Hi Grubstake, Thanks for the welcome. Any information and advice I can gather from the forum is as good as gold to me. I love seeing all the pictures and reports from the seasoned prospectors. I look forward to being a member of this great forum, thanks again. ~Jesse Hi Rob, Saturday afternoon I was really bummed about the bad weather. We got about 20" of snow where we live, just north of Reno. This morning I was looking at the AZO forum and read about a guy who just returned from the Rye Patch area. He said it didn't get much snow. So hopefully the weather will hold out in that area until I get there. We'll post back when I return. Thanks again for the excellent package deal. ~Jesse