Prospecting.

In some earlier posts I have talked a little bit about prospecting. I gave some information about some of my grandfather's claims and recently a few posts about my dad's claims. I have decided to add this prospecting slant to the theme of this blog and put more emphasis on it. It won't be just about gold, though I will be talking about that. It will also be about gemstones. If you check out some of the links you will see that I have already made a step in that direction. I have also had a few posts about gemstones and will likely do much more in this area. I will also mention from time to time some current events in our country, America, that affect prospecting, mining our resources and individual prospectors. I will likely move away from the nutrition theme of this blog. I am doing this rather than start a new blog because this one is already establishes and does have some foundation for the theme of prospecting.

Old Stove Claims.

This is Entrada Point just off the Caslte Dale Road and just north of Rancho Notso-Grande.  Some of dad's claims are in this area. 

My recent trip to the Summerville, Neversweat and Lost Spring Wash area was mainly for the purpose of rockhounding or prospecting.  I did pick up a few rocks and was checking out ant hills and dry washes.  I didn't quite make it to two places that I wanted to.  Partly because of the windy weather and partly because of time.  Also partly I'm sure because of the gas expense involved and the remoteness of one of the locations.  I did want to go investigate some of my dad's old claims.  I did get to that location but was not able to do much investigation.  The road had not been graded and was not in good condition either.  That would be another reason. 

My dad prospected for quite a few years and had claims with different people.  Some family members including sibling, parents and even spouse.  Two that stand out aren't family.  There was a guy named Brownn from Grand Junction I believe that he staked a lot of uranium claims with in the 1950's along with a substantial amount of the male population of the time.  Another is Adolph Herrera.  In fact their tombstones are near each other in the Price City Cemetery.  They had quite a few claims in the area of Entrada Point, Summerville Point and Curtis Point.  This is also close to the lower end of Joe's Holes in the Big Hole area and near Cement Crossing. 

At this time dad had 70 claims.  I have the original map and I have also plotted them on the Dry Mesa quadrangle map.  The names of the claims are the Old Stove, Sand Pass, Red Rim and Sal.  There were 42 Old Stove claims, 12 Sand Pass claims, 6 Red Rim claims and 10 Sal claims.  Recently I had an individual do some map dowsing for me.  In the course of his dowsing he came up with six locations for gold prospects in the area east of Cedar Mountain or on Cedar Mountain.  One of these locations was on one of dad's old claims and that is what I wanted to investigate when I was down there.  There was in fact a company I believe from Grand Junction who leased some of these claims at one time and did some drilling I believe on some of the Old Stove claims but it could have been other claims as they are right next to each other.  Another item to follow up on if possible.  It was while attempting to investigate this dowsing location and claim that I ran across the couple that was stuck off the road in my last post.  I still may get down there to investigate or prospect this claim that also showed up on with a dowser and see if it may be worth putting forth more effort into.

Sugarloaf and some of the young neighbors or residents of the Neversweat area.

Looking for Quality Gems.

I am looking for any angle to make some extra money.  Prospecting, dectecting, cache hunting, thinking about writing and even trying to get some lead from rifle bullets to recycle.  I had a bad experience with the last one.  Anyway now I am looking into looking for diamonds and gems.  I have heard they may be plentiful in Colorado and Wyoming and they were even mining them for a few years in Colorado.  So I have been looking at maps and figuring a strategy.  I realize that it won't be easy as it's like looking for a needle in a haystack and you may have to go through tons of rock to find one diamond and then it may not be gen quality.  So I will settle for any gem of good quality.  In fact I may focus on garnets among others.  Garnets are seemingly plentiful and possible to get some good quality ones for gems.  So I am looking all over now for diamonds and gems and will use several strategies to do so.  If I just had a vehicle to get to where I can look I believe I can be successful.