 1993 and went to a bunch of the same places as both of you. We also flew into Denver and drove to hit a bunch of locations along the way
Nice photo's pacecar, but what are you doing in the 4th pic? Looks like your sucking up sediment with your gas powered pump, that goes to some sort of sluice box.
Rush, that is called a "dredge". It is basically an underwater vacuum. It sucks up the dirt and rocks and runs it over a sluice box separating and catching the gold and depositing the dirt and rocks back in the creek/river. It is a great way to move a lot of material in a short amount of time.
