Well, with the Ark now flowing over 1,000 CFS at the Granite gauge.......it's time to focus again on Cache Creek for gold prospecting fun...
I guided a full-day "gold adventure" outing yesterday for Caleb from Kansas. We hit my favorite little dry gulch for some panning & sluicing fun. The day was perfect, 50/50 sun, light breeze, cool temps, and we didn't get poured on even once with a big thundershower!
We arrived about 9:30AM, setup our sluices and walked up the gulch to look for some good material to run. Part way up I spotted some layering I liked on the sidewall and we each dug a bucket, screening out rocks with my 1/2 inch classifier and as much magnetite as possible with my big rare earth magnet. We sample panned the dirt and we saw anywhere from 2 to maybe 6 colors and little flakes per pan. Good enough! Time to start "washing dirt!"
I showed Caleb how I setup and adjust and run my Le Trap sluices. Off to the races by 10 AM we just dug, sluiced and talked...
Here's Caleb and our sluices all setup:
Caleb sluicing gulch material:
My favorite little dry gulch. Wish I could setup a zip line!
The spot on the gulch bank we sampled and then worked:
Caleb perfecting his diggin' technique:
Letting our sluices clear out as we ate lunch before our first cleanup:
Beautiful Quail Mountain above, 13,461 feet tall, just covered in snow:
At 4 PM we did our second and last cleanup for the day. Here's the beautiful, chunky Cache Creek gold Caleb took home. Got nice little picker too!
So, overall an awesome day in the hills panning and sluicing and sharing the day with a new gold prospecting friend.
I hope you get out on a fun "Gold Adventure" soon too...
God bless,
Randy "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz
Looks like a righteous day and some nice pay too-John