July 17, 2015- Forget plan B
The guys are back.
Quick and simple answer to everyone’s question… No gold.
It was somewhat of a productive “vacation” though. Here’s the rundown: Remember I reported there
were major forest fires going on when they left? Well, they were still going on when they
arrived. The smoke was so thick they
could only make one of the stops they had scheduled due to the thick
smoke. When they landed in Takotna,
Wednesday July 2, they could only see about 200 feet. The fires were about 4 miles from
Takotna. On Thursday, about 40 forest
rangers were camping on the school grounds.
They were supposed to get air dropped in the mountains but it started to rain so the rangers cleaned the brush around Takotna to help protect the city. The fire fighters were actually still there for Takotna’s 4th of July celebration. George got a picture of them camping in their tents.
George and Dave were grounded and couldn’t get to their site 60 miles out in the wilderness because of the fire dangers and smoke. Since the rivers were down, the town hadn’t gotten their fuel supply for the summer so that contributed to keeping the guys grounded. Oh yeah, I remember telling you they had a plan B. Lesson here is to always pursue your dream, PLAN A, and don’t get side tracked on plan B, C etc. It takes your focus off your big dream and adventure. Always move in the direction of your dream and keep that momentum going. I always thought it was great to have a plan B but this is a great example to learn by. My mission is to tell the adventure while inspiring everyone to chase after their own passion and make your journey easier by pointing out some pitfalls. Some of my advice from the sideline to prevent some expensive lessons is: plan, research, plan, coordinate, research, research, research and communicate! Since I have graciously agreed to have multiple staycations while the guys chase their dream, it is a little frustrating when I'm told, “things just happen.” I could vent and write more but we’ll move on. I was informed these are “business trips.” I’ll let you be the judge after viewing the pics.
Our gold miners had plan B which was to go into the mountains of Takotna and do some metal detecting and mining on a local claim they had lined up prior to arrival
They had a nice hike in the mountains
including some site seeing. Strictly
business, of course.
They did a few test pans at the claim but there was absolutely nothing.
When you are dealing with gold there are laws written and unwritten. You never mine on someone else’s claim without permission so since this claim was a bust they had to abandon their plan B. Since the owner wasn’t available the guys went back to Takotna. No doubt there’s gold in them thar mountains; just none at that particular site. Even in the lower states a trespasser can get shot if they cross this line. Serious miners call it, “claim jumping.” George and Dave have to always worry about bears and they don’t need to be worrying about getting shot too. They just need to get to their own site but it just wasn’t meant to be this year. They did get their grizzly welded together and on their last day and they were able to finally get up in the air and fly over their site.
They mapped out their path they will take this next winter to get their bull dozer and excavator to their own gold claim on the Fourth of July Creek.
They were also able to talk to a geologist about their claim and obtained some interesting information. He explained there was an anomaly on their site. Here is how they explain it. The DNR flew over the whole gold belt area in 2010 with a giant metal detector and published their finding in 2013. They found they had an anomaly on their site. This doesn’t show exactly where the gold is but highly magnetic is associated with gold. I don’t understand it all, but I was able to contact a geologist in Fairbanks and they did a conference call with George and I and we talked with one of their geophysicist. I got a link to some maps and great info for the guys to decipher. http://avcams.faa.gov.
They were supposed to get air dropped in the mountains but it started to rain so the rangers cleaned the brush around Takotna to help protect the city. The fire fighters were actually still there for Takotna’s 4th of July celebration. George got a picture of them camping in their tents.
George and Dave were grounded and couldn’t get to their site 60 miles out in the wilderness because of the fire dangers and smoke. Since the rivers were down, the town hadn’t gotten their fuel supply for the summer so that contributed to keeping the guys grounded. Oh yeah, I remember telling you they had a plan B. Lesson here is to always pursue your dream, PLAN A, and don’t get side tracked on plan B, C etc. It takes your focus off your big dream and adventure. Always move in the direction of your dream and keep that momentum going. I always thought it was great to have a plan B but this is a great example to learn by. My mission is to tell the adventure while inspiring everyone to chase after their own passion and make your journey easier by pointing out some pitfalls. Some of my advice from the sideline to prevent some expensive lessons is: plan, research, plan, coordinate, research, research, research and communicate! Since I have graciously agreed to have multiple staycations while the guys chase their dream, it is a little frustrating when I'm told, “things just happen.” I could vent and write more but we’ll move on. I was informed these are “business trips.” I’ll let you be the judge after viewing the pics.
Our gold miners had plan B which was to go into the mountains of Takotna and do some metal detecting and mining on a local claim they had lined up prior to arrival
They did a few test pans at the claim but there was absolutely nothing.
When you are dealing with gold there are laws written and unwritten. You never mine on someone else’s claim without permission so since this claim was a bust they had to abandon their plan B. Since the owner wasn’t available the guys went back to Takotna. No doubt there’s gold in them thar mountains; just none at that particular site. Even in the lower states a trespasser can get shot if they cross this line. Serious miners call it, “claim jumping.” George and Dave have to always worry about bears and they don’t need to be worrying about getting shot too. They just need to get to their own site but it just wasn’t meant to be this year. They did get their grizzly welded together and on their last day and they were able to finally get up in the air and fly over their site.
They mapped out their path they will take this next winter to get their bull dozer and excavator to their own gold claim on the Fourth of July Creek.
They were also able to talk to a geologist about their claim and obtained some interesting information. He explained there was an anomaly on their site. Here is how they explain it. The DNR flew over the whole gold belt area in 2010 with a giant metal detector and published their finding in 2013. They found they had an anomaly on their site. This doesn’t show exactly where the gold is but highly magnetic is associated with gold. I don’t understand it all, but I was able to contact a geologist in Fairbanks and they did a conference call with George and I and we talked with one of their geophysicist. I got a link to some maps and great info for the guys to decipher. http://avcams.faa.gov.
