July - Western Mining Alliance

Voice of the Independent Miner
July 2016
Legal Updates
Theory of Inverse Topography
Re‐Discovering an Old Lode Mine
Murphy’s Bar
Copyright 2016  Western Mining Alliance  www.theminingalliance.com
1
Changes Coming to Newsletter Mailing
“The only society I like is rough and tough, and the tougher the better. There's where you get down to bedrock and meet human people.” Robert Service
Our sole purpose over the past five years has been to raise
awareness of the issues; engage in the mining litigation
and to help people obtain their own federal mining claims
so we could strengthen the mining community.
a lot of these old claims were held as commercially viable
claims, but a large percentage were actually never worked.
They may still be commercially viable, but it’s unlikely they
would appeal to the small scale miner.
Beginning next month we’re going to make some changes.
After five years our mailing list has grown too large and it’s
time we did some adjustments. This will be the last
newsletter sent out to the mailing list you are currently on.
Beginning with the August newsletter we’re only going to
send the newsletter to those who have specifically
subscribed to the newsletter, or who are current members
of the Western Mining Alliance.
Another class of claims we’ve found are areas where
mining claims existed for a long time, but were abandoned
prior to BLM’s registry. Many of these claims were in small
ravines and benches where no current claims exist. These
claims may be suitable for small scale mining.
If you are on the list then you will continue to receive the
newsletter as always.
We’re going to remove the newsletter page on our
website; we’ve found too many people who don’t support
mining are voraciously reading what we write and that was
never our intention. For people who are members or
subscribe you will receive a link to the newsletter which
will be good for 5 days only.
To subscribe you need only go to our webpage
www.theminingalliance.com and click on the subscribe
button. We don’t send out spam, and we don’t barter,
trade or swap the newsletter list. We just send you a free
newsletter each month.
If you have subscribed since April of 2016 you will
automatically be included in the new mailing list. If you are
a current member of the Western Mining Alliance you will
also be automatically included. All other names will be
deleted and if you want to continue reading the newsletter
you’ll need to subscribe or join.
Our second change is how we’ll provide claim information.
The demand for the Claims Reports exceeds what we’ve
been able to produce and we’ve decided to only produce
annual Claims Reports for members.
Nearly everyone who has acquired a copy of the Claims
Report has located some nice mining claims.
Finally, it’s likely there is no other source of mining claim
information as extensive as what we have assembled. For
Motherlode counties we have put together an extensive
database of not only active claims, but areas where claims
were held for a long time, but were abandoned to history.
Over the past few months we’ve done quite a bit of field
work looking at some of these areas and we’ve concluded
Finally, we’ve been working on mapping out historic lode
mines. If you’ve run around enough you know you can
scarcely throw a dead cat without hitting a lode mine, the
trick is finding the historic lode mines which have some
value to them. Many of these old lode claims were merely
decomposed quartz veins and have largely been picked
over.
We will continue our efforts to assemble the most
thorough repository of mining areas in existence. To
provide a further benefit to members of the WMA we will
establish a “members only” page within the next few
months where we will begin posting some of our “hot tips”
on areas you may want to look at. We will also begin work
on our database where we will capture our combined
knowledge on areas we’ve prospected to save you some
field work.
We will begin writing up the results of our explorations
into different rivers, creeks, ravines and mountains and
provide you with the honest truth of what the area is like.
Hopefully this will also include pictures and our
assessment of an area as a potential mining claim. We’ve
spent thousands of hours prospecting and we feel there
should be some way to provide this information to a new
generation of prospectors to point them to suitable areas
for their particular type of mining.
As we continue to await the Rinehart decision, and then
move forward with our legal case in San Bernardino we
will continue our efforts to support the rights of the
individual miner and prospector to prospect, locate and
claim their own mine.
Thank you for your support and we hope as we go forward
we can provide the information you need to acquire your
own mining claim and become part of a community
carrying on a historic American tradition.
