Hi Friends,
I was able to get out and do some gold prospecting recently and wanted to share how it went.
I am fortunate to live in the foothills of a mountain range with gold in them, so I left early in the morning and was at the trail head and 6:15am. It was actually still pitch dark out and I didn’t bring a flashlight and there are some treacherous spots on the trail, so I waited until about 6:30am, and then started my hike.
I followed a trail along the river and met another prospector named Gustavo near the beginning of the trail. He was headed out past the area I was going, but we hiked in together for about an hour and half. Once I got to my area, we parted ways and I started doing some test pans on an inside bend in the river. I started seeing some gold pieces in the first couple of pans, so I got setup had my river sluice box working well. I stayed there and worked the river bank from about 8:30am until 12:30pm. I then cut it off and cleaned up my gear and got my concentrates out the sluice box, which I had to finish up at home – here is my haul from 4 hours of work (with a few red garnet gemstones in there as well):
I hit the trail around 1:30pm and was back at my truck a little after 3pm. It was a lot of hiking with a lot of gear, but a fun time for sure - a great workout too!
Here is a picture of the river:
Here is a picture of the river bank I was getting the gold from:
That was only my third time up to this area and it was the best I had done so far. It seems the further back I go into the mountains, the better I gold I have found, so perhaps next time I will venture even further.
I am already looking forward to the next trip to get some more gold!
Thanks for coming by,
Brian