You're welcome, Monte, and thank you for your advice on dealing with these challenging sites as well as organizing these get-togethers. If I hadn't found a single keeper the camaraderie was easily worth attending (as was last year's).
It never ceases to jolt me how much luck plays into a good find. I spent 3 1/2 days above 10k ft. elevation, the first two not even touching a detector as I scoured the land trying to find that long ago leveled ghost town. When I finally figured it out (or was hopeful I had done so) I got the miner's tag in the first hour and the Flying Eagle in the second. That coin sealed my conclusion that I had really found the site since the town was only populated in the first half of the 1860's decade -- just the right time window for circulating Flying Eagle cents. Getting 'paid' for 2 days of research with that confirmation was as much of an accomplishment as finding such a nice coin. Another 5+ hours of detecting produced no more goodies. Think of how easily I could have missed that FE cent and left with my tail between my legs, still not sure if I had located the townsite.