Book Signings. . .
Friday January 6th, 2012 from 6:00-8:00pm
Eborn Books (3601 S. 2700 W. (Constitution Blvd)) at the Valley Fair Mall on Friday January 6th, 2012 from 6:00-8:00pm. I will have some Utah gold on display, and will also bring some pans, sniffer bottles and vials. Come out and say Hello!
Friday January 20th, 2012 from 7:00-8:00pm
STG Prospecting in St. George, UT on Friday evening, and probably again Saturday morning. They are located at 126 E.City Center in St George. Bring a book for me to sign or just come to say hello.
Now Available: Custom Artwork
The Gold Panner. . .
A signed portriat of Alan Chenworth,
author of A Guide to Gold Panning in Utah
11X14 Original Water Color (Matted and Framed)
$450/obo
11X14 Prints Available (Matted)
50$
Please contact us for more information.
The Prospectors Page. . .
Articles on Prospecting, Rock Hounding and more.
We are currently looking for unpublished 1-2 page stories, preferably with photos, to boost our website content. The they must be true, and should deal with some aspect of mining, mining life, or mining culture. They do not need to be success stories, as failure is the best teacher. Humor is allowed, although it should be in good taste. We will pay $50 for any article that is printed.
11/17/2011
One Step at a time . . .©
By Alan Chenworth
During the last year, we have been treated to a fantastic show about a group of people who opened a gold mine in Alaska. As near as I can tell, it is a show where a bunch of unemployed, arrogant know-nothings try to open a gold mine and make a living. I call the show fantastic—not because it is that good of a show—but because it is a fantastic example of most of the common mistakes (though exaggerated) that prospectors make. As I write this article, please bear in mind that I do not have TV, and did not watch the entire show. I did, however, get regular updates from people at work who did watch it. I also have the internet and watched the short clips of the show that were posted on Hulu (I think that they were enough for me to see that I didn’t need to watch the show).
Here is some of what I learned:
1: Be honest with yourself.
I watched a group of greenhorns head up to Alaska to open a gold mine. None of them knew anything about mining, geology or even Alaska. They didn’t know how to pan, what to look for or where to look. Most of them didn’t even know how to run or repair the equipment that was to be their livelihood. And none of them were willing to admit to themselves or the camera that they were in way over their heads and should not be going to Alaska. I guess that they thought they had nothing to lose. How wrong could they be?
When you start down the road to gold mining, you have to start at the beginning—just like you do with everything else. A baby needs to learn to crawl before he walks; and walk before he runs. The same is true with mining. Maybe you should spend some time in a creek with a gold pan before investing large sums of money into large mining equipment.
As Clint Eastwood was quoted as saying, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Before getting involved with any large mining operation, you should take inventory of yourself. Know your limitations—they are great starting points as you continue to learn and grow. For example, if you have never run a dredge, taking over a lease off the coast of Nome, Alaska may not be a great idea, no matter how good the gold. Instead, it may be better to purchase a small dredge and practice on the local creeks for a few years. This would give you a chance to understand how to work the dredge, do small repairs, work underwater, prepare for cold-water work and process the concentrates.
This was just like the miners in the Alaska show . . . They took on too much too soon, and they got spanked.
2: Listen to those who know. (Keep in mind that I did not watch much of the show.)
The poor greenhorns listened to the experts long enough to be convinced that there was gold in the area. The guy on the other side of the creek was making bank on his claim, and assays seemed to support that the gold was there. However, when it came time to actually mine, they ignored the advice of the seasoned miners and did things their own way (and no, it didn’t work out too well).
As with anything else, it is a pretty good bet that the guys who have been doing this for a while probably know what they are doing—even if you don’t understand why. Listen to what they have to say. ASK QUESTIONS. Be patient. Try out what you have been told—put it to the test—then ask more questions. Learning is a process. It took the guys on the Alaska show most of the working season to finally get back to doing what they were told at the start of their operations.
3. Get some experience.
As I have already mentioned, these guys didn’t know anything about mining before buying a mine. While it may make a good TV show, it is probably not a good approach to life. The fact of the matter is that these guys would have believed anything they were told if the person they were listening to was holding a large gold nugget—Even if there was no gold on the claim.
I remember seeing one clip where the old guy pans down some material and shows the others some gold. He tells them something to the effect of “We are getting close—look there is about $20 dollars worth of gold in the pan.” Well, yes, there was gold in the pan. Was it $20? I don’t think so. Maybe it was a bad camera angle, or my eye sight is bad, or I didn’t see all of it, but it looked like two or three dollars to me. None of the other miners knew enough about it to tell him he was wrong. They didn’t know what to expect or how to value the gold. They weren’t ready to be mining commercially.
All placer miners need to develop a set of skills that include all of the common mining tasks such as: learning how to pan, run a sluice, clean the concentrates, and work with amalgam. It would also be a good idea to learn how to use common mining equipment, including (but not limited to highbankers, trommels , pumps, backhoes, bulldozers, and other earth-moving equipment) before taking on a major mining venture (or even a minor one). Learn the basics before trying to do the big complex tasks required in mining.
4. Do your homework.
What is the local geology? How deep is the gold? Is it all on bedrock, or is there a pay-layer or pay-streak? How is it identified? Could there be a chance that the claim on the other side of river has different geology than you do? (Just because he is getting good gold does not mean you will). Is the gold fine or coarse? How pure is it? (a 0.920 fine gold 50 % more gold than a 0.610 fine gold). If you don’t do your homework, you can’t properly evaluate the property.
We also need to look at equipment. They needed heavy equipment in order to work the claim—and bought it used. In my book, they overpaid, but probably didn’t know that because they didn’t do their homework. The equipment was in bad shape as well, causing them no end of problems.
Mining is a very capital-intensive venture, and you cannot just look at the amount of gold that has been estimated to be contained in the deposit as the amount of money that you will make. Fuel will eat into that amount very quickly (even more so in remote Alaska). Machinery, spare parts, repairs, hoses and oil are all expensive. Down time costs even more—as we saw in the show when they ran into winter weather that shut them down. What about food, shelter, and medical costs? You have to have them. Did they run the numbers that they needed to? I don’t think so. They didn’t even pay for the cost of the claim, let alone their time or equipment. Do your homework—this will take time—and hire a professional if needed. A good professional will be worth the fees you pay.
The guys on the show really needed to do some homework before going to Alaska.
5. Too many Partners are bad.
This one is going to be short and sweet. You want as few partners as possible. Too many people mean small profits. Everybody gets a share, so the share gets smaller for every person added to the payroll.
Too many partners also means too many people wanting to do things in different ways. The more partners you have, the harder it is to come to a consensus on where to work, how to work and when to work. People will also tend to pick favorites, make buddies, and team up/gang up on others. Eventually someone will be outcast. Not good.
The last reason too many partners are bad is that not all people work with the same intensity. I have watched gold splits be done on common operations where one guy donates the equipment and gas, then spends 12 hours digging or dredging while someone else works two hours, has a beer, takes a hike and talks our ears off, all while expecting an equal cut of the gold, mostly just because he was there.
I saw problems on the Alaska show that were likely caused by both too many partners and by picking the wrong partners.
6. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
In the Alaska show, I watched people quit jobs, sell houses, and move across the country to a strange and unfamiliar land to do something that sounded fun—but which they knew nothing about. This was probably not the smartest thing these people have ever done.
Before I sell my house to pay for a claim and some worn out mining equipment, I will have worked the claim, already had it paying well, and determined that I had enough ore in reserve to make up the money that I have invested, replace the house and provide for my family in the future.
If you wouldn’t sell everything you had to buy a factory that moulds cheese into small flower shapes or left handed forks, you probably shouldn’t sell everything to buy an unproven gold mine in a state where you have never been and equipment you don’t know how to operate. Mining is a business and should be approached as one—with care, planning, experience and patience.
