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Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016

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Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 Empty Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016

Post by Admin Sat May 21, 2016 9:26 am

Greetings  Gold Adventurers...

I recently had the great opportunity to head out of state............to prospect the high desert of Nevada............and metal detect for gold with 2 good friends, Bill & John.  Bill owns some claims in the Rye Patch area of Nevada, a well-known gold area.  We all decided to meet at Rye Patch and hunt for gold.....for about a week on location.....from 10 thru 17 May.

Bill & I drove out in his truck, pulling his pop-up trailer and John, having limited time, flew into Reno and rented a Jeep and drove out to meet us.  We brought all of John’s camping stuff with us in our truck.  Bill & I left Colorado on 9 May, laid over in Salt Lake City and arrived at Rye Patch the afternoon of 10 May.  It was about 840 miles each way and 13 hours of driving w/o stops, so a serious hike to say the least thru Wyoming, Utah and into middle Nevada (and later back).

Bill had his pop up trailer and John & I would tent camp.  We found a good spot on his claim, set up camp, all the time dreaming of getting’ our metal detectors fired up, go out lookin’ for nuggets.  The landscape was typical Nevada desert.....no trees, sage and various brush & plants, about 50% of the ground barren dirt.  We were setup under the watchful eye of Mt. Majuba to the West.

Here’s a look of our camp first setup, before John arrived.  I put my tent on the leeward side of bill’s trailer, as it acted like a good windbreak:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08511_zpsqpw1lr1c

After dinner Bill got his MineLabs 7000 detector out and started tuning and playing with it...........and within 30 minutes or so had his first little gold nugget!  Way to go Bill.  I just ran around with my Gold Bug Pro for a while, looking to see how it worked in the rocky, volcanic ashy/silty soil.  There were lots of areas of visible salt that gave me elevated noise and effectively cut the depth my detector could go. Lots of broken shale too:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08515_zpshxi8qfth

A look at some of the terrain and old “push piles” from a dozer back in the days past scraping off the overburden and folk’s obviously looking for gold on the shaly bedrock:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08516_zpspebvtdt7

Fun, fun, fun....  But, after 2 long, hard days on the road, it was time for an early turn in, get some much needed sleep.  My sleeping bag felt surprisingly good and it wasn’t long before I was sawing logs.  At 5:15 AM I awoke to the sun rising in the East, and it was cool..........real cool.  Made it hard to crawl out of that warm bag, put on cold clothes.  Breakfast was scrambled egg burritos and hot salsa and 2 cups of Joe served up by Bill.

With the sun as hot as it was, we put up John’s canopy to create a shady space to enjoy:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08518_zpsiiv0iknn

The landscape was wide open, treeless and windswept.  A view looking Northeast and Rye Patch Reservoir in the distance:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08519_zps6ktw4wtd

A view way across the valley to the East where Barrick Gold has a HUGE open pit gold mine on the far mountain:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08520_zpss8rflukj

Our game plan for his claims over the week was to 1). Remark the claims and 2). Detect the heck out of them.

So, goal one was, by the time we left, effectively put up all new monuments, signage, and use GPS to validate all the corners & boundaries.  Bill brought out a dozen 5-foot 4X4 treated wood posts and signs and we’d go back into Winnemucca in a couple days to get 12 bags of concrete to permanently erect his monuments & markers.

Here’s just one of 12 monuments we erected.  4 Had larger signs too:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08550_zpshgfhsc9k

Goal two was to hit the high ground, middle ground, low ground and ridges and washes and see what was productive, what wasn’t and get a real good idea of the lay of the land.

The high desert was a land of extremes...  At night almost freezing, by 3PM we had 86 & 87 degrees and blazing sun 2 days.  Other days we had clouds, thunderstorms, high winds, rain falling sideways and always dusty.
John showed up about noon on Friday the 13th, and so we setup his tent, creating a nice “C” shape to our camp with his pop up canopy overhead our cooking/congregation area.  Now that John was here, it was high time to get out all the detectors, really do some walking and hunting for gold.

