I am planning on getting my concealed weapons permit for my protection while i am out and about. I work evenings and sleep days so I have been trying some areas after work (1am). This has my wife and family freaked out but the timing works for me. I do want to go check out old gold mining areas and while i know to stay off claims you never know who will come at you claiming your on their claim even if there is no signage. I would like to have my protection incase they get all crazy. This is in the us so I would say my odds are by far better for safety than yours down there. be safe man
Forgive me for being so blunt, but, I think you've been reading too many old West story's. You sound like an accident or a homicide waiting to happen.
Tell me you don't really intend to go nosing around old gold mines in the middle of the night do you ??!!
If that
IS what you intend to do, stumbling across somebody's claim is the LAST thing you need to worry about.
To start with I'd be worried about falling down a ventilation shaft. They could be anywhere, they are about five or six feet across or more or less, and up to fifty or more feet deep, they might be fenced off, or they might not be.
On top of that, these ventilation shafts are going to be covered and over grown with weeds and brush and your minds going to be focused on a metal detector, it would be just as dangerous in the day time! You step off into one of those and you're not going to know what hit you!!
I've been prospecting off and on for nearly ten years and I've been in more than a few mines and if I learned ANYTHING, it's take an extra flashlight or two
and fresh batteries in a zip lock bag, MARK YOUR WAY in, so you can find your way out! A string is best, if your light sources should happen to cr@p out on you or your batteries get wet. Most mines will have a little or a lot of water in them, wet bread crumbs won't do squat for ya in the dark, I speak from experience.. oh yeah, ware a hard hat! first time you knock yourself silly on a low hanging rock you'll be glad ya did.
If you
HAVE TO pick up rocks, DO NOT pick at the walls of the mine or the ceiling. And most of all, if you find something that looks like a old road flair and its all covered with a whiteish crusty crystal like substance,
DO NOT PICK IT UP! BACK SLOWLY AWAY! what you have found is on old stick of unexploded dynamite that has sweat nitroglycerin and could go off if as much as a pebble should fall on it.
Other than that, if you've been in one hole in the ground,
you've pretty much seen them all..
Being young and dumb is one thing,
being old, stupid and dead is something to be avoided..
As far as packing a gun? I think you'd do well to give that a long, hard thought,
AND read up on some the old mining laws that are in all likelihood still on the books.
Many laws were written to deal with the very issue of trespassing and claim jumping. At the time they had a way of looking at the two as being one in the same, and, the general mind set of the day was
SHOOT FIRST AND ASK QUESTIONS LATER, And that train of thought often still prevails today, especially with the price of gold being what it is. You could find yourself facing the business end of a shotgun and some crazy old miner telling you to drop everything you got and "GIT"... if he says that much.
And it could be all perfectly legal.
Ignorance of the law won't help you in court and it might not keep you from getting yourself killed either.
But, I have a feeling you're going to do what you want anyway irregardless what I or anyone else says, I'd just hate to read about it in the news or the obits.
Now, if I haven' scared the stink out of you
just watch yer step,
and go have fun !
All in all, people here like to keep to themselves a lot unless they REALLY want to ask something. If someone comes face to face asking about stuff, they're most likely not after my MD. A quiet stalker might be another case, waiting for a chance to hit n run.