Go slowly—Investing and building things up as you can—while building your base of knowledge.
7. GOLD FEVER is REAL!
This is probably the most important of the points. Gold fever is real. Never, EVER, forget that. People change when they see gold. Some people can handle it, but many can’t. People will lie, cheat and steal to get it. It can ruin a good friendship, push partners apart, destroy businesses and get in between families. People will kill to get it. Even among the honest, it breeds paranoia as they begin to think you are taking their gold.
Pick partners that you can trust—preferably people you have worked with in the past. The only way to know you can trust them is to already have a history with them. When two people work together, each trying to make sure that the other gets the bigger half—when each are working to make sure the other feels he is being treated fairly—then it has a chance to work out. Problems will always arise, but when you both approach the problem with respect and understanding of the other, things will usually work out.
Conclusion:
The problems that I saw in the Alaska show were not new ones that I had never seen before—I have seen examples of this in my own life.
Several years ago, I met a young man that had recently been smitten by the gold bug. I met him at a small, local club meeting, and we chatted about mining for a short time. He had been panning for a few months and really liked it. And he had found a little gold (I think it was less than a gram) on some club claims. A few weeks later, I got a call from him wanting advice on mining equipment. He had a chance to buy a used trommel for something like $6000. He was self-employed, and while not rich, money was not an object. Should he buy it? Had I used one like it? Could he use it on my claims (he would give me a cut, of course).
I tried hard to slow him down. I told him to buy a sluice and work it for a while. To put some time into learning techniques—proper sluice set up, how to pan better, where to look for gold, how to clean up the concentrates. Maybe then he would be ready to buy a high-banker or small dredge—or maybe a metal detector. This would also give him a chance to explore new areas, learn to set up and use new equipment, and maybe find a deposit worth working. It would also give him a chance to see if this was really something that he wanted to pursue, and to see if he could make any money at it. Most small miners and prospectors don’t find enough gold to pay for their gas, let alone the equipment. Generally speaking, the smaller the mining operation is in terms of equipment and overhead, the better. You want to run as much material as you can through as little equipment as possible. As your overhead gets smaller, you will need to generate correspondingly less revenue to be successful.
When I hung up, he was still determined to buy the equipment. I don’t know what happened after that—I never saw him again. I hope things worked out, that he found a pile of gold, but I suspect that the trommel never paid for itself.
I am sure the show was truly fun to watch for millions of Americans. It has given them a sense of hope, a taste of adventure, with enough of a struggle to make it fulfilling in the end. It also gave prospectors both a good laugh and glimpse into the myriad of mistakes that are possible when we lose touch with reality. I hope it becomes a good tool to teach us all to be better prospectors and better people.
8/28/11
Gold Panning on Crescent Creek
Here is a short video that shows the Crescent Creek Public Panning area in Henry Mountains of Southern Utah. It is a neat area. The gold can be good at times, though it is a bit spotty.
5/23/11
Is there Gold on Navajo Mountain?
By Alan Chenworth
For years I have been hearing rumors of gold found on or around Navajo Mountain. I had pretty much written them off as unfounded rumors due to the fact that I have never seen any fold from Navajo mountain, never talked to anyone that has personally found any; coupled with the fact that it is considered to be “sacred” land and the Indians don't want any prospectors going up there. That being said, there is a documented history of mining in the area. In fact, an old Indian named “Hashkeniinii” was rumored to have a rich silver mine on the mountain; and several years later, there were four prospectors killed on Navajo Mountain, as they were searching for the silver mine.
In the late 1940's, there was also a uranium boom on Navajo Mountain, when Luke Yazzie, a local Navajo, brought rich uranium ore into a trading post in Monument Valley. A large mining company company came in and put a mine in on the ledge where Luke got his ore, making the tribe a lot of money while though Luke got nothing but a free lunch.
Navajo mountain sits just to the north of the Arizona-Utah state line in south central Utah—in the heart of Navajo Country—and was originally called Sierra Panoche. It is a tall, isolated dome that reaches up to 10,416 feet in elevation, and is formed by a mushroom shaped volcanic intrusion called a laccolith. It is an important source of water for the region, a source for game, and contains the only stand of limber pine in Navajo country.
Apparently Navajos regard it as sacred because Navajo Mountain is the the “head” of a Navajo maiden, whose “body” is formed by four regional mountains. (This is similar to the Ute legend of the Maiden whose body can be seen in the Timpanogos mountain above Provo UT).
Navajo mountain is located completely on Navajo land, and the Navajos offer permits for hiking and camping—but apparently getting one can be a hit or miss proposition, depending on who you talk to, or what mood they are in. One thing that I do know is that mining and prospecting will not be considered. (That is one of the reasons I have not looked too hard into the rumors of gold around Navajo Mountain).
I have lately been researching the Abajo Mountains, and Blanding Mesa, and came across a a paper called Potential for Alkaline Igneous Rock-Related Gold Deposits in the Colorado Plateau by Felix Mutschler, Edwain Larsen and Micheal Ross. In this paper, they discussed the composition of the laccoliths in southern Utah and correlated the intrusions with gold mineralization. Gold occurrences are found in the Henry mountains, in the La Sal mountains, and in the Blues (or Abajo mountains). These three mountains are also closely related in many other ways: spatially-they are all relatively close together geographically; they are structurally similar—all three of these intrusions being laccoliths; age—the laccoliths all have similar ages of emplacement, with the dates of the intrusion being set at between 23 and 32 million years ago; and they are chemically similar—with a similar composition of both rock type and mineralogy—they are all diorite porphyries, and all have gold (or copper gold) mineralization. These three are also closely related to 3 more laccoliths in western Colorado that are also mineralized with copper, gold or silver. Navajo mountain was included smack dab in the middle of the list of diorite porphyry laccoliths is Navajo Mountain, and it shares all the same characteristics as the other laccoliths in the region.
Here is a good photo of several pieces of river worn diorite porphyry, and it is often associated associated with gold. This photo was taken in Cottonwood Wash with gravel from the Blanding Mesa. The original source of the diorite porphyry is the Abajo laccolith.
If all of the other diorite porphyry laccoliths are minereralized—most containing gold—then there is a very good chance of finding gold on Navajo Mountain. It is possible that there are small placers in the areas drainage's. More importantly, as the paper pointed out, there may be larger, low sulfide, sediment hosted micron gold deposits similar to the Carlin style deposits in the surrounding area. Its is worth noting that the low-sulfide micron deposits are a possibility not just at Navajo mountain, but would make good exploration targets for the La Sal mountains, the Henry mountains and the Blue mountains as well.
Even though mining an prospecting are off-limits, Navajo mountain would be a great place to explore. There are several 14 mile trails that take you out to Rainbow Bridge—the worlds largest, free standing natural rock arch, as well as miles of forest and high desert. Take a camera.
References:
www.historytogo.utah.gov/people/ethnic-american-indian/chapter7.html, 2011.
www.onlineutah.com/navajomountainhistory.shtml, 2011.
Lapahie, Harrison, Jr., 2011, www.lapahie.com/navajomountain.cfm
Potential for Alkaline Igneous Rock-Related Gold Deposits in the Colorado Plateau Laccolithic Centers, Felix Mutschler, Edwain Larsen and Micheal Ross, p. 232-252, Laccolithic Complexes of South Eastern Utah: Time Emplacement and Tectonics Setting—Workshop Proceedings, US Geological Survey Bulletin 2185, 1997.
How to Classify Your Gold
Here is a new video on classifying your gold. We took over 1 1/2 ounces of gold and classified it into four (4) size catagories. (Sorry it is a bit grainey--it seems the camera resolution was set too low.)