Page 2
Legal Updates
RINEHART CASE
Oral arguments in the Rinehart case were presented on
June 1st, 2016 and we’re currently awaiting a decision. The
only update over the past 30 days was the Court issued
some rulings on supplemental briefings and exhibits they
would accept, and which they wouldn’t accept.
Mr. James Buchal, the attorney for Brandon Rinehart
explained the Court’s recent rulings as follows:
[The California Supreme Court’s] Order of July 15, 2016
which addressed the requests for judicial notice by the
parties. As you may recall, the trial court had not permitted
evidence, the State then attempted to present its own
evidence to the Supreme Court, and I told the Court that
was improper, but if they were going to open the doors,
they should take our evidence too.
In general, the Court has taken a restrictive approach,
allowing the State to submit the legislative history of the
mining law and the Karuk Judgment. The Court refused to
allow the State’s data about gold prices and gold mining.
The Court also refused to allow the State to submit
portions of the FSEIR as evidence.
The Court did allow some federal materials of ours (and SB
637), but did not allow Judge Ochoa’s ruling. The Court also
would not take a copy of the brief of the United States in
Granite Rock, and some of the filings in the Oregon
Bohmker case; the Court did take the Oregon bill (SB 838).
On the whole, the action signifies that the Supreme Court
does not intend to allow any party to make its record
before the Supreme Court rather than the trial court. I
cannot say, however, that all these rulings really
foreshadow any ultimate outcome on the merits.
BOHMKER (OREGON) CASE
Arguments in support of the federal case Bohmker v.
Oregon were submitted on July 14th to the federal court by
Mr. James Buchal the attorney for the plaintiffs. Friend of
the court briefs were submitted on July 20th by Pacific
Legal Foundation / Western Mining Alliance and Mountain
States Legal Foundation and the American Mining and
Exploration Association (AMEA).
The two “amicus” briefs in support of Bohmker are
excellent briefs on federal mining and preemption and the
U.S. Mining Laws. We have both briefs posted to our
website where you can download them.
The Mountain States Brief is perhaps the best legal
explanation of mining rights, and the mining law, we’ve
seen prepared and anyone who wants to learn more about
the mining laws should read this excellent brief. Pacific
Legal once again did a superb job of defending federal
mining in their defense of federal preemption. These are
two very powerful briefs which we hope the court will
closely read.
Page 3
SUPPORT THE LAWSUIT!
Every month we make a plea for people to support our legal
costs. The litigation is far from over, and we’ve still got
lawyer bills to pay. Whether Rinehart wins of loses we still
must move forward on the San Bernardino cases which
includes our lawsuit challenging the 2012 Environmental
Impact Report. Regardless of whether Rinehart wins, we
must still over turn the EIR, it is our death sentence to leave
it in place while environmentalists file suit over the next 30
years based on the fraudulent data found in the report.
month we’ll begin posting a couple of locations we think you
should check out.
A second way to contribute, tax‐free, is to make a donation
to our non‐profit organization. You can join or donate from
the our website at www.theminingalliance.com.
We can also accept “in‐kind” donations. So if you don’t know
what to do with that late model luxury SUV with a lift kit and
big tires, we can help you out. If you’re holding on to gold,
and you don’t want your heirs to just squander it, then you
can send us the gold and we’ll take it as a donation, or we’ll
sell it for you tack on some extra to help us pay the lawyer
bills. We can take anything of value including gold; mining
claims; mining equipment; vehicles or virtually anything of
value.
You have two ways to contribute to the fight. You can join
the Western Mining Alliance. As a Gold Level member you
will receive the annual Claims Report with the State Report
of your choice. At the Silver Level you will have the option to
purchase the Claims Report for California. We will not be
selling Claims Reports for California this year to the general
public. You will also receive access to the members only
portion of the web site we’ll have up in a month or two
where we’ll post our “hot tips” for mining claims. Each
Whatever way you want to go please remember we’re still in
the legal fight, we’ve still got legal bills.
