Myself and my family had an amazing time. Thank you again Adam. The wife was a little scared about the road down to the camp, but she got over that and says she would deffinately do it again.
Can't think of a better place to spend time, it was amazing. Got home and my Hard Drive had taken a crap, so just got up and running on spare HD I had laying around, or I would have posted sooner.
Got there on Friday evening, just as the sun was setting about 7pm. Traffic on the I17 & 101 was a nightmare, but we made it before dark. Adam kindly headed up on his ATC to meet us at the gate, wife instantly went into shock when she saw the turn onto the Camp road. I'm glad it was daylight still, would have been much scarier in the dark. Headed down the rocky drive into the camp area and the fire was already burning, step out of my X and am in a state of amazement at how cool this place is, you can hear the river running over the rocks in the background.
We unpacked quickly so we could get the tent up before dark, then we relaxed by the fire and had a few beers. Our dog Bean got to know Adams 2 dogs and they all got along swimmingly. Slept like a log with the noise of the river only 30ft away.
Woke upat around 6:30am. Had an amazing breakfast of Eggs, Sausages, Potatoes, Bacon and Biscuits (cooked in the Dutch Oven on the fire) by Adam and his wife. A hearty breakfast for the days Gold Mining. Adam already had a bucket of gravel to pan, that he dug the previous morning. So we worked our way through that bucket and found a couple of pieces of gold in there. We then decided to dig under some tree roots on the rivers edge, where we figured there should be a good haul. We emptied the mud / rock into the sluce in the river. After a lunch of grilled shrimp and some snacks, we then emptied the sluce and we started panning. The first pan I believe Adam found 2 pieces of gold, followed by me finding a piece in my pan. The final pan wielded another 4 or 5 pieces. It feels very rewarding to actually find it in the pan, as Adam said "You know it when you see it". You can see the golden shine quite easily.
For dinner Adam and family cooked what I must say was by far the best Chili I've ever tasted. We then had a few more beers and huddled around the camp fire as the temperature dropped. Night time temp was probably around 50°.
This morning, sadly it was time to go. My wife didn't sleep so well as she was panicing about the trip back up the hill, but after packing and saying our goodbyes we made it up without any problems. I took the line to the right at the top of the hill Adam, making sure the big hole was between my wheels. It was easier to keep up the momentum that way. Lindsay my wife admitted that she had been scared about nothing, we radioed back to Adam to let him know we made it and headed home. Trip home to Mesa took 1h45min, got out of the car and wished I was back at the camp.
Thank you again Adam for an amazing weekend.
Photos are off of the camera and are slowly being uploaded to
http://www.rinky.us/coppermine/