Just got back from Moore Creek. Actually it should be called "More Rain Creek." There were 9 in our group and Steve Herschbach and John Pulling were our gracious hosts. Lots of gold was found and a good time was had by all.
The Week 3 group didn't have to endure the bugs that Weeks 1 & 2 did, but we made up for it with the rain. Overall the weather wasn't that bad for that part of Alaska this time of year, I'm just glad we didn't get snowed on. We had a couple of mornings with temps in the low 20's!
Rob's bear was no were to be seen. We did see some fresh bear and wolf tracks. The most unique wildlife sighting was when I watched a Pine Martin chasing a rabbit and it ran within 5' of me before it realized what I was.
Bad weather delayed our departure from Moore Creek which resulted in a bonus day. I used this time to find 3 more nuggets, which boosted my total take to 11 nuggets with a total weight of 3.19 ozt.
The big story for Week 3 was Jesse. Jesse was brought to Moore Creek by his father Don. Jesse had never metal detected for gold before. The only gold experience he had was sluicing in Nome the year before with his dad. Jesse succeeded in finding nearly 30 ounces of gold in 4 nuggets! The largest was 24.95 ounces.
Doc was kind enough to let me borrow his prototype lithium battery system to take on the trip and test out. I used it the entire week and it worked well. I did discover the "switch glitch" problem for myself but was able to work around it. Running the stock 11 coil on a GP3000, I could run 8 hours on a single battery! The charger worked great off of either 110V AC or 12V DC. The packs easily charged overnight. It was very hard to keep things dry on this trip and the regulator/battery wrapped in plastic bag handled the wet weather without problem. At the end of the week I had full confidence in the new power supply. I even gave my old 12V gel cell to Steve.
Because of the rain my camera didn
The Week 3 group didn't have to endure the bugs that Weeks 1 & 2 did, but we made up for it with the rain. Overall the weather wasn't that bad for that part of Alaska this time of year, I'm just glad we didn't get snowed on. We had a couple of mornings with temps in the low 20's!
Rob's bear was no were to be seen. We did see some fresh bear and wolf tracks. The most unique wildlife sighting was when I watched a Pine Martin chasing a rabbit and it ran within 5' of me before it realized what I was.
Bad weather delayed our departure from Moore Creek which resulted in a bonus day. I used this time to find 3 more nuggets, which boosted my total take to 11 nuggets with a total weight of 3.19 ozt.
The big story for Week 3 was Jesse. Jesse was brought to Moore Creek by his father Don. Jesse had never metal detected for gold before. The only gold experience he had was sluicing in Nome the year before with his dad. Jesse succeeded in finding nearly 30 ounces of gold in 4 nuggets! The largest was 24.95 ounces.
Doc was kind enough to let me borrow his prototype lithium battery system to take on the trip and test out. I used it the entire week and it worked well. I did discover the "switch glitch" problem for myself but was able to work around it. Running the stock 11 coil on a GP3000, I could run 8 hours on a single battery! The charger worked great off of either 110V AC or 12V DC. The packs easily charged overnight. It was very hard to keep things dry on this trip and the regulator/battery wrapped in plastic bag handled the wet weather without problem. At the end of the week I had full confidence in the new power supply. I even gave my old 12V gel cell to Steve.
Because of the rain my camera didn