Yep, yet one more highly successful prospecting/panning/sluicing trip up to Cache Creek with Shane from Texas...
We met about 8AM in Granite, CO, at the public pullout and I drove us up to the BLM property across the highway. I stropped at the 1865 Granite Cemetery and explained some of the history, the lay of the land the valley, the old timer's hydraulic ops...
Up at the placering area parking lot we suited up, got our equipment, water, food, sunblock, bug spray and hiked over to my favorite spot on Cache Creek. Arriving I was a bit surprised to see nobody else there, as that spot has become a regular diggin' spot of the masses. We setup the Le Trap sluice in the creek, headed over to the Dave/Wayne diggin' spot and dug, screened to 1/2 inch and carried our first 2 pails back. I quickly sample panned up some of one bucket, and we saw some O.K. fine color, so away we went.........sluicing, diggin', making trip after trip.
Here's Shane sluicing:
Shane was a pretty experienced prospector out of Texas, having hit many of the good gold states in years past. Nice to not have to start with the very, very basics as to gold, panning, etc. We decided to run 10 2 1/2 gal pails and do a cleanup.
Our first cleanup was a nice surprise of bright, butter yellow Cache Creek gold. We could see the little gold flakes and pieces building up in our top 3 riffles. Nice motivation to dig more, sluice more, work harder.
We couldn't have asked for a better day................cool, cloudy/overcast that kept the sun at bay, no thunderstorms to soak us...
I used my homemade Chinese-style bucket carrier that was basically a 1 1/2 inch PVC pole with straps to help carry the buckets of HEAVY gold bearing material about 100 yards back to the creek. We eventually stopped for lunch about noon and after enjoying a sandwich, water, chips.....it was back to the GOLD!
The plan was to hopefully get in three 10 bucket sluicings...........and cleanup after each. The day warmed, got a little sunnier, and we slowed down a bit having "hard fun" at 9,500 feet elevation...
About 2 PM Wayne, his brother Jack and Wayne's puppy dog Katie showed up to help us excavate the "Adam/Wayne" hole even bigger..........nice to have the glory hole namesake in our midst.
Wayne & Jack setup their Le Trap sluice above us, started excavating the pit below us....and they were off and runnin' too.By now, thunderstorms rumbled and grumbled to our East over the Buffalo Peaks area and to our South, but luckily, we never got rained on, except for a few rain drops here & there...
About 2:30 PM Shane decided to make the last 6 pails....a total of 30 pails......our goal for the day, and so we dug the last pails, sluiced and did a 3rd cleanup...
Then I combined all the gold from the 30 pails and all my hand panning sample pans of orangish clay material into my green 10 1/2 inch Garret gravity trap pan and I did a quick "backwash & tap" to get our gold. Hey....we did GOOD!
One of my best cleanups on Cache Creek ever! Probably a gram, maybe better Always looks like more than it weighs out to be:
So, we hiked back to parking, leaving Wayne & Jack to keep sluicing that gravely/sandy material. We headed out of Cache Creek about 3:30PM. back to Granite, CO, about 3:45PM and there we said our goodbyes. Shane took back 1/2 a gallon Ziplock bag of VERY heavy black sand cons to pan for extra gold back home. Can't wait to see what Shane eventually pans out of everything... I'll update the Trip Report and numbers as I can, based on his final panning and weighing.
Here's a short YouTube video showing our rude & crude gold panning of the cons from our 3 cleanups. Very happy with the results:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD2H_Iz ... e=youtu.be
Yep... Shane & I has a blast. Hopefully, you too can get out, make a memory, find some good gold!
God bless,
Randy "C-17A"
http://www.goldadventures.biz
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