It all occurred when Gus and I returned to a remote placer gold area where we had previously found really good gold. The problem was that it would take about an hour to walk through the desert to get to it.

Every time we prospected here we found gold, sometimes some really coarse flakes, but no large nuggets (yet).

If you are interested in researching mining claims for any purpose, you will first have to decipher the BLM’s LR2000, a Rube Goldberg database seemingly designed by a 1980s Soviet-era computer hacker.

The burning question I needed answered was why didn’t the deposit ever get mined of at least one of the valuable minerals? A couple of reasons have come to light.

“Just feel the heft of it!” Those were the words that lit the fire that created a prospector. Before I tell you what took place, I have a desire to tell you when and where it took place.