Is this damage from the rim fire? Also is it common for markers to burn in a forest fire?

Tim

None of the trees on the river burned that were on the North side that I could see, there were other mining markers for other claims visible.

As for it being the rim fire that was in Stanislaus forest, this claim is in Plumas Nat. forest .

 

With the vegetation gone now is the time to be looking around. Quartz outcrops for one.
Twenty years from now, no one will know a fire had been through there.
It will recover.


OC

I am about to go out there to check it out. How was the digging? Find any good color? Also, did the creek seem low or was it pretty deep? were you digging in the water much?

I did go out there. The creek was slow moving and heavily vegetated on the banks. The forest service wouldn't let us dig on the bank at all, just in the creek because they hadn't had time to survey and give me an informed response to my plan of operation. We did many test pans and every other pan gave us a tiny, tiny speck of gold. We left after our second night. What is interesting here is that I used google earth to locate the claim using the coordinates in the book. I captured images of the claim boundaries for reference when I was up there. Just like the book said, google earth took me to Indian creek road, south of antelope lake, however, when I got up there, my GPS program called "Maverick" said that we were 12 miles from the claim. I did see claim markers on the trees near the road, we were definitely on a claim, but none of the posted claim signs said GPAA. After this we left and went to the "Nancy's Gold" claim in Placer county. I used my "Maverick" GPS app to find this claim and it took me right to it. I think we were not actually on the GPAA "Nugget Trap 2" at all.... Oops! I don't think I would recommend anyone to use google earth to find Lat. & Lon. coordinates....

Your pictures of "Nugget Trap 2" do not look like the area that we were on. The fire damage was immediately south of the claim that we were on, but the claim itself had much less fire damage. It was damaged, but not nearly to the extent you showed. The claim just south of the one we were on had several campers on it and it looked more like your pictures. Weird GPS stuff going on with this claim I think... I still have no clue if I was in the right place or not. According to Google Earth I was right there, but the access was easy, not like the book said. There is a paved road right to the claim and a short dirt road turn off that takes you right down to the northern border of the claim...

Claims will generally not be marked "GPAA", but with the claim owners name and the name of the claim and the state claim number, ie. ORMC, CAMC, etc.  I have found that adjoing claims are usually marked somehow with "Not GPAA" because of trespass.

What is the real issue with Google Earth and the coordinates? What are we supposed to officially use as our understanding for coordinates. The numbers printed directly in the quide?

April, did you get up there and what did you see? I'm planning a trip up there this month.

I too would like to know if anyone has had any encounters trying to find nugget trap 2. I live 25 mins from the property and will be doing some investigation this week.

While phone apps are fun and are good for getting you around the city, they are no where as reliable as a good GPS unit. Phones use towers to triangulate your signal between two or more points. The more towers the better your chance they are correct. Unfortunately you don't know how many towers you can hit. GPS gets it's info from many spots in space. it uses high tech private and military satellites to determine the location. There's no problem with Google Earth, but you have to format your co-ordinates to what Google Earth has them set at and compare your GPS map image with the claims guide map image which is a challenge. Miss a space or period in Google Earth, and you will be way off.

Don't even bother with GPS there. Just compare the map with another USFS map or better yet look at it with Google Earth and it's fairly easy to distinguish where it's located. Easy to access, some good parking spots, camping close by at Antelope Lake. Enjoy!