Glorieux, I am sure many will take some of your initial comments as an unwelcome splash of cold water on a stock price which has already chilled uncomfortably. I for one thank you for your "frankness":)

This is the first time I've commented on the GNH board, but have been following it for several months. The geological discussion has been fascinating, and I've learned a lot. However, other experiences (namely NOT) have also taught me to be cautious when it comes to all of this "super-blue-sky" talk. The geology "experts" told us that the incredible Windfall hit could not have been just an isolated anomaly (it apparently was, though we were never dignified with the confirmation of this). They also suggested that the surveys showed rich nickel shoots all over the place at the ROF; it couldn't be otherwise they said, like legs and trunk of an elephant. So far, no elephant and no legs, just a trunk. Now all of these may come to fruition some day, who knows....but for me, it has shown that bold assertions about what "must" be under the ground should be taken with a considerably large grain of salt.

For example, your comments about the Ascot/Road zones. I think you are right. Although I am not a geologist either, the intercepts to date are not convincing. So far, it would appear to have to be an underground operation. It is early, to be sure, but it is perhaps telling that (so far) it appears that there have been no further plans to trench and sample these zone at thier surface showings and thus prove a greater grade. Why? "Channel samples" were done in 2007 for Ascot and as far as I can tell, the full results were not published. The follow up news release (Dec 2007) simply stated: "Individual assays ranged from 0 to 34 g/t, while the weighted average gold content for those of the 68 samples taken from within the vein range from mineralized background (more than 150 ppb) to a maximum of 4.38 g/t." However, the actual weighted average of all samples taken together, is not revealed here, suggesting that it may not be such an impressive number, perhaps even 2g/t or less. Of course we do not know, but speculating, is it not likely that, even if they compensated for the nugget effect, it would still be uneconomical? Therefore, I think you may be right on this one, Glorieux, or as you said, "at least for now".

Ah but, don't we already know that the overall grade, after accounting for the "nugget effect", is at least 2.99 g/t in all zones? If that were so, why bulk sample the new "Snow White" zone ? Because, contrary to what has been suggested over and over again on this forum, this value is not written in stone (no pun intended). 2.99g/t is the sampled value for the T1 zone only. That's right, T1 only. Glorieux, you wrote "T1/2 has been bulk sampled (2.99g/t)...." Technically you are correct. However, the bulk sample which yielded 2.99 g/t was the combined result of samples from a new trench (09A) prepared in 2009 and resamples from an older trench (07R, also known as the "Rico Trench" I believe), both of which crossed the mineralized zone of T1. Other trenches crossed the perpiphery of T1 in order to define the limits of the mineralization (according to the "Hoov Report"), namely 09D, 09D1, 09D2, 09E, 09F, and 09G. The assays of all these were of minor significance, as perhaps was expected. Interestingly, the weighted re-assays of 07R yielded about 2.7 g/t, significantly less than the original assays of around 3.8 g/t. This in itself is a little disquieting to me, as we kind of want very large samples to be a little more consistent than that. That is, after all, why we do them, isn't it?

At any rate, you may ask, as I do, what happened to 09B and 09C? These were the two 2009 trenches which crossed the mineralized zone of T2. From the November 5, 2009 news release: "A total of seven new trenches were blasted across portions of the T1 and T2 mineralized zones. The 2007 Rico trench was re-sampled as part of the current study. 84 bulk samples ranging from ~5 to ~15 tonnes each were recovered. The majority of samples represented 2 meter advances across the strike of the mineralization: Several 3 metre samples were collected where field conditions dictated. The trenches can be viewed on
the company's web site at www.goldenhopemines.com/UserFiles/BC_min_zones.pdf."
(Incidentally, this seems to now be a dead link. I was able to access it just a couple of days ago, but now I can't, so if anyone else can get to it, please let us know. I found it to be a treasure trove of otherwise unaccessible information.)
I have searched and searched but cannot find the assay results for these two trenches. I am not sure that they were ever published.

Nonetheless, there were two other trenches excavated across T2 in 2007. Those results were published:

"The 2007 Timmins 2 trenches yielded intervals of 5 metres of 0.633g/t and 4 metres of
1.265g/t in the eastern trench. The gold bearing zone gave 4 metres of 1.486 g/t in the
western trench." (news release Sept 20, 2008).

I have reached no firm conclusions from all of this, but it does trouble me. How many of these zones, both in the Timmins area and all along the theoretical 20 km belt, will actually turn out NOT to be economically feasible? Being that the company observes that each of these gold-bearing zones exhibits some unique geological features, could it be that the nugget effect is more pronounced in one zone (i.e., T1) than in others, and is this what the published trench results in fact seem to suggest? And what do the unpublished results say? I am not saying that the company has been disingenuous in not publishing the full weighted results for Ascot-(2007) and T2-(2009). Perhaps there is some technical reason I am not aware of, or perhaps the results are in plain sight to everyone else but me.

If anyone can find the missing links, correct some of my assumptions, or otherwise provide some further insight, it would be appreciated. For the record, I sold my holdings last week. The news release did not clear up enough questions for me. I still think it is an interesting story and would love to get back in again, as soon as enough clouds disappear. It's just that some of these issues have been gnawing at me, and, since I'm not well known on this forum, I've been waiting for someone else to bring them up so that I wouldn't be labelled as a basher. So thanks Glorieux for providing a little cover for me :)