All,
Just returned from the pre-run with Greyhair, azdave35, sluicebox and knun.
I had the pleasure of meeting knun at the Mining and Mineral Museum a while back.
The other three were "as advertised" on the forum. All straight shooters, knowledgeable Dutch Hunters, highly intelligent and all around nice guys.
Before you ask, I have no idea how they hooked up with the likes of me.
The area is going to be a great place to camp in the desert. Level, hard packed clear campsite. The road to the site is graded, dirt/gravel and is excellent all the way to the site. There was a short stretch of fairly deep sand. It required four wheel drive to get through.
We will make another pre-run, about three days prior to the event, and notify everyone of the conditions. Greyhair says they grade this road on a regular basis, it shows, and this if the first time he has encountered the sand.
If the sand is there, I will make sure those needing help to get through, will have it. We will fine tune this as we get closer.
I will set the date by the end of this week.
We went in Sunday morning and, once again, did not find the scrapings.
When we came out, I called Tracy Hawkins and he invited us over to help pinpoint the spot on a Topo. Greyhair and sluicebox went back today, and still had no luck. We will work on this right up to the time of the campout, perhaps a flyover, and try to save us some time over the campout weekend.
If we don't have any luck, I hope we will have one hell of a search party.
This area is a natural for dirt bikes, quads, 4X4s and dune buggies. The many mines in the area would make metal detectors a must. Bring um if you have them. I have heard that panning will produce color on the banks of the Gila.
Anyone who does dry washing will be in "hog heaven".
Questions? Let's hear them.
Those who met Tracy Hawkins, were honored to do so. Sluicebox made a great comment. He said: I just wanted to touch the hand that held the gold." There is a good deal of LDM history that fairly oozes from the pores in that hand.
Each time I see Tracy, the memories come flooding back...Chuck and Maxine Ribaudo, Obie and Olive Stoker, Al Morrow, Ernie Provence, Dale Howard, just some of the people who have passed over and left their mark on me.
Each time I leave Tracy, I give him a hug. No doubt it makes this old "hand" uncomfortable, but because of our common history, it makes me feel like I am embracing all of those people. So many of them, gone too soon.
Respectfully,
Joe Ribaudo
Probably not a good idea.