WANTED: 2.5” dredge sluice, the old type with the crash box header – and frame if possible. The old type which used to float on the inner‐tube. Email [email protected] with location and what you want for it. Financial support funds our litigation efforts. You can also make tax free donations to our non‐profit organization by
going to our website www.theminingalliance.com. If we’ve been advertising for you, and you want to keep on
advertising then you’ll need to contact us at [email protected] to continue your advertisement. Over the next
two months we’ll be restructuring the newsletter and the website and advertisers we’ll be reducing the number of
advertisements. This will be the last issue where we automatically put your advertisement in the newsletter.
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Bill Slack 530.277.3447 [email protected] Page 4
RE‐DISCOVERING AN OLD LODE MINE
“Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal.” Charles Dickens
Gold fever is an overused term. The term should be “freedom”
because that’s what gold is. Mining gold allows a man to hold to
the dream of hitting the pocket or the vein which will allow him
to quit his job and work his own mine full time.
We all wonder where the source of gold is we’re dredging up.
More often than not its from the Tertiary channels, but, not
always. Sometimes it’s from a lode source which has been
eroding for millions of years into a small ravine.
Once you start chasing the lode sources you find yourself
spending less time in the water, and more time on the dry,
dusty hills following the hints and traces of old mining
operations.
It’s rare, but not impossible, to find an undiscovered lode source
but more likely is to re‐open an historical lode mine and hope
with metal detector technology you can find what the old
miners passed by. This has been the strategy of the Original
16:1 mine in Alleghany, and they’ve done quite well by applying
new technologies to old problems.
These old lode mines are literally everywhere. Often nothing
but a trace of tailings is all that remains of their existence and
few records exist of the majority of them. Frequently these lode
mines were one or two man operations who quietly took out a
lot of gold.
Above – Beginning the process of digging out an old lode mine
An argument often overlooked when we stand in court
in defense of dredging is suction dredging is mining and
is a stepping stone to larger operations.
While the environmentalists, and the states, claim
suction dredging is merely recreational, this isn’t true for
everyone. While we miners may argue over the term
recreational the reality is most miners step into mining
by degrees. It may start with a pan and a few bits of
color, but then moves to a sluice box then owning your
own claim and buying mining equipment.
Suction dredges are merely a tool used in mining. That
some people run suction dredges, high bankers, hydro‐
force nozzles or metal detectors for recreation doesn’t
trouble me in the least. When they find paying amounts
of gold it’s no longer recreation and they will quickly
abandon their jobs if the gold they’ve found warrants it.
Opening an old lode mine is far different than dredge mining. At
the end of the day of dredging you could pan out the fruits of
your labor. At the end of the day of opening an old lode mine
you have a sore back, no gold, and a considerable amount of
work to do tomorrow and the days after that.
After years of dredging I finally chased down one of these old
lode mines. There is little written record of this mine. A
paragraph was all I could find, but it was enough to tell me the
mine was on the gold. The mine I decided to re‐open was first
located in the 1850’s. It was a three man operation which
consisted of an exposed quartz vein which ran for about 200
feet and then dived on both ends. The traces of the mine were
still barely evident on the hillside as over a hundred years of
slides and covered most of the workings.
It started with a sample of tailings which showed gold. The next
year I returned and ran a few five gallon buckets of quartz
tailings and it showed enough gold to convince me the mine had
a gold vein. This particular mine I liked because of the above
ground portion. I knew I could spend a few seasons working the
“slot” without having to worry yet about actual underground
work.
5
RE‐DISCOVERING AN OLD LODE MINE
The mine I chose to work appeared to be a small mine
with what looked like about a four foot slot where they
took out the quartz. With over a hundred years of slides
covering the majority of the workings it was hard to
really read the mine other than to get a bearing on
which direction the vein ran.
After a couple of days I had exposed a 3’ x 3’ sheet of iron which
was about ¼” thick. Finally I was able to lift the metal and there
lay the remains of an old portal. Collapsed, but there it was,
what I had sought all summer was finally open to the air.
