Lucky Friday 13th Nugget


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Yo All...Today was a lucky Friday 13th for yer Unc in the Dubyah...Scoped out a new, untouched gulch near Wickenburg yesterday and today I got out to it about noon...Fricken catsclaw hell for about 1,000 feet...Vertical walls so I had no choice but to rip my way through it...Looked like I had been in a knife fight by the time I reached the top...Only targets were two boot tacks...I had examined the gulch system the night before on Google earth and noted that another little gulch about 1,000 feet east had a small red patch near its source...I decided to hike on over the ridge to check it out, even though most of it was that hot purple bedrock that's really noisy to beep in...When I dropped down into the gulch, sure enough it was very noisy, kind of a constant moaning from my ol' Baboo SD2100, even with the DD NF 14" XP...But then I got into an area where there were lots of round river cobbles all mixed up with the hard angular rocks which are more common to the area...I began to realize that the round cobbles were sloughing off of a red rhyolite or lava and most of the rocks in the lava were rounded while the rest of the rocks in the area were sharp edged ... I slowly beeped my way down the little gully which was the top of the gulch and suddenly a the top of an inside turn got a hellashishly loud "round" sound ... Dug down about 10 inches and got this beautiful 4.1 gram nugget...I think it came out of the lava and was in an ancient stream-bed when the volcanic eruption spewed lava over it capturing round river rocks and nuggets too ... The area certainly deserves at least one more visit since gold was the only target in the entire gully system ... Here's some pix ... Cheers, Unc

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Hey Cuz, that is a beautful nugget!

Sounds as though you earned it, though!

Whatcha gonna do if you get hung up in the catclaws and

can't get your way out? Better pack some smoke cannister

so's somebody can come to your aid if you do!

I don't have color in my moustache any more. just gray and

grayer.

Thanks for the great story and photos!

Yer cuz in the snowy north...

Gary

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That's a sweetie there Uncle Ron! Congratulations. I get to spread 30 tons of - 3/8ths red crushed granite in my backyard this weekend as part of my wife's landscaping project, lucky me!

Doing all of the landscaping myself is saving me a ton of money, but it is taking a toll on my back.

Doc

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Yo All...Today was a lucky Friday 13th for yer Unc in the Dubyah...Scoped out a new, untouched gulch near Wickenburg yesterday and today I got out to it about noon...Fricken catsclaw hell for about 1,000 feet...Vertical walls so I had no choice but to rip my way through it...Looked like I had been in a knife fight by the time I reached the top...Only targets were two boot tacks...I had examined the gulch system the night before on Google earth and noted that another little gulch about 1,000 feet east had a small red patch near its source...I decided to hike on over the ridge to check it out, even though most of it was that hot purple bedrock that's really noisy to beep in...When I dropped down into the gulch, sure enough it was very noisy, kind of a constant moaning from my ol' Baboo SD2100, even with the DD NF 14" XP...But then I got into an area where there were lots of round river cobbles all mixed up with the hard angular rocks which are more common to the area...I began to realize that the round cobbles were sloughing off of a red rhyolite or lava and most of the rocks in the lava were rounded while the rest of the rocks in the area were sharp edged ... I slowly beeped my way down the little gully which was the top of the gulch and suddenly a the top of an inside turn got a hellashishly loud "round" sound ... Dug down about 10 inches and got this beautiful 4.1 gram nugget...I think it came out of the lava and was in an ancient stream-bed when the volcanic eruption spewed lava over it capturing round river rocks and nuggets too ... The area certainly deserves at least one more visit since gold was the only target in the entire gully system ... Here's some pix ... Cheers, Unc

That's some neat gold you're finding. Google Earth is an amazing program. It's nice to be able to tilt everything and move it all around and look at a mountain from the backside a see the roads and trails. Are you using the free version of Google earth or the $400 dollar version?

LeRoy (in Montana)

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Hey Uncle Ron,

Congrats on your recent finds. It's great to know there are still hundreds, if not thousands of locations still to find gold nuggets. I actually prefer searching for the little, overlooked placer deposits rathar than searching around the well-known ones. Some of the smaller, uneconomic ones are prime time targets for metal detectors.

Wishing you much more luck.

Rob Allison

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WAY to use Google Earth! I've done a bit of that myself, great thing is of course you can zoom in over everything, bad thing is when you get out there with the gps you say to yourself "What? -You mean I have to walk through that?". :closedeyes:

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