Well, Fall is in the air, so time to hit the hills here in High Colorado before winter is in the air....
So, I made it a point to get out my metal detector and gold pan and go back up Low Pass Gulch, near Granite, Colorado, and metal detect a little around the ruins of an old miner's cabin on the GPAA Rebel Yell claim & some of the old hard rock "diggins" up on the hillsides and further up the creek on the Yankee Nugget claim...
First up was detecting around the old stone chimney and decomposing trailer at an old miner's cabin site.
I am sure it's been detected a jillion times before, but one never knows what "stuff" one might find.......relics, coins, or maybe even a cache of money.
Well, I hit it hard with my White's MXT in several different modes.....but soooooooo much old iron debris all over. Drove me crazy diggin up iron cans, tin this & that & trash. I climbed way up the hillside too, looking for obvious landmark bounders, trees and such to detect around, looking for a buried cache of gold or old coins. Nope, nothing but a few stray .45 bullets and .22 slugs.So, off to climb the opposite hillside, now in the warming sun, to detect around a few hardrock diggins way up the hill. Maybe some lost gold in quartz rocks to be had in the tailings... It's tough climbing at 10,000 feet, with a backpack, detector, shovel & classifier in hand, and trying to not step on a pointy yucca plant or thorny cactus, as I only had my scuba wading booties on...
Up on the hill I detected around 4 diggin spots, but none were very deep, making me think they petered out real fast as they dug, and nothing gold to be had. I did locate several bullets and even a few brass shell casings. Who was shooting way up there I'll never know...
My metal detector finds for the day:
The small copper 1930's coverall button & 2 mining rail spikes were the best!
Back to the Jeep I got out my gold pan & shovel and sample panned some of the stream material in different spots...a gravel bar, a creek benck and behind a large rock. Loads of black sand and a few specks, but nothing big. Time to move on and up the gulch.
The single lane dirt road got a little dicey in spots with the mud & big rocks & deep ruts, but my trusty 4-WD Jeep pulled along just fine. I got up stream about a mile and came across an old hardrock mine across the creek. It had a huge tailing pile, tracks, the old audit (barred closed) and the remnants of what I suspected was the stamp mill.
I metal detected around, and again, loads of iron trash, nails, spikes, junk. Couldn't get even one rock to sound off. Came across this neat old boiler:
I went back to the Jeep to move on and saw on the road side of the creek some layerd stoneworks & concrete pads on top. I inspected them and saw footings & large bolts and that made me think stampmill.
So, I got out my pan, hand shovel, trowel & brush. I scraped & scooped up all I could around the footings & bolts. Maybe some left over gold? Well, at the creek I panned it out and saw it simply loaded with iron pyrite! Ha, "Fool's Gold" for sure, but so much? I went back and sample panned about 6 spots on top, around & below the stoneworks. All pans were just full of iron pyrite. I found numerous small chunks of quarts with iron pyrite crystals in them too. I bet the old miners were mining gold rich ore associated with the pyrite or free gold in the quartz with pyrite.
Here's some pics of the ore & a tub of fine iron pyrite:
I did find some fine natural gold in all that fool's gold after classifying & hand panning:
Anyone know what this blue/gray crystalline & lumpy lead stuff is?
I found lots of molten lead and this stuff in the cons I panned.
This is my tub of fine iron pyrite material. Any gold still in it?
Time to move up stream further to see what other exciting finds I could make...
I came across a bunch of old miner's log cabins & shacks. They looked to be late 1800s, but slightly "updated" in the 1930's I am guessing with newspaper for insulation, old furniture and such, but LONG since defunct, imploding & falling into themselves.
Definitely rat motels now! I detected around several for a few minutes, but the old tin cans, debris, broken glass & trash was off the charts. Those miners sure didn't keep a clean house...
I drove on further up the gulch, and came to a fork in the road. The road up the steep hill looked a bit to rough, so I parked and walked down the road following the creek & came across a neat old hardrock mine ore chute & stampmill building. Looked to be late 1800s again, with lots of old square nails, rusty bolts and extreme weathering. I could envision on the front where the stamps were set, and saw the old cast iron trough below, where I suspected the crushed ore fed into. Maybe full of mercury? I don't know... I did sample around the old footings and below the stamps and panned the dirt at the creek below. Got a lot of rusty nails and iron pieces and not much else.
I climbed back up and inspected the ore chute side exit/opening and spied some "dirt/material" up under the debris & boards. I dug a small pail and went and panned it. Yep...GOLD!
Got about 50 to 100 small -100 to 200 mesh specks out of that pail. So, very, very fine gold was being had from that mine. I dug another pail to take home and pan out later. I did get 2 small chunky mercury coated pieces and more micro specks out of that bucket...so, good for me, didn't get skunked. 
Here's some of the fine gold I got from the chute:
Well, it was about 4 PM and I was beat and it was time to lump & bump back down the gulch towards home, hoping to not bruise a tire or get stuck on the way back... Got home safe & sound, with anothert High Colorado gold adventure under my belt.
Here's the first of 5 short videos I posted on YouTube to share the fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eik2nUYD ... e=youtu.be
Hope you all get out soon, as Fall is in the air, and get your own gold and enjoy God's green earth & nature.
Oh, here's a pic of my last 2 days efforts:
Here's a pic of my previous 3 trips up sluicing at Cache Creek:
Cheers,
Randy "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz