Thought I'd share some Nevada exploration...

Meltdown

I was born in Carson City a long time ago and though I moved from there pretty young I have a bunch of family in the area still.
I recently spent a week with Aunt's, Uncle's and cousins I grew up with for a family gathering to spread my dad's ashes in Dixie Valley at their homestead where they lived in the early 50's. My Dad's family was pretty poor. I come from a line of metal scrappers, flea market junk & antique dealers and small time mining stock.
Today, there is not much of anything in Dixie valley except sagebrush, dirt and majestic mountains. The military owns most the land now after forcing my grandparents and many other families out. It's a pretty fascinating bit of history if you feel like googling. They burned down the homesteads when they left or used them for bombing drills and military exercises and still do to this day. There's nothing left of my grandparents place except for the foundation and an artisian well that still produces crystal clear water.

I have really fond memories as a kid exploring the Nevada hills in and around Carson city & Dayton.
My grandparents owned a flea market and an old copper mine up in the hills. As a kid, there was an old claimjumper living like a nomad on their property disputing their right to mine and for years they battled in court and were never able to profit from the land. He shot at us once when I was little while we were driving up there. Anyway, when we'd go there, I remember finding obsidian, core samples, arrowheads and sometimes rattlesnakes. What I remember most was the bright blue turquoise laying all over the place.
My kids, cousin and I drove way the hell up there a few days ago and to my delight it's unchanged and still littered with turquoise, copper and silver ore.
We hiked all over, chased lizards and baked in the sun.
I figured I'd share some of the adventure. I brought some Dixie valley dirt home from that giant rock canyon we had hiked and sure enough, found a speck of color in my first pan.

Photo's got a bit jumbled uploading them all, but you get the idea.

golden

Very cool!

PerryHall

Thanks for sharing your adventure.

Baley

Awesome pictures!
I really dig places like that

mbogoman

Thanks for sharing with us! Cool!

cohodk

I always loved that blue sky against those mountains.

Timbuk3

Wow, what an adventure, thanks for sharing a great story !!! 👍

Weiss

Very cool. Great pictures, too.

asheland

Awesome!

ricko

Great story and awesome pictures....felt like I was there... well, almost Love that country... lived in AZ for eight years and spent a lot of time far from civilization on weekends and vacations. Cheers, RickO

Meltdown

Thanks all, it was memorable for sure!

1630Boston

Great pictures, thanks

DrBuster

Nice

AUandAG

Cool, some of that "turquoise" looks like copper ore. Would love to take my grandkids to CC and explore with them. Show them Brunswick canyon, float the river from Dayton down, hike up Kings canyon and check out Genoa, Markleesville, Franktown and others. Show them my old mine on Mt. Davidson and take a side trip up to Como.
Great memories come rushing back with this thread. Oh, when we were young.

bob

Meltdown

I played all over the Carson river in Dayton as a kid... catching crawdads, etc. It was the only way to beat the heat.
The mine was a working copper mine in the early days before my grandparents bought the property and mineral claims.
At the base of the hill is the old leach bunker where they would extract the copper/silver from the ore.
** "Leaching is an industrial mining process used to extract precious metals, copper, uranium, and other compounds from ore using a series of chemical reactions that absorb specific minerals and re-separate them after their division from other earth materials." **

The discarded tin can piles that I photo'd is waste from the chemical reaction process. The dead rabbit photo above is likely from getting that tainted dirt all over it's fur. That's my guess anyway, it wasn't eaten or carried off by critters.

AUandAG

Cyanide leaching is gone in America but still used in Australia. Cyanide, as you can imagine, will kill, just ask that rabbit.

bob

philographer

Nice memories. Especially love these rock formations...

johnny9434

Cool story and memories

streeter

We were up in AZ the last few weeks with some locals looking at land & mining claims.
I learned an interesting tidbit about snake country. If you see spiney cactus balls in a circle, there is a good chance there is a 'caged' Mojave Green or Red within the interior of that circle. The roadrunners build a 'cage' around a sleeping snake. They just wait for the snake to get weak or die-then they dine on it. Patient & smart birds.

dcarr

@AUandAG said:
Cyanide leaching is gone in America but still used in Australia. Cyanide, as you can imagine, will kill, just ask that rabbit.

bob

I think one of the largest cyanide heap leaching piles in the world is currently in operation near Cripple Creek Colorado.

dcarr

Neat post.
I remember spending time exploring sites in Nevada with my Dad. He was a geologist and worked at the Nevada Test Site. Nevada was his favorite place although we lived in Colorado.

Years ago, before Dayton was build up with housing subdivisions, my Mom, Dad, and I drove on a jeep trail to a site near the river. We were only out of the truck for a couple minutes when my mom said "I need the coin expert over here". She had found a darkened (and run-over) 1867-S half dollar laying in the middle of the jeep trail. I had a metal detector and searched all over but couldn't find any more coins. Oh well. Fond memories, anyway.

metalmeister

Neat expedition. Your kids are new explorers.

AUandAG

@dcarr said:

@AUandAG said:
Cyanide leaching is gone in America but still used in Australia. Cyanide, as you can imagine, will kill, just ask that rabbit.

bob

I think one of the largest cyanide heap leaching piles in the world is currently in operation near Cripple Creek Colorado.

My bad, it appears that there are 9 western states and one eastern state that allow cyanide leaching....thought it was gone but guess not. They must be able to recover the cyanide better than days of old.

bob

jmski52

Good thread! I was just in Carson City two days ago. When I get a chance, I'll post some photos from the Mint (Nevada Historical Museum).