The Bingham Canyon Copper Mine ©2010
By Alan Chenworth
View of Rio Tinto's Bingham Canyon Mine from the Bingham Visitors Center.
About 30 miles to the south west of Salt Lake City lies the world famous Bingham Canyon Copper Mine. Its products include copper, gold, silver, molybdenite and sulfuric acid. By all accounts, it is one of the richest mines in the history of man (fourth richest, to be exact). It has been mined continuously for more than 100 years—almost 150 years if you count the silver mines in the district around it. The mine is huge. So big, in fact, that when you look at it, you lose all sense of scale. What started out as a large mountain is now a hole that measures about 2 ¾ miles across and more than ¾ mile deep. They have literally moved a mountain.
In the case of Bingham Canyon, about 38 M.A. (Million Years Ago), magma from deep within the earth pushed up through the country rock (mostly quartzite, but with two large limestone units and several marley siltstone beds) and formed a monzonite stock. (Monzonite (MZ) is similar to granite, but with little or no QZ.) Some time later—probably on the order of several hundred thousand years—another intrusion pushed through. This dike was quartz monzonite porphyry (QMP). The intrusion of the QMP locally fractured the host rocks, including the QZ and MZ, allowing the mineral rich hydrothermal fluids from off the QMP to flow through the cracks and fissures in the QZ and MZ. As the hot fluids cooled, they left behind the minerals that they had carried, forming a large, relatively rich copper deposit. The dominant copper minerals found at Bingham are chalcopyrite and bornite. Most of the gold—and all that is currently produced at the copper mine—is found locked up within the bornite.
Shortly after the deposition of the copper, there was another mineralizing event, more prominent at depth, where fluids rich in molybdenite created a second economic deposit. While molybdenite (moly) has long been found in the copper ores, a very large deposit of molybdenite has recently been identified below the copper ore. Molybdenite, which is currently valued at about $18/lb, has long been a very profitable byproduct for the mine, and is used in a variety of industrial applications where among other uses it is used to harden steel and as a high end lubricant.
The geology of Bingham Canyon has become the standard for the porphyry type copper mine. This model includes the zoning of minerals— copper mineralization in the center, surrounded by pyrite, with a lead-zinc halo on the outside. The free-milling gold found in the placers of the district likely originated in the lead-zinc mines around the periphery, where free gold has been noted. Similarly, we find corresponding alteration patterns at Bingham—an argillic/sericitic (clay) alteration—thought to be the youngest alteration—at the center, in and around the intrusive quartz monzonite porphyry. Then we have the potassic alteration halo around it. The potassic halo is thought to be related to the hydrothermal fluids that carried the copper, and includes minerals such as biotite, phlogopyte and potassium feldspar, and a significant increase in copper minerals (bornite and chalcopyrite) can be seen well in these potassicly altered zones. The potassic alteration is surrounded by a larger zone of propylitic alteration. The propylitic alteration was the earliest and largest alteration event, and is seen in the monzonite host rocks of the area. Its dominant minerals assemblages include actinolite, diopside, chlorite and some epidote, as well a fair bit of magnetite. The two large limestone units have also been large contributors to the mines copper production as they were altered to skarn mineral assemblages. These skarns range from wollastonite/marble to garnet to massive sulfides. These skarns also include relatively high percentages of chalcopyrite, bornite and gold.
It may be hard to believe, but the now famous Kennecott Copper Mine at Bingham Canyon, Utah had a rough and rocky start. It has one of the most unusual histories in modern mining. In fact, it is the mine that almost wasn’t.
Most western mining districts started with the discovery of placer gold. As the placers were developed and worked out, prospectors turned their attention to the load deposits from which the placers were formed. Bingham was, in fact, backwards. It was the load deposits (silver-lead veins) that were found first, with attention turning to the placers some time later.
Light colored beds (folded) are the Commercial Limestone, source of some of the mines high grade deposit.
While working on the upper slopes of the canyon, the Bingham’s found some rich specimens of galena, a lead ore that is often rich in silver. They excitedly took some samples and headed for Brigham’s place. Upon seeing the samples, Brigham Young told him to leave the minerals alone, instead encouraging the people to focus on farming and the industries that the people in the Salt Lake Valley would need to survive.
The Bingham’s stayed in the canyon for several more years, waiting for the chance to get back to their prospects. In time, they moved to settle the Ogden area, and the mineral discovery was forgotten.
In the 1860’s, Colonel Conner arrived in Utah with a contingency of troops that had come largely from the goldfields of California. He was charged with putting down the Mormon problem, and figured that the easiest way to do that was to make a large mineral discovery and let the flood of prospectors dilute the Mormon population. In their off-duty hours, he encouraged these prospectors to search the local hill for minerals. This policy led to the discovery of several large ore-bodies, including Alta and Bingham Canyon.
In the fall of 1863, George Ogilvie re-discovered the silver rich galena on the slopes above Bingham Canyon while logging on the high slopes, and the rush was on. The West Mountain Mining District was formed on Dec. 17, 1863. This area was very remote, and according to Heikes, the area mines were not well developed for several years due to both a lack of transportation and a mill to reduce the ores. It wasn’t until 1868, when the railroad came to the canyon, that the first carload of copper ore was sent to be processed.
Even with the railroad, the mines struggled. The area had “vast reserves of very low grade copper,” but it was of too low a grade to profitably mine. The profitable copper mines of the day generally worked ores containing 10-15% copper—or greater—while the ores of Bingham Canyon contained only 2% copper. Most of the lead-silver mines had the same problem. They just could not work the mines economically.
View of the copper mine from Clipper Peak. Salt Lake City can be seen in the Background.
It was not until 1896, when the Highland Boy mine began working a high grade vein, that there was any significant copper production in the Bingham Canyon area. In 1899 Daniel C. Jackling released a study showing that the copper could be mined profitably if the production levels were increased dramatically above what was currently being done in the underground mines. He proposed using large steam shovels to work the low grade (about 2%) ore in an open pit mine, and locomotives to haul the ore to a crusher. He convinced the Utah Copper Company to invest in his ideas, and open pit operations began. In 1906, the Boston Consolidated Mines opened their own open pit mine, following the lead of the Utah Copper Company. By 1910, it became apparent that neither the Utah Copper Company nor Boston Consolidated Mine could continue to grow because of the other. There just wasn’t room. They merged, forming the company that would latter become the Utah Copper Consolidated Corporation.In 1936, Kennecott Copper bought out Utah Copper Consolidated, and formed the Kennecott Utah Copper Company.
Interestingly, Mr. Jackling had also approached the president of General Electric about investing in his mine, since GE was a large user of copper, and they were looking to gain control of a good source of copper. It is said that the president of GE—after looking at the reserve numbers of the Utah Copper’s Bingham Canyon Mine—could not accept the numbers as credible, they were so large. He walked away . . . big mistake!!!
As the mine continued to grow, technology was able to lower the cost of production and expand the mines reserves. The railroad hauled the ore until it was replaced in the late 1970’s with large haul trucks. An in-pit crusher was installed, making a conveyor system feasible. A tunnel was cut, and a three mile conveyor built to run from the crusher, through the tunnel, and across Copperton to the mill. A large pipeline was also installed to move the copper concentrates the 18 miles from the Copperton Mill and Concentrator to the smelter at Magna. All of these improvements allow the Bingham Canyon mine to operate at an average ore grade of about 0.6% Cu. By 1981, Kennecott Utah Copper was struggling due to low copper prices and sold out to Standard Oil. In 1986, Standard Oil built a new mill and concentrator just outside of Copperton, at a cost of about $350 million. BP bought all of Standard Oils holdings in 1987. Rio Tinto, the current owner, bought it from BP in 1989. In 1995, Rio Tinto invested $880 million to build a new smelter. This new smelter is the cleanest and most efficient smelter in the world.