Last summer I decided to file a claim on the mine and to
work it this summer. This was the first summer where I
began clearing away the waste rock in an attempt to
clear out the slot and find the portal.
After a few days of work it became evident this was a
much bigger mine than I first believed. The further down
I cleared the wider the slot became and the more
evident it became there would be at least two portals.
On one end of the slot was evidence someone had
worked this mine in the late 1960’s as evidenced by
some 2” drain pipe and old iron air lines, but it was the
other end of the slot which interested me.
Above – Iron plate exposed after 100 years. This plate was covering a collapsed shaft
Below the iron sheet were no more quartz tailings so I knew I
had finally reached the bottom of the slot and reading what
they were doing I had to assume they covered the portal
intending someday to return and work it. Of course they could
have just covered it to keep from falling in, but optimism tells
me they wanted to return to this tunnel.
I’ve still got a lot of work to do, and dirt to move, before I can
even think about opening one of these tunnels, and get the
required certifications, but I’m getting closer each day.
Above – Old drain pipe indicates a water problem down there somewhere.
Just past the six foot level, and about two feet deeper
than a piece of corrugated tin I hit another piece of
metal the shovel couldn’t bust through so I knew it was
thicker than old corrugated. I began clearing around this
sheet and gradually exposing the old metal, working
around one edge, then digging over burden down again
to find another corner.
This mine was in a well known trend of gold bearing quartz, and
several mines around it have produced some nice gold, this was
the forgotten mine all these years virtually covered up by the
slides. The amount of work the old miners put into this tells me
it wasn’t just a passing fancy and the gold I’ve found in the
tailings convinces me the crushed right at the mine and didn’t
use a mill.
I still miss the instant gratification which comes from dredging,
but I hope with patience and persistence the long term payoff
from the lode mine will be worth the years of effort to re‐
discover a lost lode mine.
6
LINDGREN’S THEORY OF INVERSE TOPOGRAPHY
The old hydraulic pits washed billions of cubic yards of tertiary
gravels, and we, through dredging or metal detecting, have
been the beneficiaries of the gold from the old channels, but
most of us haven’t spent a lot of time wondering how those
channels ended up at 5,000 feet (and above).
I went back and re‐read the parts of Lindgren. He lays out his
theory within the first few pages and the summary is the
current day ridges are the old river valleys and the current river
valleys are the old ridges. In other words everything we see
today is the inverse of what was present during the tertiary
period when the old channels were being enriched with gold.
Above – The Sierra Buttes tower above old tertiary channels near Sierra City
As a prospector you never stop learning. Prospecting is
the effort required to find gold, mining is the effort
required to recover the gold.
Prospecting is an endless process. No matter how good
your claim is now, if you believe it’s better over the next
hill you’ll pack up your gear and move.
A few weeks ago I was out prospecting with a couple
other guys and one of them was a geologist, Dave. It’s
not often you get to prospect with a real geologist so it’s
a great opportunity to learn all you can.
While hiking in to find an old drift mine tunnel which I
had found the year before, but then lost, we spent some
time talking about the rock formations which held the
old tertiary gravels. Nearly without exception the old
tertiary channels are located on the ridges, which has
always perplexed people. How did a river end up at
5,000 feet in elevation, especially one of the immense
size of the tertiary rivers.
At a water break Dave mentioned how the country we
were hiking in was a perfect example of Lindgren’s
theory of inverse topography.
I had read Waldemar Lindgren’s paper “The Tertiary
Gravels of the Sierra Nevada, 1911” but I didn’t recall
the theory Dave was speaking of. Perhaps I had read
Lindgren’s report with a specific purpose which was
reading about the specific quadrangle I was interested
in, but when Dave explained Lingren’s theory it made
sense.
“…the metal was traced to the old Tertiary river beds on the summits of the ridges and to the quartz veins, the primary source of all the gold in the Sierra Nevada.”
