"The Wizard" is the name of the Holloway Bar gold mining machine. It's a fitting name given the setting and the magic that this piece of equipment performs on a regular basis.
Gold is a magical and mysterious substance. Highly valued by both ancient and modern civilizations, it's still much in demand today. Gold is similar to lead in many ways - it's very heavy but also very soft, so it can be worked into many intriguing shapes without special tools.
The Holloway Bar placer mining property is all about gold - but it's also much more. Although gold is what makes this place happen, but it's not the primary purpose for being here. There is a connection to this land that goes back generations and predates the modern search for gold and goes way beyond the riches that lie just under the surface.
When you first cross the bridge and leave the outside world behind, you can feel it. There's something much more than just mere gold here. But, the gold is the facilitator - the means of making the rest of the magic happen.
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Placer mining is all about water. The old pump you see hooked onto the brilliant red steel water line has supplied water to the plant for the last ten years. This pump, affectionately named "Emma", has now been upgraded with the installation of a much larger powerplant. This 6" Gorman-Rupp pump is designed to run most efficiently with about 150 horsepower driving it. The old motor only wheezes its way to about 45 horsepower at best, so water volumes have been a very low with just barely enough water being supplied to run the plant. But, Emma's now been given a big boost with the installation of a 150+ hp supercharged Jimmy diesel. This will supply more water so that we can wash much more gravel, with much more gold in the cleanup being the desired outcome...
Once the pump has been started, the water turned on, and the VW motor that powers the trommel fired up and slipped into 4th gear, it's time to start feeding the raw material into the plant. The Holloway Bar property is the largest single piece of property in the valley - over 420 hectares - and runs several kilometers in the McDame Creek valley. So, where does a miner dig for gold? Ideally, you will want to get your raw materials from virgin ground - that is, ground that hasn't been worked or mined before. Most of the easy-to-get-to ground has been worked over the years as many miners have been here seeking their fortunes for almost 140 years. But, they mostly mined by hand so couldn't dig very deep or move the larger bigger rocks very easily. They tended to mine only in places where water could be run through the series of canals and trenches that are still visible on the property. Currently, we're mining fairly low and close to the plant, but the future possibilities are endless!
The old timers tended to mine only where they could move water in their series of hand-dug trenches. All mining was done by hand...
