Flash in the Pan Blog

As Saturday came Chris and I kept watching the weather...snow was coming...We said, "Oh Great!" We have worked so hard getting ready for show season, now snow, no one will be coming. As I drove to the Monroe fairgrounds, snow kept falling....to my disbelief, there were hundreds of happy prospectors gathered around our booth! Kudos to our hardy NW propsectors! We can't keep them down!

As I think through the Gold Rush Alaska series to date, I have to say the quote that has stuck in my mind more than anything was something the narrator said during Episode 10, “The concentrate buckets where worth more than the material they held”. What a great visual for the entire show – lots of heartache, drama and tears, very little of it worth anything. Sigh. What a missed opportunity.

Sorry for the delay. Life’s been a bit crazy and with this gang of contributors, editing can take a bit of time (and patience). Originally recorded on February 11th, this week’s episode of the Ore Dump Podcast started with the shocking news about Chris Lee’s public scandal over shirtless Craigslist pictures that resulted in his quick resignation from Congress. While we are unsure if there is a connection between this story and own Chris Angus Lee (aka, Uno), it seemed to be a plausible reason behind his suspicious absence from the podcast recording. Is this a coincidence? I think not. Our hearts go out to Chris Angus Lee in his time of need. LOL – what a donkey!

Who would have ever thought that my effort to translate my growing frustration over the Gold Rush Alaska show into video form would be as popular as it turned out to be? As I blogged about in my post, “The reality behind reality”, watching the show every week and parsing it against what Jimmy Dorsey was writing about in his own blog led me to ponder how this pooh-ball of a show ever got off the ground. Seriously, everyone associated with that show knew from the beginning the ‘roles’ they were going to be playing. Everyone knew that the show would be heavily edited for drama content. Thankfully we don’t have to worry about how much Todd and the crew are making from their gold expedition—the real goldmine is in the show itself. They don’t have to dig up a single ounce.

Sad huh? What a missed opportunity for an already adventurous hobby.

I have to say, of all the episodes of Gold Rush Alaska to date, Episode 8 “Bad Blood” has been my favorite. As I rightly divined in last week’s posting, “Welcome to the Hurt Locker”, old school expert miner Fred Hurt comes into the camp with his mind set on finding gold. From the opening scene, Fred quickly identifies that the grizzlies are too small and slowing production. No mincing words, takes a cutting torch to them to increase the opening to a full eight inches. After a small pissing match with Harness, Hurt's decision is quickly vindicated when more than twice the material they have been able to process before starts flowing. With the ability to run more material, ol’ Fred Hurt pushes the crew into high gear (when they can be found) to work. The more material they move, the more gold they get.

Dearest readers, it’s time to get serious for a moment. I’ll bet that if you are like most visitors to Prospectors Plus, that you read this simple gold prospecting and mining blog for the humor, a short respite from the day to day grind. You read my ramblings to stay up to date on what other likeminded gold adventurers are doing, the mining equipment they use, see pictures of their great finds and hopefully; pick up a good prospecting tip from time to time. I love writing about that stuff. Those are the stories and people that I care about. However, just like all good things – I have been doing a lot of thinking about the darker side of our hobby as well. Let me set the scene.

As many of you know, and I have reluctantly admitted in our most recent edition of the Ore Dump Podcast (see, Ore Dump Episode 10 Available ) I have fallen into a love hate relationship with our clueless Porcupine Creek crew. Some might call my repeated writing and lambasting of the shows participants an addiction. Yes, I have taken it so far as to begin mocking the shows participants in video (see, The Reality Behind Reality). Too far? Given my frustration level, I think not. But sunshine might be on the horizon for our precarious band of fake prospectors; a precious ray of sunshine by the name of “Dakota” Fred Hurt.