As Lindgren Explains;
Toward the close of the Mesozoic era the
sediments were compressed in heavy folds, and the
intrusion of granitic magmas forced them upward
to lofty summits; after the intrusion the fissures
and joints of granite rocks and altered sediments
became filled with veins and seams of gold bearing
quartz…A long period of erosion in the early
Cretaceous planed down the new‐born mountains.
The concentration of the gold from the veins began
in countless streams…Gradually the mountain were
thus reduced to gentler slopes and the canyons
widened to valleys. Meandering among
longitudinal ridges, the rivers flowed from low
divides to rolling foothills and the whole slope was
clothed in the dense vegetation of a damp
semitropical climate.
…Volcanic forces asserted themselves toward the
end of Tertiary time together with the greatest
volcanic activity in the Great Basin. Rhyolite flows
filled the valleys, covered the auriferous gravels,
and outlined new stream courses in the old valleys.
7
LINDGREN’S THEORY OF INVERSE TOPOGRAPHY
“Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal.” Charles Dickens
Renewed disturbance began along the scarcely
healed eastern breaks, resulting in a westward
tilting of the main blocks…the streams
immediately began to cut their beds deeper; they
repeatedly crossed their old courses and the
concentration of gold in the new canyons
proceeded under less favorable torrential
conditions.
Eruptions of andesitic tuffs began in enormous
volume an effectually buried a large number of
the streams, filling their valleys to the rims. At
the close of the Tertiary period a steaming,
desolate expanse of volcanic mud covered almost
the whole of the northern Sierra.
Torrential grades magnified the erosive power,
and thus began the canyon‐cutting epoch
resulting in the canyons we see today. The new
streams excavated sharp V‐shaped trenches in
the hard rock to a depth of 1,000 to 4,000 feet
below the surface of the flows. In many places
the old rivers of the Tertiary period were
exposed and the cross sections of their valleys
are now seen on the steep canyon slopes high
above the present river beds.
The peace of the wilderness was interrupted in
1849. An army of gold seekers invaded the
mountains; at first they attacked the auriferous
gravels of the present streams, but gradually the
metal was traced to the old Tertiary river beds on
the summits of the ridges and to the quartz
veins, the primary source of all the gold in the
Sierra Nevada.
The majority of the Tertiary rivers were covered in deep
layers of andesitic flows. The flows as Lindgren described
them covered the old channels to their rims making them
level with the existing ridges. The existing ridges then
were eroded away leaving the old channels, covered in
andesite as the new ridges as the new rivers cut deep
canyons through the Tertiary channel ridges.
If you spend much time in the higher elevations of the
Motherlode you will find andesite nearly everywhere. It’s
almost a granite looking rock, but decomposes much
quicker and is easily recognizable because it’s one of the
“hot rocks” which will set off your metal detector.
The source of these andesitic flows were a particular type of
volcano which was found near the crest of the Sierras. These
andesitic volcano remnants can still be observed today in
various places of the Sierras including
…andesitic volcanoes were mainly located along
the crest of the Sierra – in fact, almost
continuously from Thompson Peak, west of
Honey Lake. Farther south the eruptions
diminished greatly in intensity. In the
Downieville quadrangle important eruptive
centers are found at Mount Ingalls, Grizzly
Peak, and the group of old volcanoes around
Mount Fillmore, near the line between Plumas
and Sierra counties.
The reason we, as prospectors, read the historical reports is to
point us towards the areas which were highly enriched with
gold. You could spend a lifetime learning what the old geologists
have already studied and wrote reports on.
If you plan on working the Motherlode reading Lindgren’s
report is a must. It’s not just dusty old research, but a roadmap
to where the gold is, or should be. Once you understand how
the tertiary rivers ran, then were disrupted and re‐cut by
present drainages it leads you to many areas where good gold
should be.
For example, as you read Lindgren’s report you find the lighter
formations were eroded away as the present day rivers cut their
canyons, but you also find some intrusions were much harder
than the volcanic layers and consequently they tended to stop
and concentrate the gold even further.
