Welcome to I-Bar

Nervie was the Italian.

The buildings revealed that winters there are mild. Had they been at Alta or Park City, they'd have been mashed flat by ten or twelve feet of snow.

At the camp the next day, we were greeted by Gary (Fraust, National claims director). "Welcome to I-Bar, I'm Gary," he said. He introduced the rest of the crew; Frenchy (Rene Manandise), his sidekick; Leonard (Long), the camp host; Pat, Leonard's wife; Dwaine (Perezina), the backhoe operator. They were on a first name basis with us.

Gary explained that we would be divided into shifts. They would dig up material with a backhoe and bring it to us and we'd be working four highbankers that were set up in a canyon just to the northwest. Gary and Frenchy would pan the concentrates and get the pickers, which we would draw for. We'd get an equal share of the black sand with the fines in it. It sounded just like the show I'd seen on TV. I could practically smell the nuggets waiting for us.

There was a potluck dinner planned for one night, a treasure hunt for those with metal detectors (That's for me!) and discussions on metal detecting, highbanking, how to read a stream and whatever you wanted to ask about. There were several vendors offering jewelry and equipment, and a couple of raffles that I bought tickets for.

A member examines the club house.

There was a pretty good sized crowd there, maybe two hundred or so. I noticed that a lot of them were LDMA members. They wore hats with name tags and there were some very interesting names in the crowd; Tex Tibbs; Edsel Sims; Van Marshall; Clinton Payne and his dad; Don and Linda Durand (yes, the women worked with us); Christopher Deck; Warren Dady (he'd make a good Santa); Theodore and Evelyn Fletcher; and finally, Pucky. I didn't get his last name, but there's only one Pucky. If he doesn't have a motorcycle, then Harley-Davidson should be paying him a commission for all the advertising. These are real people, I can't make up names this good.

We headed for the dig site where the backhoe had made a settling pond so we didn't wash all the loose dirt into the stream. The operator stopped and yelled, "Hey, look. There's an old Chinese tunnel." The Chinese dug tunnels next to the bedrock, and he'd cut into one of them. It was no more than 20 inches across, and I felt claustrophobic just looking at it. I had to admire the courage of the Orientals who looked for gold in ways that I would not even consider. Chicken? You bet, and I have the feathers to prove it. If not, I'll grow a few real quick.

I watched as Gary and crew set up the highbankers and the backhoe brought in the paydirt. I'd never operated a highbanker before, and I learned a few things about what angle to set the sluice at and how much water to run. When they were ready, so were we.

Gary gave Dwaine relief on the cat from time to time, and he'd have looked at home bossing a construction site. He'd operated a backhoe before, and it showed.

No slackers in this group.	Pucky stares into the camera. I unwittingly kepy his anonimity.

We spent four hours a day for the next two days feeding paydirt into the highbankers. For a guy who rides a desk watching a bunch of computer monitors, I'm not in too bad of shape. I was glad, because you'd hate to be shown up by someone twenty or more years older than you. I doubt that I made anybody look bad. I was too busy shoveling to notice, anyway. So were the rest of them.

I'd never met any of these people before and may never see them again, but I'll never forget the fun we had shoveling dirt, tossing rocks, swapping stories, getting muddy and sweating like Greek wrestlers. The paydirt may be rich or poor, but the people have hearts of gold.

Ol' Buzzard talked about how a few hours on the working end of a #2 shovel will take out all your greed. It took care of mine real good.

Frenchy pans the concentrates while we watch.

The second afternoon, I sat in on a metal detecting seminar conducted by Fred (Hymer). Fred knew his way around a metal detector, and he was shown a lot of them. He made it known that he liked Fisher because they were simple and easy to operate, but he seemed to do all right with the others also. He helped many of us with operating problems, and even suggested where they might get old ones fixed.

He showed me a few tricks to spot 'hot' rocks that I hadn't seen before, and I'm going to need practice before I feel confident at it. A hot rock will read out as the coil is going toward it or away from it, but not both. He liked to make that to/from motion up and down. My notes are sketchy here, so don't take this as gospel.