Because of the sun & heat, we decided a plan of attack was breakfast, get out early for about 3 hours detecting and head back, have lunch, rest.  In the later afternoon we’d walk off the claims with GPS and carry posts, cement and water, setup monuments and signage.  Then, late in the afternoon before dinner, do a little more detecting as the sun set to the West behind Mt. Majuba.

For the most part, Bill ran his deep-seeking MineLabs 7000, John ran a MineLabs 5000 and I detected with my Gold Bug Pro or Bill’s Gold Bug 2. I’d try to focus on the shallow dry washes, the tops of ridges where the bedrock was shallow. Here’s the GB 2 setup I used mostly:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08523_zpsbx0suesg

Out walking around I came across a fair number of Horned Toads (really a horned lizard) and fast moving Great Basin Collard lizards.  Here’s one of the Horned Toads I easily caught,  Very cool animal:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08540_zpsxiexkhwy
Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08542_zps5lroctq1

Here’s a panoramic view of the Rye Patch area from some higher ground:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08524_zpstjxrsmal
Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08525_zpso9tpnquz
Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08526_zpsqy2baqmo

One thing for sure.......there was a LOT of broken and fractures quartz and many huge quartz outcroppings all over the area.  I detected there a bunch, hoping for a nice gold in quartz specimen, but no luck on that goal.

This Rye Patch area has been worked on & off since the late 1800s I am guessing and probably saw a resurgence back in the 1930s when the famed Depression Era prospectors hit the hills, reworked a lot of old mining areas.  This old, handmade dry washer is a relic probably from the 1930s.  Very cool!

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08528_zpsfk2e39du
Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08530_zpswxaaqvpu

I heard the area was worked hard again in the 1970s & 1980s.

Each morning was a new day to enjoy a new sunrise.  We’d normally get up either just before or just as the sun was rising over the hills in the Northeast:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08535_zpsb5chgk8k

Always cool early, BUT it would warm fast once the sun was up...

Here’s John out playing around with the Gold Bug 2:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08538_zpsqazhdr63

Afternoons could be either hot & sunny, cloudy & cool, stormy & windy/rainy.....no telling.  Here’s a pic of our campsite with Mt. Majuba in the background, watching over us:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08543_zpspqgstfyc

A closer view of Mt. Majuba:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08545_zps4esw3klk

Tried as we did, we weren’t finding much gold.  Large areas either didn’t have a target to be had/dug, or it was part of the old mining camps and areas where old timers left a lot of trash.  Here’s john diggin’ a target:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08549_zpsmmygigxq

I took a little time to simply walk, wander around the vast area......exploring, but not detecting.  You could see that in other areas some folks got REAL busy in the with heavy equipment doing “scrapes” to expose bedrock, pushed up “push piles” and pits & trenches.  Maybe some of the 1970s & 1980s effort I heard about?  This one excavation was big/deep:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08551_zpstdjbpznh

Beside this pit was an old wash plant sitting lost & forlorn, with it’s sluice box removed.  So, some day in the past someone must have had a pond, water trucked out to run it:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08553_zpswdbxlvun

Later in the week a cold front pushed thru, changing the weather from hot & dry to windy, cold and wet.  We got thunder stormed on several times and the rain fell sideways and the wind threatened to blow out canopy and tents away.  We ended up tying off the canopy to first Bill’s truck and the 2nd time to John’s rental Jeep to keep it from blowing away:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08556_zpszbrpbwjn
Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08557_zps6sd35e5r

You gotta’ do what you gotta do!

One afternoon, after one of these big wind/rain thunderstorm events passed on, we were rewarded with a double rainbow.  I told John to quick, get his detector and run to the end of the rainbow, get filthy, stinkin’ rich with gold.  Ha.  He didn’t bite off on that one:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08559_zps2h6xpep4

Even if we weren’t finding a lot of gold, we sure ate well...  Breakfasts, lunches & dinners were great.  Normally scrambled eggs & coffee in the mornings, sandwiches & chips/salsa for lunch and grilled rib eye or NY strip steaks of pulled pork or smoked sausages.  This was our last breakfast where we piled in all the leftover sandwich meat, smoked sausage.  Yum!

