One more High Kolorado Trip Report:
The weather here yesterday was phenomenal. Sunny, Spring like warmth....with a low of 20 but an afternoon high of 63 degrees! Denver ended up hitting 71 degrees with the record high of 73 set back in 1982.
So, with most of the last 3 inches of snow melted off over the last 4 days, it was time to hit the river and scrape up some riverbed material, do some panning & sluicing.
I called a prospecting buddy, Gary from Poncha Springs, and we met at noon and headed over to a spot I worked previously. Arriving we hit the river, admiring the beautiful, sunny, warm day.....with no wind...
Gary setup his Angus MacKirk sluice with just enough water flow to hand wash the material and have it clear well:
A close up of Gary's MacKirk:
I tried to pick a spot close, so we could talk and run my Le Trap sluice. This meant trying to build up a rock platform under water, but with the fast current, most kept washing off the ledge and into a deep pool. I struggled to get the Le Trap setup and running, but as the river water flow surged and undulated, the rocks holding my Le Trap would shift, move and eventually the sluice would want to wash off into the river. I only got one pail sluiced and ended up giving up, went down river a little ways, looking for a better spot.
Gary kept working away.....using my garden hoe to scrape the top/unfrozen material, shovel it into a bucket and hand wash it in his MacKirk.
Our dig spot on the river:
I found a nice gravel bar about 30 yards down river, sample panned several pans. Very little black sand and a couple tiny specks of gold, so I walked up river above our spot, sample panning as I went. Problem was, like most the time on the river, when you found a spot with a little gravel/bed material with some color there was no good, close spot to setup a sluice.....just huge boulders and fast water in the deep channel. I probably did 8 sample pans from different spots. I decided to just head back, watch Gary run his sluice, have a sandwich, talk.
The river was awesome, peaceful....just us out for the afternoon:
I am not sure exactly how many pails Gary ran thru his MacKirk sluice, but I am guessing maybe 8 or so... About 3 PM we both decided we'd had enough fun, did a quick cleanup and backwashed/tapped up a nice little smile of very fine flood gold from his cons:
Not a lot by weight, but we did what we could with the frozen ground. Great fun and conversation for a few hours on the river.
Hopefully, you too can get out, have a wintertime "gold adventure", get a little gold...
Randy "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz
Fun in the sun in the middle of winter 
Makes ya happy NOT to live back east for sure as the wind blows and the snow piles high. Party on gents and tons a au 2 u 2-John 
