Going For the Gold part II

So after a very eventful Friday night it was time to try and find some of that elusive yellow metal.

We decided to go try and pan the stream where it ran through existing tailings from the original dig. Dan and I really tried but didn't know what we were doing at all. So in the end we spent more time exploring the ruins, hiking to the mine entrance, and just enjoying the surroundings.

The first picture is of a cave that Dan and Eli found, I didn't get to it because i was on a trip to Wendover to get more fuel. I spent a good six hours riding in a police cruiser. Actually the same cops who the night before had us on our stomachs with guns at our backs. He felt so bad he offered to buy my fuel.


When I got back from my little trip we went and found the entrance to the original mine. Queen of Sheba was the name of it. after getting past the entrance it opens up to huge rooms with tunnels going in every direction. there were old rails from the mining carts, a shaft going down probably 50 ft with a pully system to raise and lower items. We went down one of the shafts until we hit another room, the ceiling was probably about 40 ft above our heads and you could see the vein of quarts going all along one wall and down one tunnel. all in all a very cool experience. Dan was pretty worried about the safety and the liability of having people in the mine so we all left until we could come back with someone who knew the layout and we had the right equipment.

The other two pictures are showing our camp and the canyon looking out to the valley. everything from the bottom of the canyon on was reservation. This is in the middle of Utah's west desert. you come around a corner and all of a sudden everything is green. it is amazing.

Good as Gold

Let me tell you about a little adventure I had this weekend. First, I must let you know that the following tale is true, not embelished (much).

Dan Fishler, Eli (dan's friend) and I decided that we were going to go to Dan's family's mine.,
the Queen of Sheba Gold mine, and try our luck at panning for gold. Dan has been trying to get me to go to this mine for about 6 months. This weekend it finally worked out and friday night we loaded up my truck and headed out to the Ourray mountain range in West Utah.

We got to wendover at about 9pm. I had about a half a tank left in my truck (which runs on diesel). I asked dan "Do we need fuel?"

Famous last words "Its only a 60 mile trip we should be fine." so contrary to the feeling in my gut we headed out to the mountains.

After driving approximatly 60 miles we got to the litte town, and when I say town I am strongly exaterating, of Goshute, Utah. To get to Dan's family property we had to pass through the goshute tribal lands. To do this you must have written permission from the tribal counsel. We had it.

we drove through the reservation with no excitement passing only one other car. as we headed up the dirt road toward the mine we noticed a car was starting up the same road coming from town. Thinking it was just a local rancher we kept driving. After going almost 3 miles up the road we found a place we could turn around and stay for the night.

As we were sitting in the truck looking at the map of where we were the car that had been following us pulled into view. It pointed a spotlight at us then turned on its red and blues, A tribal policeman.

He got on the loud speaker and told me to turn off the headlights of my truck then approach his vehicle with my hands on my head. His headlights were shining right in my eyes and I couldn't see the road where I was walking. I looked completely inebriated and tripped and fell to my knees two or three times. When I was 10 yards away from him he came over his speaker and told me to lift my shirt to my chin and slowly turn all the way around. then he told me to do this again. Then facing away from him he had me kneel down then slowly lay flat on my face in the dirt. Eli and dan went through the same process. When all three of us were laying flat on our faces we heard a distinct Click Click of a bullet being chambered. It does sound just like in the movies and it does have just as much of a scare factor as they make it seem to. The officer that had been talking to us then walked, gun up and ready to fire, to my vehicle to search it. His partner had a 12 guage shotgun aimed at our heads and told us to just stay put. We had no problems obeying.

long story short (haha a little late for that I know) he asked us what we were doing here, where we thought we were, etc. found out he was on Dan's property and we knew exactly where we were. They apologized for the hassle and had us go try to start my truck so they could get by and turn around to go home. due to the haste with which we stopped the vehicle it got stopped on a steep hill and the fuel was low enough that it wouldn't start. We had to push it out of the way so they could get by. They told us that one of them would come back in the morning either with fuel or would take us back into town to get some.

that was friday night. I am going ot leave it at that for now and I will catch up on the rest of the weekend tomorrow.