“..the concentration of the gold would be greatly
facilitated both by sinking of the particles through the
gravel and by a continuous though slow downstream
movement of the detritus in the rivers. In this
connection it is worthy of note that the lower narrow
valleys through the greenstone ridges must have
acted as barriers tending to hold the gravels in the
middle reaches of the streams. Along the Tertiary
Yuba River, where these conditions were emphasized,
we find both the richest and deepest gravels.
Want an example of using Lindgren’s research? You need look
no further than the Ruby Mine near Downieville.
8
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9
Epic Day at Murphy’s Bar
smart phones.
When you reach a certain age you don’t care what some kid
in his twenties has to say about anything. The fact is
whatever his opinion he’s wrong. There is the slight chance
he could agree with my opinion, and be right, but this
doesn’t happen very often.
Rocky had a scattering of Lake customers sipping more
expensive brands than Old Tailings, but we refused the offer
of free beer to sit at the back table and sat at our usual spots
at the bar. Bob and I really don’t care about the social issues
of the day and you won’t find us debating the merits of gay
rights; animal rights; saving whales or hiking; biking; paddle
boarding; rafting or four wheeling.
I like my summers hot. People in the valley can snivel about
110 degree heat, but when you’re working above 5,000 feet
the temperature is a pretty comfortable 85 degrees which is
the only time of the year the water in Starvation Creek
warms up enough to not induce hypothermia.
The other nice thing about hot days is it gives you an excuse
to stop a little early and head to Murphy’s for a cold beer. Of
course I’ve used the same rationale on cold days, but cold
beer seems to go better with hot days.
So it was with this excuse in mind Bob Flanagan and I found
ourselves at Murphy’s Bar, the tavern, not the dredging
claim, ordering up a couple Old Tailings IPAs.
On most days, and by most days I mean days where there
are no other customers in Murphy’s Bar, Rocky Stone, the
bartender, is happy to see us. Or at least see our open
wallets. In the summer there is a subtle change in his
reaction as we walk in the door, which largely consists of
cringing and offering us free beer if we sit at the table
furthest from the bar.
Bob and I hold certain opinions which aren’t always popular
amongst the people who drive up to The Lake on the
weekend. Invariably they have bumper stickers encouraging
you to save something or telling you all about the time they
did something other than type out text messages on their
There are damned few conversations Bob and I would
engage in which don’t involve gold, looking for gold, or
mining gold. If you’re a miner you know what I’m talking
about. So Bob and I talk to few other people, which is exactly
the way Rocky, the bartender, likes it.
Rocky seems to feel we’re not good for weekend business
and we’ve picked up on some of his non‐verbal clues such as
placing our beers at the furthest end of the bar hoping we’d
move away from the two kids sitting at the bar next to us.
Bob and I just stared at the beers and stared at Rocky. Rocky
kind of bobbed his head towards the beers at the end of the
bar. Our arms weren’t long enough to reach the beers, and
Rocky didn’t seem inclined to move them to our right spot
when the kid next to us says,
“I don’t come up here to relax, I come up here to punish
myself.”
Rocky visibly winced. I thought, well, this was interesting
coming from a twenty something year old kid with a patchy
beard and an expensive, sleek looking 4x4 sitting in the
parking lot. One of those jeep things that look like off‐road
racing vehicles you see in the Baja races.
“So, you’re a miner?” I reply.
“A what?” The kid asks with a stunned mullet look.
10
Murphy’s Bar
“A miner. You said you come up here to punish yourself, not to relax, so you must be up here to either mine or log.” I replied.
“No, I meant I’m going to take my Razor on a fifteen mile trip down across the Yuba and then over to Downieville and get a piece of pizza. Then I’ll come all the way back. It’s going to be epic.”
“Where’s the punishment part?” Bob asked. “You got a girlfriend who wears leather and carries a whip?”
