We went for a hike out at the Tumco Mine. We haven't been out there in years. It's an old mine on the California side that produced quite a bit of gold. They had to use cyanide to get it out of the rock because it was fairly fine. You can still see the areas they used to wash it and where the waste ran on the ground. The hole that was dug was impressive since most of it was dug back in the very early 1900's. The piles of tailings were also impressive and looked like they made new mountains. You could see where an old well had been but they also piped water out of the Colorado River which is not too far from the mine site but still also quite a feat. There is one active gold mine in this area and it is a huge operation. The rest of the area is full of small claims with gold miners like us just working small areas trying to find a small bit of gold.
The weather is finally getting warmer again back in the 70's and 50's at night. The only bad thing is it rained again. It has been the wettest winter we've seen. It has rained at least once every three weeks just enough to keep the dirt too wet to run through our drywasher. So no gold prospecting for us this winter.
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