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Report
on GPAA Claims on Deadwood Creek We
had heard about the claims on Deadwood for the last year and wanted to
get up there and check them out. We had an opportunity to do so on the
weekend of July 21st. The Steese highway is a good gravel
road that will take you to the town of Central, Alaska. In Central you turn right heading for Circle Hot Springs. It is a very short trip of 1.9 miles on this road before you turn off onto the gravel road that leads into the GPAA claims. This road is not marked, but if you check your odometer at Central, you will find the road exactly 1.9 miles from Central. You cannot miss it, it is wide and very obvious. The GPAA claims do not begin at the beginning of the road, so you will need to watch your odometer again when you turn onto this road. The claims begin exactly two miles in on this road. When you come to an open area that has obviously been mined (you will see piles of gravel) this is the beginning of the GPAA claims. The
road going in is the same road that will take you from one end to the
other on these claims, it is a very good road for the most part, we had
a mini-van and we had no trouble at all until we got to a washout that
we did not want to chance. I might add that it was raining cats and dogs
and had been for two days. But it is obvious that someone (probably a
commercial miner) keeps this road in good condition. There
are numerous small roads that lead off to the south and down to Deadwood
Creek itself. We did not get to use all of them, but the three we did
use were in good shape. We took one road that ended in a large gravel
pit where there were some rec. miners camping in three different rigs.
They were getting ready to leave, they had been waiting out the rain and
lost out to mother nature. I might add that the mosquitoes were
possibly…no they WERE, the worst I have ever seen in 30 years in
Alaska. You could not get out of your vehicle without thousands of them
getting inside, no matter how fast you tried to do it. Out side they
were a veritable cloud, it was difficult to even breathe without
inhaling mosquitoes. I think that this condition might be better as the
season progresses, I have seen them bad in other places along the Steese
this year also, and now they have almost disappeared. There
seems to be plenty of easily accessible places to camp and the creek
runs clear, but you may have to treat your water, wouldn’t want to get
“beaver fever”. I
would love to tell you of all the gold we found, but the truth is that
between the bugs and the rain we did not do any prospecting All in all it was a nice trip and a good chance to “scope out the land” so-to-speak. This could possibly be a great place to take the family and get a few flakes of gold too. It is a bit far to travel for most people, even if you live in Fairbanks, but just the ride is worth the time. If you have a chance to go to Deadwood, take some time and do a little rec. mining and let us know how you do, we need a prospecting report on these claims. Summer 2001: Jim & Marcie Foley
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If
it is raining it can be quite slippery, but other than that, it
traverses some very beautiful country and you are in the heart of the
Interior goldfields. There are no services on this road once you leave
Fox and until you arrive at Central. At Central you can get gas,
groceries, ice, and any other things that you may have forgotten. 
here. It
does look like it may have some good possibilities, at least decent
places to dredge, or whatever you are going to do. Just remember that
any cabins you come upon are private property and not for public use.
GPAA only leases these claims and has no ownership in cabins.