I spent most afternoons with my family exploring the sights of Columbia and Sonora. There's a delightful state park in Columbia, and I took Caleb on the stage coach ride, where we were held up by a masked man holding a large Colt revolver. He demanded money, but we claimed we didn't have any, so he had to settle for a joke. My joke about the guy who hired an Italian, a Pollock and an Oriental to work his mine caused him to wheel his horse and order the driver to "Get outa here!"

I liked this joke because it offends nobody.

Columbia State Park, more exciting than it looks.

We watched school kids on an outing of their own panning for gold (People do that here!) and strolled through the shops. In the afternoons Caleb watched "The Puppy Movie" ( 101 Dalmatians to us adults) which he was happy to do every day, even twice a day if we'd let him. My family went swimming while I was digging and we all enjoyed ourselves.

The problem with all this is that I never spent time in camp at night. I'm sure they had good times of their own, but I can't report on them.

I did talk my group into going to the treasure hunt and the potluck dinner. Louise kept gripping the arm rest as we drove down the road, and I told her it looked worse than it was. My first time on that road was scary, too. I'm not sure I was much comfort, but she didn't scream.

They raffled off some day packs, painted gold pans, T-shirts and hats while Caleb played in the gravel of the parking lot with his plastic front loader, but my numbers didn't come up.

We gathered for the treasure hunt and Gary told us where the bounds of the search area were. I was standing on the porch by the side of the clubhouse, and I took hold of the rail, leaped over it and found a likely spot. We all held our search coils up and he yelled "GO!". We had thirty minutes to find all the metal we could and we went to work. I knew there were no B-B sized nuggets in the area, just marked coins and scrap metal. And one good-sized nugget.

I've done enough coin shooting that I can tell coins from nails, cans and the like. Still, everything counted, so I dug up everything I detected. I dumped the dirt into a screen (actually a pizza tray) and shook the dirt out. In the next half hour I found several coins, a sardine can, some nails, a piece of plumber's tape and a cow magnet. It was good enough to win sixth place.

I had my pick of anything left on the stage, and I picked the last bottle with a small nugget in it. Nobody found the big nugget that had been hidden. Gary had dropped it by the porch where I'd been standing and all our searching later didn't turn it up. If you found it, you got to keep it, but nobody would admit to finding it.

Before dinner, Gary called for a prayer, which he offered. It was an appropriate thing. I heard a couple of guys in front of me say that we should have done that before we started looking for the gold. What more can I add?

Dinner was not bad for a potluck, and I had my fill.

That night I had a dream. I don't usually remember having dreams, or a few seconds after I wake up they melt away like dry ice, leaving nothing. This one stayed. I dreamed that when I leaped over the porch rail, I landed squarely on the lost nugget. It lodged in the cleats of my boot, and was there waiting for me to pry it loose.

I awoke with the memory still fresh. Could this be real? Part of me said, "Naw, it's just a dream," and part of me said, "Who knows? It could have happened." I had to know. I held my breath as I picked my boot up and turned it over. In one of his stage shows, Bill Cosby said that God has a sense of humor. There in the cleats of the heel was a dry gold colored leaf. I could hear Him laughing as I ate breakfast.

At the camp they drew for the nuggets. I drew one near the middle on my first pass, and one closer to the small end on my second draw. The guy behind me drew the #1, a half ounce nugget donated by Perry Massey.

As we picked up our nuggets, we were handed a plastic bag full of black sand. I could see the flakes in the ones I had. I now have five little nuggets and a vial of flakes that I didn't have before. I could have spent my money on a fishing trip to Mexico, but you can't carry fish in your pocket to show your friends.

On my way out, I passed a van that was taking a bunch of people on a guided tour of the old gold camp. I couldn't help thinking, "That's the differance. They came to see where people prospected and mined for gold. We were doing it. Doing is more fun than watching, any day"

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