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08565_zpslpcuqbmy

Back to the gold...  Neither John or I got a nugget.  Bill got a 2nd nugget the day before we left.  Here’s a pic of Bill’s 2 gold nuggets:

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08568_zpsmcx2h1eo

So, all in all, it was a great “Gold Adventure” and bill scored some gold and we all had a fun time out, camping in the high desert of Nevada.  We broke camp on Tuesday, 17 May.  Bill & I drove reverse route back to Salt Lake City, then to Colorado on Wednesday, 19 May.  John headed back to Reno, then over the Sierra Nevada hills to Auburn, California.  He toured the Sutter’s Mill State Park, checked out the SF American River and made it back to Oklahoma the following day.

SO, another adventure for the record books!  Hope you too get off the couch, do what the old timers did, create a “hard fun” memory and maybe even find some gold.

God bless,

Randy  C-17A   Smile

P.S. After I got home I crushed up several reddish sandstone looking rocks that made my detector "sound off" and panned the material. Well, I got maybe 6 to 8 TINY little micro specks of gold! Ha. SO, technically I didn't get skunked. Wink

Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08570_zpsly3ha3pq
Nevada -- Rye Patch Detecting -- May 2016 DSC08572_zpsdxalyeg0


Last edited by Admin on Fri May 27, 2016 8:09 am; edited 1 time in total
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Post by russau Sat May 21, 2016 10:40 am

Randy good trip report ! THANKS for the tag-a-long! I can almost hear the coyotes yelping at night!

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Post by OKJohn Sat May 21, 2016 2:46 pm

It was a great trip.  Thanks for recording it here Randy.  

Quotes like "The Curse of Majuba!", and "Make Tomorrow Go Away...", and the combination "Make Majuba Go Away..." are seered into my memory for years to come.  

We might not have found much gold, but we had a great time.  Thanks for the invite, Bill!

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Post by dickb Sun May 22, 2016 12:23 pm

Hi Randy:

Nothing like having a Coleman Hotel  to follow you on your prospecting adventures. Look like it was a fine adventure and even without finding a bunch of yella stuff it was a good time. Next time you'll have a better chance of finding it now that you have some idea of where it's hiding at. Very Happy

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Post by Admin Thu May 26, 2016 6:17 am

John, everyone...

Late breaking news. I was curious about some of the reddish sandstone looking pieces of rock that made my GB 2 sound off, so I crushed a couple and panned out the dust.

Got a couple small specks of gold, so I guess I didn't get skunked after all! Ha. Wink

I have a couple more of them to crush, pan, and then I'll try to post a pic of all my gold soon....even if just a few specks. Wink Maybe later today.

Randy C-17A Smile
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Post by dickb Thu May 26, 2016 12:58 pm

Hey Randy:

Post a photo of the redish sandstone as well. I'd be interested to see what it looks like. Maybe you need to be looking for a large area of the sandstone the next time you head down there.

Seem like every area you go to the gold is hiding in a different place. I'm glad you found a little for your trouble. Never stop learning.

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Post by Admin Mon May 30, 2016 8:29 am

Dickb,

Sorry.... But, I only had a few pieces and I crushed & panned them all... It was actually pretty hard to bust up, very fine in texture.

I think next time we should try some dry washing of the big push piles just to see IF we could recover any fine, fine gold our detectors couldn't "see". If there's nuggets around, you gotta think there's be at least SOME fine placer gold too. Right?

Randy C-17A Smile
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Post by dickb Mon May 30, 2016 9:04 am

Sounds like a plan to me. Go for it.

Do you need another excuse to plan a trip?

Good Luck.

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Post by Admin Sun Nov 13, 2016 7:35 am

Didkb,

Sounds like my claim owning buddy Bill is already planning on another big trip to Nevada May of 2017.

Think he's got another new coil for his Minelabs GPZ-7000 that can "see" like 3 feet down......for the BIG nuggets.

I think he'll also need a backhoe too, because IF he gets a signal THAT deep, well...........digging that deep by hand with a pick and shovel in that hard ground will not be easy!

I wish Bill luck!

Randy C-17A Smile
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