Rio Tintos’ Kennecott Copper Mine produces an estimated 13% of all the copper used in the US. In fact, according to the USGS, the Bingham Canyon was the largest producer of copper in the US during 2009 with 25% of all us production. (Before 2009, it has held the number two spot behind Freeport’s Morenci copper mine for several years). It has been so important to prosperity and security of the United States that during World War II, it was producing as much as one-third of all the copper used by Allied Forces.
Trucks and a drill pattern ready for blasting.
While the current mine plans forecasts an end of mining in about 2019, Bingham Canyons’ future remains bright. Company officials are looking at an expansion, that if approved, will extend the mine life until about 2036. There are also several possible opportunities for underground mining—both in some rich copper-gold skarn deposits on the north side of the pit, as well as the deep molybdenite that has been evaluated for possible block-cave mining methods. Currently, they are also building a $270 million autoclave at the Copperton Concentrator to process the molybdenum and rhenium recovered from its flotation cells.
The silver-lead-zinc mines around the outer edge of the porphyry had fortunes similar to the copper mining. With advances in transportation, machinery and other technology at the turn of the century, the silver-lead-zinc mines in the district were able to operate at a profit. The Lark and US Metals mines were able to work through out most of the 20th century, with the Lark mine closing in 1971. Interestingly, it was not the lack of available ore that closed the Lark Mine. When it closed, it still had some very profitable ore in reserve—instead, it closed because of new environmental regulations that forced the company to shut down its smelter. Because they had no smelter, and it was too costly to ship the ore to the few remaining smelters for processing (out of state and/or out of the country), they were forced to shut down the mine. (Much of the silver-lead-zinc industry has the same problem today. You can find and mine a profitable deposit, but will be forced to send the ore out of the country to be processed—typically making it unprofitable). Anaconda also worked the copper-gold skarns found underground to the west of the copper mine in the 1980’s. The Kennecott Copper Mine has since bought out all these underground mines, including the Lark, US Metals, and Anaconda.
The Mine dumps at the top of the photo are from the old silver-lead-zinc mines in the district.
The gold placers were discovered in 1864, one year after the discovery of the argeniferous galena. It is not known who discovered the placers, but their discovery is what fueled the early development of the canyon. In fact, in the early days, the only profitable mines in the canyon were the placer mines. Copper nuggets were often found in the creek, but because copper only sold for about 12 cents a pound, it was often considered a nuisance and thrown aside.
Between 1864 and 1871, more than $1,000,000 in gold was pulled from the canyon, and another $500,000 between 1871 and 1920 (figured at $35/ounce). Because many of the placers in the canyon were buried under deep overburden, many of the placer mines were underground drifts along the bedrock. The gold placers were found in a rusty red, iron stained pay layer just above bedrock. Much of the gold was also stained red from the iron staining, and black nuggets were not uncommon in the district. The gold is of a fairly high karat, running about .890 fine. There are still some deep placer deposits in and around Bingham Canyon, such as those at Bear Gulch, that could be worked economically if they weren’t buried under hundreds of feet of waste dump. Bingham Canyon was by far the richest placer in Utah, and the only major placer camp in the state.
At the junction of Dry Fork and Bingham Canyon—at what was probably the richest placer claim in the area—Pete and Dan Clay were able to mine about $100,000 dollars of gold. This total includes the largest gold nugget ever found in Utah, which weighed in at 7.75 ounces. There is still gold mined Bingham Canyon, only now it is load gold that is mined. Even with the low grade of gold in its ores, Bingham Canyon is still a major gold producer—producing over 550,000 Troy ounces in 2009.
The towns that grew in Bingham Canyon also had an interesting history. With the discovery of galena in 1863, the Bingham area was soon blanketed in claims—and Bingham Canyon quickly grew to be one of the largest cities in the state. Bingham Canyon (town) was also known as the longest city in the state, being (for the most part) one street wide and 5 miles long. Other towns also sprang up in the canyon, both above and below Bingham Canyon, from Leadmine (Frog Town) that supported smelters at the bottom of the canyon to Highland Boy, supporting the Highland Boy Mines in the Silver-Lead district on the slopes high above the canyon. High above the canyon, on the other side of the mountain, was the town of Galena, among others, as well as the railroad town of Dinkieville.
It was interesting to note that during most of the 1860’s and 70’s, raw sewage from the homes and business in Bingham Canyon was dumped directly into Bingham Creek, yet there was no problem with odor or disease. In fact, the stream ran clear and clean looking. The copper sulfides dissolved in the water acted as a disinfectant, killing all of the bacteria.
Like its beginnings, the demise of Bingham Canyon city was also backwards. Most mining towns die when the mines play out—but Bingham Canyon died when it was discovered its rich ores were located beneath the area towns. One by one, the mine gobbled up the towns as it continued to grow. First went Galena and Highland Boy, then Carr Fork. By 1971, the mine was at the foot of Bingham Canyon (town). The town was dis-incorporated, sold, and by 2000, had been completely buried under a thousand feet of waste dump.
With the exception of Leadmine, which has a bar and 3 houses that survive, all of the towns in the canyon have been either mined away or buried under a thousand feet of waste dump. Copperton is the only surviving copper camp. It was built at the mouth of the canyon in the 1920’s as a place for the company’s management to live.
Inside the Bingham Canyon Visitors Center.
The Bingham Canyon mine is one of Northern Utah’s biggest tourist attractions. Every year between April and October, Rio Tinto operates a Visitors Center and Museum. The Visitors Center overlooks the mine and has exceptional samples of the regions minerals, maps and histories. There are photos and videos documenting the rich history of the now deceased towns. Next door, the Copperton Lion’s Club operates a small gift shop. Rio Tinto charges $5 per car to visit the mine ($25 for mini-tour busses and $50 for the full sized ones. According to Kennecott’s website (http://www.kennecott.com/), school buses, veterans groups, Boy Scouts in uniform and county senior citizen programs are let in at no charge. ALL of the proceeds are donated to local charities.
The Rocky Bar Mining District©2009
by Alan Chenworth
My son and I working a productive high-bar in Wide West Gulch.
A goodly portion of my mining experience has been in and around Rock Bar, Idaho, and over the years I have had many wonderful expierences there. I have had some great finds, met some great people, and camped in some the prettiest places on earth—all right there around Rocky Bar.
While it is mostly gone now, Rocky Bar was once a thriving town of some 2,500 inhabitants that supported the load gold mines in the surrounding hills. It was a real boom town and was even reportedly a candidate to be the territorial capital of Idaho, ultimately losing out to Boise. [i]
While it was predominantly the load mines that supported the town, Rocky Bar got its start in 1863 with the discovery of widespread placer gold in the area creeks. This gold came in the form of small granules, similar to salt or sugar grains, with the occasional nugget. While early production numbers are unavailable, the placer mines of the area produced 58,447 ounce between 1889 and 1942 (remember, most of the placering was done in the 1860’s and 70’s).[ii] Not bad. I have seen nuggets up to about 1/3rd of an ounce come out of Bear Creek.
Rocky Bar sits on the north slope of Horse Ranch Mountain, and while the most productive placers were found in Bear Creek, below Rocky Bar, most of the creeks on the south, east and north sides of the mountain contain placer gold—and were worked commercially in the past. Specifically, it was Wide West Gulch on the south, fed by Chinaman’s Creek; with Red Warrior Creek on the east side (Wide West flows into Red Warrior Creek)—and several side gulches coming off of Horse Ranch Mountain also enrich Red Warrior Creek with gold. To the north, in addition to Bear Creek, the Steele Creek/Blakes Gulch area have rich placers, as does Elk Creek, with its own mining camp of Spanish Town.
