The Magician card tells us that it is time to put in all of our resources to reach our full potential. It is not a time to hold back. Put the pedal to the metal, (if driving) balls to the wall (if flying) and dig deep (if mining). This will be a very busy, maybe too busy time for us. That being said, it is necessary for the growth of Area 51 Miners, so here we go.
Area 54 and is not owned by us. Instead, my social butterfly of a husband made good friends with the owner. I know it's hard to believe, Shane, easily making friends : ) Anyway, this particular site is under our charge. This, however, does not mean we can just bring people up to mine with us. We still only work private sites for the time being. Again, this might change one day but it will be a while.
Area 54- A small area in Danube Ny, Area 54 carries a lot of the same material as the Little Falls area, black stem scepters, barbells, black Herkimers etc. The digging will be mostly hard rock but unlike 52, everything there is very fragile so we will not be using much heavy equipment for actual digging.
Instead each piece of wall that falls will be closely examined for signs of vugs, small pockets and floaters. It will be a slower process than what we are used to but I can say without questions that Shane is tickled pink to have the opportunity to dig at this location.
Area 55- Area 55 is very similar to Area 52 except there is quite a bit of exposed ledge. This means we will be able to get into material that is less damaged or as
Shane calls it, "The good stuff". 55 has skeletals, jewelry grade and rumor has it black druse. We will see.
What about 51-53? Well....
Shane and I have enjoyed a few weekends at Area 51 and 52. If any of you have seen our videos, you would know that something quite exciting is happening at 52. I have no idea how this is going to pan out but, here is the situation.
Shane and I found some rather large and complex skeletals at what we call lover's lane at Area 52. This was all happenstance but me being me, I needed a quiet spot for me to go and dig on my own when I get overwhelmed. I chose this spot. We called it Lover's Lane because it became a spot where Shane and I can dig alone and enjoy treasure hunting together.
This spot ended up being the beginning of something really wild. Last fall we found several outstanding Herkimers in the wall. We thought we found a massive pocket. It was a cave really and Shane just journeyed in and found the largest Herkimer from Area 52 to date.
We continued mining and found several other amazing pieces. But, when the end of the season came, we caved in everything as it was no longer safe to dig. Shane and I dug there a few times but it has been difficult with the water level being so high. It wasn't until early May that we could uncover the buried wall. As we spent hours moving the material we caved in, we started to uncover a large hole.
This hole ended up being about twelve feet long, solid rock, we are fairly certain this is a pocket. Yes, a 12 foot long 2 foot wide pocket. Now, what I can say is that the pieces found in the fall were found at the mouth of this pocket and the pocket angles downward so we have no idea what is down there.
The only problem is that there is about 5 feet of over-buden above and about 2 feet of water below. We just can't get in there yet. This is something we will be remedying soon as we will be hand digging to get the tunnel uncovered and hopefully find some insane treasures at the end.
So there ya have it. Our season will be spent between 4 sites with a variety of material. We are expecting some epic finds and hopefully the answer to the tunnel mystery. I hope you are all able to follow along as we will be posting our adventures as usual.