Hey all you Gold Dredgers...
Yep.......one more quick Trip Report of my latest exploits with Ron up at Cache Creek, Colorado.....a BLM managed property...just West of Granite, Kolorado.
Ron & I wanted to work a new dig spot......well, new to us...........a dig spot that Dave & Wayne had started and opened up a bit previously. We were told of endless nuggets, pickers and soooooooooooooo much color that one just had to sample some of this amazing dirt, sluice and go home rich!
So, I met Ron at the parking lot just before 7 AM. We got all our prospecting "stuff" together and we hiked over to our normal spot. This is where we then hiked over about 100 yard to a dig spot Dave & Wayne had opened up and so we proceeded to dig, screen to 1/2 inch and carry back heavy buckets of "dirt"... The material as wet, so at least no dust...
I ran my Le Trap sluice and Ron ran his MacKirk sluice.
The day was very cool, wet, low clouds and strangely humid, from all the rains and thundershowers over the last week... July here in High Kolorado has been one of the coolest and wettest in ages. As a matter of fact, when we got run off by the rain about 2 PM, I went home. Just North of Buena Vista where I live it rained on & off all night. When I got up on 1 August about 6 AM for some coffee, it was clear enough to see the top of 14,197 feet Mt. Princeton to the South and there was a little snow on it! Wow....
So, back to the prospecting...
I used my home made Chinese Coolie should rig consisting of black PVC pipe and bubble pack & straps to carry my heavy buckets of wet gold bearing gravels to sluice. Glad I had it. Ron just "manned up" and carried all his heavy buckets the old fashioned way....and probably stretched his arms out a good 2 inches over the day.
No way to look "pretty" sweating, carrying buckets of "dirt".... It's all about the outcome at the end of the day, NOT style points for appearances....
Carrying heavy buckets over long distances is one of my least favorite things to do. BUT, the lure of GOLD pushed me on... Sample pans showed fine gold, but nothing big. Better than nothing...
We had lunch about noon, then back to the diggin' and carrying buckets and sluicing. Ron normally cleaned up every 4 buckets and always saw some nice color. I just did one cleanup at noon and the end of the day.
My total take was .47 grams of nice Cache Creek gold:
Ron did better. He got .55 grams of nice gold:
So, by 2 PM it was raining, I was pooped out and time to call it a day. Back at the parking lot we enjoyed a Sam Adams beer and cigar and talked about all the "hard fun" we'd had...getting wet, swatting mosquitos and finding some gold. Priceless....
Here's a short video I took early in the day...as we got into a rhythm of diggin', sluicing and repeating the cycle:
http://youtu.be/zCwswgXgqww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCwswgX ... e=youtu.be
Hope you too get out, get some gold, before Summer slips into Fall!
God bless,
Randy "C-17A" http://www.goldadventures.biz