Red Warrior Creek empties into Bear Creek, which then flows north through a narrow rocky canyon. This river canyon then takes a hard turn back to the south, merges with Elk Creek and forms the Feather River. Due to the large number of gold bearing creeks that flow into the Feather River in the Rock Bar area, the Feather River is rich in gold, and has had a rich mining history of its own. Near the town of Featherville (about 5 miles south of Rocky Bar, where the paved road ends), the Feather river has been dredged commercially buy a large bucket line dredge. The river here is deep and wide, with abundant water—especially after it merges with the S. Fork of the Boise—and there was a large, low-grade placer deposited here that was perfectly suited for the dredges. The piles of gravel remain as proof of the riches produced in the area.
Dredging on Bear Creek.
The placer mines in and around Rocky Bar also have a long and varied history. The first miners came in and worked the easily accessible placers—working both the creek bottoms and the numerous high bar deposits found along the creek. A high bar deposit is formed when a creek or river cuts a river valley, depositing its gold bearing materials on the bottom of the valley. The river then cuts a new, more narrow river valley, leaving remnants of the old river valley high and dry. On large river systems, high-bar deposits can be found hundreds to as much as a thousand feet above the current river elevation. Often as not though, the high bars are found tens to a hundred feet above the current river elevation. This is especially true on small river/creek systems. I don’t have production numbers on what these early placer miners found, but given the extensiveness of the workings, what they found was substantial. When the Anglo miners finished up, the Chinese came in and re-worked many of the areas. Some neatly stacked rows of rocks indicate their workings.
This stone wall was likely the result of Chinese miners. They were generally neat and orderly.
To work the high bar deposits, a canal was built along the slopes above the high-bars, then the water was channeled down and across the high-bar, where it would wash away the mud, soil, and lighter materials, leaving the gold and other heavies behind. Workers would sift through the mud, pulling out the rocks and large boulders by hand—usually putting them in large stacks at the side of the workings. These sacks of rocks were often used to guide or channel the flowing water to the areas that they needed to work. Large piles of well washed and sorted rocks (there is little or no sand or gravel in the pile) are indicative of ground sluicing—especially if they are on relatively flat lying rock.
Often when these miners would start their ground sluicing operations, they did not have well cleaned bedrock to start on, so they would make their rock pile on top of un-worked material. This is also true when they changed the direction in which they were working. When this happened, it was generally unproductive to go back and move the rock pile for the limited amount of ore that was found beneath it. Mining is a numbers game—they needed to move large amounts of material, and it just wasn’t cost effective to work an area that small—especially as the water was probably being diverted to a different location by the time it was feasible to move the rocks.
What this means is that by sampling beneath rock piles, it is possible to find small pockets of very rich, virgin dirt that was missed by the old timers. While this principle applies to virtually all mining areas, it seems to be especially productive in the high-bars in the Rocky Bar area. One of the identifiers of the rich virgin dirt would be a rusty red, very fine grained sand/clay that is often found on bedrock in un-worked areas.
Another thing to look for in the Rocky Bar area is un-worked high-bars. The GPAA once had a claim in the area, just below Rocky Bar, and it was known for a high-bar deposit that producing very large amounts of gold, including nuggets. This claim was high above the river, to the south side, and had apparently never been worked. It was, of course, a very popular claim. People were working the heck out of it—they were loading buckets from a very large hole, and packing the material down to the creek to work. In the end, the Forest Service revoked the claim in order to prevent further damage to the forest. One lesson to learn from this is FILL IN YOUR HOLES. Clean up and restore your work area when you are done. This was a good claim that was open for a lot of people to work—and a few careless people ruined it for every one. This is not isolated to the large clubs either—if you leave big holes on your claim or favorite work site, the Forest Service may come in and close you down too.
This is my camp on Red Warrior Creek.
After the placers were worked, the attention of the miners turned to the load mines of Rocky Bar. The ore around Rocky Bar originates in quartz veins that trend generally east-west. While these veins are predominantly quartz with some gold, they do also contain a small amount of sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite and pyrite. And, while most of the gold was free-milling, there was also some bound with the sulfides. The load mines in the Rocky Bar area were very profitable, and continued producing through the 1900’s. Again, early production numbers are not known, but between 1889 and 1942, the area load mines produced 381,396 ounces of gold.ii They were good enough, in fact, that after the town burned to the ground in 1892, it was rebuilt—though the towns slow decline followed the fire
By the 1930’s, most of the areas load mines were closed—but Great Depression kept interest in the area high. The placers in the area were re-visited—and the smaller streams and creeks were “doodlebugged.” A gentleman name Floyd, one of the owners of Rocky Bar, mentioned that a small dredge, know as a doodlebug, worked the area streams in the 1930’s. As best as I can tell, it was something like a small bucket-line dredge—though I haven’t been able to find pictures or much detail on the dredge.
I don’t know how many doodlebugs were at work, but apparently Red Warrior Creek was worked up to Wide West Gulch. Wide West Gulch was then doodle-bugged up to Chinaman Creek. To the north, Bear Creek was doodle-bugged from the confluence with Red Warrior Creek up to what was then the city limit at Rocky Bar. While, for the most part, you don’t see the large rock piles common of the large dredges, there are a few. More commonly, many of the doodle-bugged areas can be identified by swampy conditions. Thick willows and other wet vegetation growing in low-lying areas. In the case of Wide West Gulch, much of the area is actually a low-lying, overgrown swamp. No production numbers are known for these doodlebugs.
While the doodlebugs have worked the area hard, the area creeks can still be productive when dredged. In the past, the area was open to dredging with the states recreational dredging permit—however, in the early 2000’s, the area was taken off the states recreations dredging list due to the endangered “Bull Trout”. While the area creeks are closed on the recreational dredge list, it is possible to get a stream alteration permit that will allow you to dredge by filing individually with the state. This permit will take 1-2 years to approve, with the new Forest Service rules, also requires that you submit a Plan of Operations with it. It is a real pain, but could be worth your time. In most of Bear Creek and Red Warrior Creek, bedrock is relatively shallow—particularly where it has been doodlebugged—with one to two feet of overburden. This makes dredging fairly easy and efficient. There are spots, however, where it does get deeper—I once spent a week working through about five feet of overburden. The gold was OK, but it was all on bedrock and it took a long time to move five feet of overburden with a 3” dredge. Up near Rocky Bar, in areas where the doodlebug didn’t go, bedrock is much deeper. I punched a whole some 7’ straight down through ‘hard as cement’ clay, literally picking my way down with a 6’ bar. It took two days, my hole was only 2-3 feet wide, and I never hit bedrock. And I only got one piece of gold (a small nugget)—which I accidentally dropped in the dirt and lost while doing a clean up. Floyd, the guy who owns half of Rocky Bar, told me that he had used an excavator to work the bedrock just up stream of where I was dredging, and that bedrock was 14’ down. From what I have seen, the gold on bedrock where the doodlebug didn’t go is very good, but it is a lot of work getting down to it.
Some of the GOLD recovered. The vial has one gram of sugar grain sized fines. Another 1/2 ounce went to the refinery.
Rocky Bar is a truly beautiful area, and one with a lot of history. While it is a great place to visit, you must remember that most of the area is under claim. If you wish to work in the Rocky Bar area, there are several clubs that have claims in this area. Otherwise, contact claim owners and get written permission before working the area creeks.
[ii] W.W. Stanley, 1968, Gold in Idaho, Pamphlet No. 68, Idaho Bureau of Mines p. 26-28.
Rocky Bar, Idaho. A right turn at the intersection will take you to Atlanta, another old mining town.
Service Has Its Rewards ©2009
By Alan Chenworth
I was recently looking over some old papers and photos, and remembered an interesting weekend that I had back in around 2001.
