Nine Lives

[AZNuggetBob]

Hi all I decided to start a new thread called Nine Lives. I've had some close ones in my life and just thought it would be fun to share some of them here. You are welcome to jump in here and share your own.

Back in my early days of mining (1980’s) I hooked up with a guy named Johnny.

We were into wet placer mining and dredging back then. He had a 20 acre claim on Antelope creek just north of Stanton Az. He had a Cat d-8 dozer and we were pushing off top gravel and the boulders aside in the creek and running what was below it through a suction dredge.  We were doing very well once we got the dozer finding several ounces a day.. 

We were blasting some of the big boulders with dynamite to fracture and reduce their size. Some of the boulders were too big and locked into the bedrock holes and we ended up breaking a side rail on the dozer trying to push them out or aside. The track was kinking and trying to run off the idlers.

 

So I managed to run it in reverse back up out of the creek and keep the track on up to the mill site to fix it. (weld it) we knew we were done for a few days down in the creek so Johnny loaded up the dredge and what dynamite we had left, about six sticks in his little beater pick up and followed me up on the Dozer. 

So we get up there and johnny is unloading things out of the truck and I’m contemplating the best way to weld up the cracked  dozer rail. 

 

So I walk into the the mobile home where johnny was and sit down on the big chair across from johnny and I look over and I see the dynamite on top of this little antique end table next to the end of the couch where he was sitting.  And I remember looking down and seeing the little table has three little wheels under the ends of the legs but one is missing, so someone had put a little block of wood under the leg missing the wheel to level up the table. So I look over as johnny got up off the couch and walked by the little table with the dynamite on it he kicked that little wooden block out from under the table leg as he headed toward the fridge. then he turned and asked do you need a beer? then Johnny and I watched the table tip and the sticks of dynamite roll off the end, we just looked at each other and everything else just seemed like time just froze.

It was almost like everything was in some other realm of reality. I remember hearing all six of the of the sticks of dynamite as they rolled off the table in slow motion one by one bounce on the wooden trailer floor and I was just waiting for the explosion. And as we looked at each other in amazement,nothing happened? I jumped up shaking and picked up the dynamite and put it in a cardboard box on the floor with some old magazines and I remember saying to Johnny, I need a beer.

AzNuggetBob

Edited June 12, 2023 by AZNuggetBob

[nuggethunting]

Great Story Bob.  Wow, talk about a close call there!  A partner and I also had a nice claim on Antelope for many years, but never really enough water to really dredge, so we ended up selling the claim.  The following year, there was Winter storm after storm and Antelope ran for about a month straight, crystal clear dredging water .... go figure!  

Rob

[AZNuggetBob]

Rob I remember where your claims were. You were way up above us on the creek. It was steeper than where we were. It was only wet for a short time after the rains. Sorry to hear things didn’t work out for you up there. I know what your saying, I've walked away from some ground that I regretted and heard about it later. It sucks.

Down where we were it was much flatter and we had several ponds with elevated granite dikes crossing the creek acting as dams. We had a problem with the water!. We were drowning the dozer and dozing blind under water half the time banging along trying to figure out what was bedrock or boulders in the muddy water with an old cable rig dozer, and had to put in pumps to continue digging. I remember water flying off the dozer fan blade before we gave up and started pumping the hole out with two 2” pumps. Ok one and a half pumps, I remember one pump only worked half the time. I think It pumped out more water with the pull starter than it did running on its own.

That’s all we had. we put a lot of work into it but once we got the boulders blasted with the Dupont rock softener and out of the main hole it was payday.

 When we were done, it was also the best swimming hole in the whole area.,surrounded with trees. I do miss that place, it still holds a lot of great memories with me.

AzNuggetBob

[FlakMagnet]

Okay, you got me remembering Bob...

In 1981, my partner (since passed away), and I were dredging on a river in the Mother Lode. We were being allowed to use a fella's claim - he was dredging upstream from us. Where we were working - we each had a 5-inch dredge - there was a huge boulder that everyone who knew about the claim speculated that, if someone could just get that boulder out of the way, it would be a bonanza. We both talked about it a lot.

One evening my partner told me he had an Arizona powder license and some dynamite left over from his work there, stashed in his camper - the first I had ever heard about it and it got my attention because my camper was parked right next to him. He said he was pretty sure he could "shatter" the boulder and then we'd be able to remove the pieces and subsequently be able to get the gold that was beneath it in the slate bottom…this was a pretty rich stretch of river. We decided to give it try.

I can't remember how many sticks he had but there were quite a few - enough so that we both thought they would do the job. He knew a hell of a lot more about how to place explosives and how much to use than I did. I actually didn't know anything other than explosives had to be handled carefully and be used with experiential knowledge and safety in mind. 

We spent a morning placing the explosives. He drilled a few holes into the boulder and also placed some other sticks in what he termed 'advantageous places.' I told him he was the boss, that I would take his word for it - that from what I saw, what he was doing made sense to my rookie comprehension. When he finished wiring everything up to some sort of electronic plunger-type device, we spooled the wires across the river and up into the rocks on the other side that we would use for cover. He looked over at me, "ready?" I said something like "go for it" and he pushed the button.