“Dude, the road into that canyon is brutal it pounds the hell out of you.” The kid replies seriously.
“You want brutal?” Bob asks while Rocky starts making motions for me to pull Bob away. “Try packing a 10 horse engine on your back into that canyon.”
Mouth slightly open the first kid said “Old dude, you are certifiably insane.” He then pulled some bills out of his pocket and threw them on the bar.
“No news there.” I said under my breath. Rocky just stood there and watched them leave. With a sigh he said “What’d you do that for? Those two were actually spending money.”
“I didn’t have the heart to tell the kid I accidently backed over his four wheeler when I was pulling in. I figured it would be easier on him to just think I was some crazed miner, I didn’t want to complicate things by talking about insurance companies.”
“You don’t have an insurance company.” I reminded Bob.
Ahh, here we go I think watching Rocky bury his face in his hands.
“Right. You can see how it would get complicated pretty fast.” Bob replied.
“Epic?” Bob asks. “Try losing your footing on the side of a hillside and sliding through thirty yards of poison oak. That’s epic.”
Rocky stood there dumb founded. “You ran over his Razor?”
“They’re a little hard to see, it wasn’t my fault.” Bob responded.
“You want torture and pain?” Bob is now hitting his stride with, or without my help, “Try crushing your fingers under a 200lb boulder which just fell on top of the boulder you were using for a hand rest three feet under water.”
“Some day do you two idiots think you could let me earn some money.” Rocky asked.
The kids just stared at Bob, then at Rocky, then back to me.
“Now c’mon Rocky it’s not our fault your bar is full of herbivores in a carnivore world.” Bob said with a grin, “Say, who’s the guy over there in the fly fishing vest?”
The two kids looked at Bob with his four blackened fingers and a bad case of poison oak.
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Save the
Date!
The 4th Annual Gathering of Miners
Indian Valley Outpost and Resort (Yuba River)
September 24th – 25th, 2016 
Saturday 24th – Bring your used mining equipment for a mining equipment swap meet. Dredges, highbankers, parts, hardrock mining, trommels etc.

On Site Claims on the North Fork of the Yuba and nearby claims to work during both days

We’ll be raffling off a placer mining claim

Camping on site and nearby
All Proceeds to Fund our Efforts to Restore our Mining Rights
Camping: You can make reservations at Indian Valley Resort at www.indianvalleyoutpostresort.com There is public camping in nearby campgrounds. If you prefer to stay in a cabin you can reserve a cabin at the Indian Valley Outpost, if they are full you can get a room at the Downieville River Inn (see ad at end of newsletter) and there are camping cabins at The Lure Resort east of Downieville.
Public Campgrounds include: Lower and Upper Carton Campground; Ramshorn Campground; Rocky Rest; Indian Valley and Fiddle Creek. We recommend you make reservations as Yuba River Campgrounds fill up on weekends.
If you plan on coming, please support the Indian Valley Campground by staying there. We plan on having a BBQ in the evening, so by staying at Indian Valley Outpost you can join the rest of us as we sit around the fire, have a few beers and talk about gold and freedom.
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We’ve still got significant legal bills on our desk right now, and
we have more to go to get through the trial in San Bernardino
and the likely appeal. The appeal alone will be about $4,000 just
to file it, let alone the lawyer costs to push it forward.
While we’ve pushed for financial support for the other cases,
and you’ve funded them, we’ve been looking at a constant
stream of legal bills going unpaid and once the state Supreme
Court decision is made our case will be the highest priority case
apart from the Bohmker case in Oregon.
The Bohmker case is still the number one priority for the mining
community followed by the CEQA case in San Bernardino. These
cases need your financial support.
Continuing the Fight
We’ve been pushing out the newsletter for over five years now.
Some people like it, some don’t. By now most who don’t like it
have un‐subscribed but our list has grown to the point it’s
getting larger than we’d like so we’ve decided to start from
scratch.