Getting some time off work, I decided it would be fun to spend it mining in the Rocky Bar area of south central Idaho. I was a member of the Northern Utah Prospectors Association, a small Utah club that had two groups of good claims in the Rocky Bar area. These claims totaled five claims on three creeks. I also had two of my own claims in Wide West Gulch, just upstream of the club claims, and there were several areas on my claims had been fairly productive in the past. With all these claims, I figured that I should have plenty to do.
Gold was discovered on the Feather River in 1863, and the town of Rocky Bar quickly grew to support the new mines. Rocky Bar, Idaho, is located about 40 miles east of Mountain Home, just to the north of Anderson Ranch Reservoir.
While there is little left of town (particularly, the south half where the owner has sold off the buildings one by one to discourage visitors), it was at one time a thriving town with over 2,500 residents and the county seat. Rumor is that it was a candidate for the Idaho Territorial Capital. Most of the gold found here was load gold, but there was a lot of placer gold found as well. Most of the area creeks contain gold, including Bear Creek, which runs through Rocky Bar, Steele Creek, Red Warrior creek, and Elk Creek. The Feather River, which has its own rich gold history, is formed from the confluence of Bear Creek Elk Creek.
While most of the gold in the region is fine, coming in the form of small granules similar in appearance to sugar grains, Bear Creek does have some coarse gold as well as the occasional nugget. Elk Creek is also known for have some larger pieces of gold.
After getting out of bed just a little too early for a day off, packing the truck and trailer—including my wife and son (and car seat too) into the small cab (it was a small, 2wd Toyota pick-up)—we were off to Idaho. It was a long, slow and crowded drive, although it was other wise uneventful.
When we arrived, we first set up camp on a club claim that sat next to Red Warrior Creek named NUPA 1. This claim has one of the best camping sites in the entire area. The campsite is set back off the road, surrounded by trees for privacy, and has a nice, sandy bottom for a tent. Firewood is also plentiful. Red Warrior is also known for fine, sugar grain sized granules of gold—and if you dig in the right place, they can be fairly plentiful. While Red Warrior Creek does have some nice gold, I had my mind on another place that would give me better odds on a nugget.
Sluicing Red Warrior Creek.
The first place that I thought I would try prospecting was on the Los Kelios Group—this was a group of claims that began just above the junction of Bear Creek and Red Warrior Creek. This claim then followed the creek north through a narrow canyon, around a tight horseshoe bend where it joined with Elk Creek, flowing south, to make the Feather River. The claims then continued down stream for anther ½ mile. This is a very large claim block formed by 3 rich gold bearing creeks. (Unfortunately, a year or so later, the club lost the claims—something to do with a missing signature on an Affidavit of Assessment.) The place I specifically had in mind was a small hill to the east of the road that was cut on the east by Red Warrior Creek and the north by Bear Creek.
Climbing the hill, I found a spot out on the point above rivers that was already cleared to bedrock. It looked good, so I hauled several buckets of dirt down to the creek to pan out. I found that by breaking up the bedrock I could get some large flakes, but I couldn’t find anything of quantity. I spent the rest of the afternoon there, still finding the occasional large flake—and once in a while a small one. Giving this spot up, I headed back to camp. Before retiring for the evening, I tried sluicing some of the gravel in Red Warrior Creek. I did this with some optimism, as this had been quite rewarding the last two times I had been here. This time, however, was different. After sluicing the gravel for about 15 minutes, I cleaned the sluice and found just one small piece of gold. Yeah.
Trying to increase my yield, I decided to work a different spot on the second day. I went up to one of my personal claims, but with spring run-off over, most of the places that I usually work were too far away from water.
I then decided to work the bottom end of the Los Kelios claims, since rumors held that this was a rich area. After almost an hour of climbing hills, crossing rivers, and pushing through brush, I made it to Pinto Creek, which marks the bottom end of the Los Kelios claims. I set up my sluice, and went to work. The gold I was finding was OK—it was granular, like on Red Warrior Creek, but the pieces were quite a bit larger in size. Unfortunately, before I could really get going, a thunderstorm blew in over the mountain. After only an hour and a half there, I packed up and headed out. Two days were shot, and I still didn’t have much gold.
By the morning of the third day, I was very discouraged. I walked over to Red Warrior Creek to look around. The best gold on this claim was found on the high bars. Old-timers had ground sluiced the area, and we found that by digging into the rock piles, we could often find virgin dirt that the old timers had missed. Often they would start stacking rock on top of gold bearing gravel so as to clear a channel for the water to flow, but as the working progressed, it wasn’t worth their time to go back and move the rocks to get to the gold beneath them. Because of this there were some very rich pockets found under these rock piles. One miner that I know pulled out about ¼ oz. of gold from one 5 gallon bucket of this gravel. Due to the good gold, this claim was one of the club favorites.
Stairs cut into the bank leading up to the old highbar deposit above Red Warrior Creek.
In fact, there was one elderly couple that used to camp there for most of the summer, spending most of their time mining the high bar and generally taking care of the claims. They were a very friendly couple, always ready and willing to show you around. They would help greenhorns learn to pan, show you where to dig, and show you their gold. They always had a nice full vial or two to show. They were also very conscientious about cleaning up the claims, mucking out the creek when the sluice tailings filled it up, and making the area look generally undisturbed.
Earlier in the season, during a club outing, a forest ranger noticed the club members up on the high-bar and stopped to see what they were doing. This ranger, who was actually visiting from a neighboring Ranger District, came to be affectionately known as “Annie Oakley” to the club members. “Annie Oakley” because they could not remember her name; and “Annie Oakley” because of the way she walked around with her hand on her gun, while threatening what she would do with any of the miners who did not comply with her requests. She told the members that they would need to quit digging until they had secured a formal Plan of Operations. Many of the miners who had been working the claim objected to her request, as they were only using hand tools (pans, shovel and sluices—and a self contained gold buddy)—and that under the 1872 mining laws, as well as the CFR’s, hand tools were legal, and that they did not need a Plan of Operations. They complained that they only needed a Plan of Operations if they were to bring in equipment, which they had not done. Annie Oakley (still with her hand on her gun) told the miners that she didn’t give a damn about the mining laws or Congress, and that if they did not comply immediately, she would start issuing citations, and making arrests if necessary. She nailed several other groups in the area on the same day, including my partner on our personal mining claims. As we later found out, she had been transferred from another Ranger District (the Idaho City District, if my memory serves me) because of her attitudes toward mining, and just happened to be on loan to our district that day.
After this exchange, the club submitted a Plan of Operations—and were promptly told that they did not need one for what they were doing, but that since they had already submitted the application, they would need to stop working the high bar until it was approved.
Because we weren’t supposed to dig on the high bar until the Plan of Operations was approved, there was not that much that I could do on this claim. Remembering the older couple who had worked hard to keep the creek mucked out, I noticed that the creek was full of sand and rocks. I decided that since I didn’t have a place to mine, I could at least clean out the creek and try and build the banks up a little with the sediments. After 20 or 30 minutes of digging, I heard the shovel scrape on bedrock. Like any good prospector, I sampled the bedrock—and am glad I did. I found a half a dozen pieces in the first pan, so I took a second pan. The results were the same. I panned for about 20 minutes, before I finally put my trusty sluice to work. It was nice, with the sluice just down stream from where I was digging, I didn’t have to carry gravel—or sort out rocks—just clean up the gold. When I finished up with this area three hours later, I probably had several pennyweights of fine gold (I didn’t have a scale and couldn’t weight them). I also found several nice pieces of fairly coarse gold—including one very nice picker. As I write this, I am remembering a prominent writer who once told me that there was no gold in Red Warrior Creek. “Not enough gold to fill a tooth” was his exact quote. I won’t mention names. I just wonder how much more I could have gotten with a dredge (and in how much less time).