A few things happened simultaneously; the blast was instantaneous, deafening and huge as the boulder literally vanished in an enormous cloud of rocks and dirt accompanied by an astonishingly tall geyser of water. A second later lethal hunks of rock and debris rained down around us for what seemed like thirty seconds. When the rock and debris finally subsided I carefully peeked out from the tree I had crouched behind. The first thing I saw was that the entire river from the explosion site and on downstream was flowing black. It was as though we had struck an ink well under the surface as countless cubic yards of slate had been powdered in the detonation. The entire river was literally flowing opaque black as it disappeared around a distant bend on its way downstream. Black water continued to roil out of the underwater crater for hours.

Half an hour later as my heart-rate and the ringing in my ears began to settle down, I heard vehicles approaching up the road that ran beside the river. In the distance a line of cars was making their way upriver toward us. My partner and I ran for my car and drove into a nearby town where we spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening. Apparently the water had turned totally black for miles down the river, so much so that all the downstream dredgers had to get out of the water, which mightily pissed them off. They set out in search of the culprits. It took a day or so before the river completely cleared. It took a bit longer for our dredging neighbors to forgive us. We never found a single flake of gold anywhere near crater where the boulder used to sit.  

Edited June 30, 2023 by FlakMagnet

[way2cool]

These stories are great.    I wish I had one to share but I live a boring life. LOL.

[AZNuggetBob]

14 hours ago, FlakMagnet said:

Okay, you got me remembering Bob...

In 1981, my partner (since passed away), and I were dredging on a river in the Mother Lode. We were being allowed to use a fella's claim - he was dredging upstream from us. Where we were working - we each had a 5-inch dredge - there was a huge boulder that everyone who knew about the claim speculated that, if someone could just get that boulder out of the way, it would be a bonanza. We both talked about it a lot.

One evening my partner told me he had an Arizona powder license and some dynamite left over from his work there, stashed in his camper - the first I had ever heard about it and it got my attention because my camper was parked right next to him. He said he was pretty sure he could "shatter" the boulder and then we'd be able to remove the pieces and subsequently be able to get the gold that was beneath it in the slate bottom…this was a pretty rich stretch of river. We decided to give it try.

I can't remember how many sticks he had but there were quite a few - enough so that we both thought they would do the job. He knew a hell of a lot more about how to place explosives and how much to use than I did. I actually didn't know anything other than explosives had to be handled carefully and be used with experiential knowledge and safety in mind. 

We spent a morning placing the explosives. He drilled a few holes into the boulder and also placed some other sticks in what he termed 'advantageous places.' I told him he was the boss, that I would take his word for it - that from what I saw, what he was doing made sense to my rookie comprehension. When he finished wiring everything up to some sort of electronic plunger-type device, we spooled the wires across the river and up into the rocks on the other side that we would use for cover. He looked over at me, "ready?" I said something like "go for it" and he pushed the button.

A few things happened simultaneously; the blast was instantaneous, deafening and huge as the boulder literally vanished in an enormous cloud of rocks and dirt accompanied by an astonishingly tall geyser of water. A second later lethal hunks of rock and debris rained down around us for what seemed like thirty seconds. When the rock and debris finally subsided I carefully peeked out from the tree I had crouched behind. The first thing I saw was that the entire river from the explosion site and on downstream was flowing black. It was as though we had struck an ink well under the surface as countless cubic yards of slate had been powdered in the detonation. The entire river was literally flowing opaque black as it disappeared around a distant bend on its way downstream. Black water continued to roil out of the underwater crater for hours.

Half an hour later as my heart-rate and the ringing in my ears began to settle down, I heard vehicles approaching up the road that ran beside the river. In the distance a line of cars was making their way upriver toward us. My partner and I ran for my car and drove into a nearby town where we spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening. Apparently the water had turned totally black for miles down the river, so much so that all the downstream dredgers had to get out of the water, which mightily pissed them off. They set out in search of the culprits. It took a day or so before the river completely cleared. It took a bit longer for our dredging neighbors to forgive us. We never found a single flake of gold anywhere near crater where the boulder used to sit.  

Great story FlakMagnet.

We P.O.ed a few neighbors also. I know what you mean about the geysers of water from the blast. At first we used the water as a buffer for the noise and fly-rock.,when the dynamite went off it had more of a big thump to it. but with water in there it really shook the ground. after we pumped it out we lost that advantage and sent some rock sailing. We were drilling shallow hoes in the boulders and that by itself creates a lot of fly-rock. They referred to us as those crazy miners in town and down at Stanton. We had a lot of people driving by also up on the main road but none of them had the guts to stop and come down to the creek and see what we were doing. 

Just kept driving by. It was like we stirred up a hornets nest of them.

I've got another story similar to yours. I wrote it years ago here on Rob’s. If I can find it I will move it here or I will re-write it. I have several more dynamite related stories.

 If I were you I would get a metal detector and hunt the area above and around the crater in the creek, you probably created a new nugget patch up on the hillside.. and remember gold never disappears completely, it just gets re-deposited. lol

AzNuggetBob

Edited June 30, 2023 by AZNuggetBob