If you want to keep receiving the newsletter you’ll need to go to
our webpage and click the button to sign up. We never intended
to distribute the newsletter to thousands, and we never
intended it to go to people’s junk mail as spam so the only
solution we could come to was start all over again.
If you’ve been following us over the past few years then you
know we continue to adapt how we do things, all in an effort to
provide you with relevant information, in particular about what’s
going on with the legal cases.
During that time we’d like to think we were instrumental in
getting the information out and raising awareness about cases
which need funding and the truth is you guys actually funded the
cases which needed funding and we managed to all pay the costs
of getting the Rinehart case from the trial court to the Supreme
Court, and you’ve made a dent in the Bohmker case, but there
are still bills left to pay on that.
We’ve tried to always be straight and to give credit where it’s
due with an objective view. Our belief was the financial support
should always go to the right case, at the right time and not
simply into a pool of money which accumulated.
The financial support we’ve received has always gone straight to
the lawyer. We spend a little bit each year for a hotel room in
Washington DC, but we don’t use any funds for travel costs or
any other expense, we just reimburse two nights of a hotel room
so we can lobby Congress to change some of the laws which
impact small scale miners.
We’ve been clear on what we believe the long term solution is to
solve the issues on the plate right now. We believe in litigation
and we believe in a long‐term political solution. The political
solution is dependent on the fall elections and we don’t believe
we should place our future on an outcome we can’t control.
We can control litigation. Right now we, as a mining community,
should be actively filing more lawsuits, not fewer. We need to
put these people on their heels every time they do something
stupid. Without lawsuits we’re simply an old dog with no teeth.
Every time these people turn around we should have a lawsuit
nipping at their heels until such time as they change their
behavior and begin working within the constraints of the federal
mining laws.
Recently we had a dredger work his way throughout the entire
byzantine system required by the State and submitted for a
permit to the Water Board, who promptly stonewalled him. They
then told him they didn’t have to do anything on his permit
request until 2017, after state‐wide hearings, and oh, by the
way, we’ll need $2,000 to just process your permit, no guarantee
you’ll get it though.
SB 637 is in desperate need of a lawsuit. It’s likely we’ll need a
new set of lawsuits filed in federal court over the California,
Oregon and Idaho laws. We need to challenge the US EPA and
we need to get some wins under our belt. This doesn’t happen if
the legal efforts aren’t being funded.
There are certainly different ideas and different approaches on
how to begin winning, but we don’t see any solution which
doesn’t require continuous litigation to keep the states and
agencies in check.
No approach should ever rely on a solution which is based on the
winds of political change. All solutions should be Constitutionally
based.
This isn’t a five year fight, or a ten year fight. It’s a generational
fight. A fight in which we must always maintain our vigilance and
our ability to file lawsuits.
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Downieville River Inn
When in Downieville, stay where the miners stay at the Downieville River Inn. With room sizes and small cabins to meet your needs you can stay for a night or a month. Conveniently located just steps from the courthouse you can do your claims research or annual filings within minutes. The Inn is located just steps from the Yuba River and includes a heated swimming pool and rooms with kitchenettes for long term stays. Ask for the “Miners Rate” to receive a discount for your room rate.
Call Diane at (530) 289‐3308
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PARTING SHOTS
If you have no interest in the history of mining then the following shots won’t interest you. But…for a great example of how they worked the pits you can’t beat this shot.
Quartz Flowers?
Early in the year there’s a riot of wild flowers throughout the
Sierra. The flower to the left was found in a decomposed quartz
vein. The picture below isn’t snow, it’s the rest of the
decomposed outcropping.
Did you ever wonder how they hooked together the
pipe and moved it? About every twenty feet or so
they had a connection which is shown to the below
right. Below shows moving the pipe wasn’t such a
small thing. If you look closely you’ll see they built a
“cradle” for the pipe throughout the pit. This section
of pipe was followed from the water ditch to the
very shallow bedrock they were working. It would
actually be a good claim for someone.
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