I poked around for another day and a half before heading home. Yes, I did get a little more gold, but nothing compared to what I found at that spot in Red Warrior Creek when I decided to muck it out. Maybe I am off the mark a little bit, but I think that this is just one of the benefits of service. If I hadn’t decided to clean out the stream, I would probably have headed home without enough gold to fill a tooth. All I know is that I am glad that I took the time to try and make the claim a little better for everyone—it sure paid off for me.
This is an old photo of me taking a break while working in Red Warrior Creek.
I was recently featured on Roughin'it Outdoors with Adam Eakle. We panned and sluiced for gold in Utah's Little Sevier Creek, and found some nice color, including 1 picker (small nugget).
HOW TO PAN FOR GOLD
Here is a short video clip that I made on how to pan for gold. This video was made at Crescent Creek, in the Henry Mountains this last Valentines day. It had to be broken into two segments to fit into the Youtube formate.
This is my first time in front of a camera. . . please be patient, as I am still learning what I am doing--both in front of the camera, as well as in editing.
The Crescent Creek Placers©
By Alan Chenworth
View of Crescent Creek and the Henry Mountains, looking west.
The Henry Mountains are found in southern Utah, midway between Lake Powell and Hanksville. These mountains are an oasis of water and shade in an otherwise forsaken desert. The tops of the mountains are heavily timbered and there are green meadow filled basins surrounded by pines and aspens. Deer and other wildlife are abundant, and the nation’s only free roaming herd of buffalo can be seen around the base of the mountains.
There are several accounts of the discovery of gold in the Henry’s placing the discovery of gold between 1885 and 1890. It is probable that the discovery of gold in the Henry’s is related to the development of the Glen Canyon Placers. While the gold was abundant, it was also fine and hard to recover. Prospectors, disappointed with the prospects in Glen Canyon, spread out across the country. In trying to locate other sources of gold, some prospectors worked their way up the Dirty Devil River to the base of the Henry Mountains; where, on the east flank of Mount Ellen, they found gold in Crescent Creek. They were able to follow the trail of gold up to lode gold and copper deposits in what is now Bromide Basin.1 Early miners also found signs of the Spanish—an arrasta was found, and John Fremont found the skeleton of a burro—still carrying saddlebags full of high-grade ore in 1853.2
This lode was fairly high grade—but was also shallow—and the mines soon failed. Tens of thousands of years of erosion, however, left wide spread placers in a large alluvial fan around the eastern base of Mt. Ellen. Crescent Creek has carried the gold bearing sediment from Bromide Basin to the benches, where it formed a placer deposit that is large enough to be measured in square miles. Since the time of the original deposition, Crescent Creek has cut down through the gravel, reconcentrating the gold and creating a narrow, steep walled canyon that heads east away from the mountain and drains into North Wash. North Wash then drains into the Dirty Devil River. Butler Creek to the north and Copper Creek to the south, also cut through the margins of this placer, and as a result carry some limited values in gold.
The gold here is high karat gold—heavy and rich in color. It is also chunky and large—coming in grains, wires and large flakes. In the original deposit, the gold is distributed quite uniformly across the placer, with a concentration of gold found “in black-sand streaks at the base of the fanglomerate gravel,”3 as it was described in Johnson’s Placer Gold Deposits of Utah. Where Crescent Creek has cut through the alluvial fan, the gold has been reworked. Because the amount of water flow is low—even in spring run-off—the gold tends to be spotty. It is generally moved only in flash floods. These flash floods are common—coming several times a year, principally during the monsoon season at the end of July and August.
In the bottom of the wash, the gold tends to be right on bedrock, leaving the overburden barren. And while some gold can be found just about anywhere that you find bedrock, the floods have formed rich pockets along the way. The Crescent Creek placers are considered to be one of Utah’s few commercial grade placers, but they are marginal and difficult to work at a profit. A mining company has a lease on almost all the placer ground. Their claims are well posted and run from North Wash all the way to Bromide Basin. Another company (Unico Mining) currently holds lease on the lode mines in the basin.
Panning Crescent Creek with my son, Dalton.
Because of the number of people that visit the area, a public panning area has been provided on Crescent Creek. It is well marked and is actually one of the better gold producing areas on the creek. When I first worked the area, I was working the stream sediments, as I didn’t see much bedrock exposed on the creek bottom. I was getting some gold, but it was fine and far between. Another prospector who was in the area came over and showed me the trick to the gold. I hadn’t realized it, but the bedrock in the public panning area is a soft clay—alternating gray or black bands—and by digging along the contact of this clay and the gravel I found large flakes of gold and small pickers. I was not getting rich, but it was certainly enough to keep me interested.
Map of the Crescent Creek Area.
A few weeks later, while working an unclaimed area at the bottom of Crescent Creek, I found a fairly good pocket of gold and filed a claim on some of the last remaining land in the canyon. Instead of the black and gray banded clay that we found up at the Public Panning area, we had a soft, brightly colored orange/red clay, alternating with a hard but brittle dark red mudstone. The rich gold we found was on top of this soft orange colored clay. The work was slow and water was difficult to come by, but by using primarily a shovel and pan, we pulled about ¼ oz of gold out of this small stretch creek over the next several weekends.
Crescent Creek is a perennial stream—but as you pull away from the mountain the creek bed goes dry, the water flowing under the abundant gravel in the area. The area we were working has shallow bedrock, and as such, has some water year round. The water here doesn’t flow except during spring runoff. In this area, it is more of a seep—just enough to keep the ground muddy. When we want to pan, we need to dig a hole and let the water seep in. Then as we pan, we need to keep mucking out the hole. It also took some time to clean the gold out of the sticky clay.
Along Crescent Creek, the gold can be found associated with barite sand. The barite sand is a white to very pale yellow coarse-grained sand and is fairly heavy. If you are not finding much barite sand, you probably aren’t getting much gold either as they tend to settle in the same places.
Gold and barite sand.
There isn’t much black sand in these placers and on our claim there is almost none. The black sand is more commonly found in the bench placers above the wash (in fanglomerates), and related to the original alluvial fan.
Crescent Creek sits at the bottom of a steep walled wash—and as was already mentioned, it is prone to flash floods. In this area, they are fairly common. While we were there in the late spring we saw a brief storm that brought strong winds and heavy rain. It lasted for only about twenty minutes. About a half an hour after the rain stopped, we noticed a puddle creeping down the riverbed—and about two minutes behind it was a fast moving river. This trickle of a stream not even ¼ inch deep turned into a fast moving creek six to eight inches deep and about eight feet wide—and it flowed fast for over an hour, with a residual flow that lasted most of the night.
These flash floods can be dangerous, but they can also move a lot of material—including gold. By putting a sluiced box into this flood, we were able to pick up some nice pieces, without shoveling any dirt.
The first year we were there, we worked a stretch of river between six and eight feet wide, about seventy feet long, with bedrock ranging from three inches to one foot deep and pulled out about ¼ oz of gold.
When we returned the next spring, we could not find any sign of our previous activity. Everything we had done was washed away, including the two foot high dams we built to collect water; the large piles of tailings (we had to muck out our panning holes); and the five foot deep test hole that we dug about ten feet to the side of the shallow bedrock that we had worked. It didn’t take long to realize that a very large flash flood had come through the previous fall. The flood that came through completely filled the wash. By examining the water lines on the sides of the canyon, we estimated that this flood was about six feet deep and at places, greater than fifty feet wide. And, in addition to scouring the wash, this flood also left gold.
We went back and worked the same stretch of river that we had worked out the previous spring and found about ½ oz of gold over about three weekends.
Most of this gold has come in the form of coarse grains, about the size of granulated sugar. We have also found some very large flakes and an occasional rice-grain size nugget. Several guests (3) to our claims have even found pea size nuggets, be we (the owners) have not yet been that lucky.
What the future will hold is uncertain. We believe that there is a lot more gold there. The gold is in pockets and almost all of it is on bedrock. The trouble is, except where the bedrock is shallow or exposed, we can’t get to it without heavy equipment. The area is too wet to dig—all the holes fill with water—but too dry to dredge. I tried working it with a small 3” dredge, but had to dig a hole just to hold the dredge, and I then had to re-circulate the water. I was dredging in mud and couldn’t see anything. Rock jams were common, and it was difficult to tell where I wanted to work. The clay also made it very slow, as it was stuck in place and didn’t want to come up the dredge hose. After a day of dredging (with poor results) I realized that I probably could have gotten more gold (maybe twice as much) by working by hand with a pan and shovel. A highbanker does work well if you are there early enough in the spring to catch the runoff.
The public panning area is upstream from our claims and has much better water flow. If you go in late summer or fall, you might find water in the morning and evening—but a relatively dry riverbed in the heat of the afternoon when evaporation is going strong. And yes, it does get hot. In the summers expect 100°+. The Public Panning Area fortunately does have shade from several large trees and is a nice place to camp. There is even an old cabin at the public area. It is in fairly good shape if you need to get out of the weather. In this area, you can pan, sluice, highbank or dredge. Sluicing, highbanking and dredging all require a state permit, but they are free—just contact the Utah State Division of Water Resources. If you like, dry washers can be used on all of the gravel found above the creek. And I know of a prospector that found a pe sized nugget with a metal detector.
This is a great area to explore. There are good opportunities for photography, hiking, four wheeling, and riding motorcycles or ATV’s. Small uranium and vanadium prospects also litter the lower margins of Crescent Creek—they are interesting, but you should probably stay out of them as they are in soft rock and are especially prone to cave-ins—and also full of radon gas.
As a general rule, take what you are going to need if you are going to explore the area. Hanksville is a small town with a few basic supplies like gas, ice and groceries. If you need anything else, you are probably out of luck—and it is 25 or 30 miles just to Hanksville from the panning area; it will take hours to get anywhere else. This area is remote but well worth the trip.
Over 1/3rd ounce placer gold from Crescent Creek. Several small nuggets were also found.
This article was originally printed in the October 2009 ICMJ and references the Crescent Creek chapter of A Guide to Gold Panning in Utah, also by Alan J. Chenworth. The maps and many of the photos are also taken from this book.
MINING CAMP FOLLIES
This is a hilarious TRUE story written by my uncle, and takes place in the copper town of Magna, Utah back in the 1940’s. It has been lightly edited to include some details remembered by my mother, and lightly edited for grammar. Most of the story has been left as it was originally written so as to preserve its flavor.
SONABITCHEN CHEVROLET ©
By Audy L. Harrison
Edited by Alan Chenworth
We had a 1936 Chevrolet two-door sedan that Dad was trying to nurse through the war years. I swear that that car had its own personality, including some traits such as a stubborn cantankerousness. At other times it had a sneaky playfulness.
One day after a cleaning session around the yard in the early springtime, my father recruited a couple of my friends, my sister, and myself to help carry off the trash. We loaded boxes of trash into the old Chevy’s trunk and back seats. We all clambered into the car and pointed her prow towards the dumps.
The dumps were located north of Magna on a flat, sagebrush covered plain next to the tailings pond. The garbage trucks dumped their weekly pickup here, and everyone hauled in their unwanted trash. As we began our journey down the dump road, which was usually a dusty dirt trail—we quickly noticed that things were, however, not the same. There were some pretty good ponds and mud puddles in the middle of the road. Not to worry thought, my old man deftly swung the wheel and skirted the treacherous quagmires. He drove on to the sagebrush covered flatland and avoided a sure bogging down.
After unloading our trash on the dump, dad began the homeward journey. After he had avoided a very mucky road hazard, one of my friends made the mistake of praising my father’s evasive action.
“Hell, son, this car is half mule and half jeep.”
“Really?”
“Yep. If I put her in low gear, she would climb that tailings pond dike.”
“Wow!”
“Watch this—“
Dad veered on to the sagebrush-covered clay flatland and sure enough the old Chevy plowed through like a jeep, mowing down the sagebrush. All went well until about a quarter mile from the road, the Chevy slued sideways and spun to a stop in a big slippery mud puddle.
Dad mumbled something about this not being a problem and put the car in reverse. The Chevy made a gallant effort but went only about a foot and a half before it bogged down again. Dad was wise enough to know that you don’t just spin your wheels or you will just sink deeper.
“Everybody out,” he ordered. “Grab sagebrush and shove it under the wheels.”
Dad was at his best—delegating his way out of a problem. He was getting us to help him provide traction for those slipping tires. “OK, now you boys get in back and push,” he ordered.
Dad opened the drivers’ door, reached inside and pulled the hand-throttle open a bit.
Hell! It worked good. A bit too good, however. The Chevy lurched forward on to the sagebrush—dumping we three pushers onto our faces, luckily on fairly dry soil. Luckily, I say because Dad did not fair so well. He found himself face down in the center of the mud puddle. He sat up and uttered a few words that we had never heard before, and I’m sure we weren’t supposed to remember either. The sight of him covered with mud sent the three of us into peals of laughter. Dad was just beginning to say something about our disrespect when he realized that the Chevy was bouncing across the sagebrush plain on its own volition, and heading for a power station about a half-a-mile away. Dad was up like a shot and was soon in full pursuit of the old Chevy. It looked like the car was mocking him the way it flapped its sprung door open and nearly closed.
Dad was amazing. We kids were dually impressed as he sprinted after the wayward automobile. Then with a graceful leap worthy of a male ballet dancer, he mounted the running board of the vehicle. He reached inside and grasped the steering wheel. Then in a far less graceful manner, he dismounted. The combination of slippery clay-mud on his feet and running board and the bouncing vehicle left him rolling head over heels through the sagebrush. He had accomplished one thing however, as he fell he pulled the steering wheel so that now the car was going around in a big circle. To add to his chagrin, all three of us were rolling on the ground in mirth. Loud guffaws were the reward Dad got for his efforts to corral the maverick Chevy.
Dad got up, brushed himself off as best he could, what with clods of mud covering his frontal area. He surveyed our wild mirthful abandon and muttered something about or parentage. But it wasn’t complimentary at all. Then he yelled at the smirking Chevrolet—most of which is unprintable except for “Sonabitchin Chevrolet.”
Dad ran after the circling car like an Indian chasing a circling wagon. Again Dad leapt onto the slippery running board just in time to be bashed by the swinging door and sent tumbling through the sagebrush again. Hells Bells! This was more fund than a Three Stooges comedy, and tears were running down our cheeks. My stomach hurt from laughter. Dad questioned our parentage again. We really couldn’t see why he saw no humor in his predicament. Off he went again in pursuit of the playful Chevrolet. I swear, each time it circled towards us, there was a grin on that battered grill. Dad, after a couple more sidesplitting tumbles finally was able to insinuate himself between the doorpost and the wildly flaying door. He fell into the seat and pushed in the throttle lever. Then mustering all the dignity that he could, the old man drove over to where the three of us were still rolling around in unbridled laughter. He pulled himself upright in the seat and said, “Would you kids get in the damn car?!”
One look at his mud caked face however, sent us into peals of unrestrained laughter again. After a short stern lecture about how he could have been crushed under the marauding wheels of this two-ton monster of a car, Dad finally had us fairly sober and into the car.
The ride home was rather quiet and chilly. It was punctuated however, by a snicker that slipped out now and then by one or the other of us kids. These relapses were met by an icy stare from the old man.
We finally pulled into our yard. Mom was hanging out clothes. When she saw the muddy apparition that was my father climb out of the car she shrieked—“What in the world happened to you?”
The first words to come out of the old man's mouth were “Sonabitchin Chevrolet!”
I swear that that car was grinning at him.