Time to report on a little "adventure" yesterday I had on the Arkansas River, on a claim owned by some friends, just north of Buena Vista...(BV).
Background:
Well, I met Leonard & the gang several years back when I was in Devner for an Air Force conference, and I stayed over a few days on leave to prospect Clear Creek. Leonard took me to the downtown park, under the overpass, and we panned & sluiced for flood gold. I have a Trip Report on that outing here on the Forum, and was amazed at the amount of fine gold in the creek...
He recently invited me to join him & the gang on his High Hopes claim, with the gang, north of BV over Labor Day weekend. I got the invite a little late, but got there yesterday.
Here's the skinny:
I loaded up the Jeep and drove to where I understood the claim was, and perfect, found it no problem, met Ed & Rick, known as "Dr. Sluice" about 9:45 AM. The sun was coming up nicely over the hills to the east of the river, warming us up. They were both using 2 1/2 inch suction dredges, as they have all their BLM plans, bond, permits, etc. Not many do these days on the Arkansas. Unfortunately, Leonard couldn't make it up from Denver, so Ed & Rick were making it pay...
After some coffee, conversation and history on the area, the old railroad and where they found gold on their claim, Ed walked me down the bank and showed me a good spot to dig and sluice. Awesome!
I love trying new spots and having had little luck on the GPAA claims downstream, I was ready for some nice, fine Colorado Arkansas River gold. Judging from what Ed showed me he was getting out of his dredge, I wasn't going to get skunked as long as I did my part. The river is always a hard spot to sluice, as the water surges up & down constantly, and the areas to safely set up a flimsey, light weight sluice like my plastic Le Trap are hard to find, especially in a bouldery area, but I did. I classified my dirt to 1/4 inch, as the water flow was up & down, and I've learned if you do a larger size, the drop riffles tend to hold the larger rocks & not clear out over time, losing fine gold out the back.
My sluice setup:
The day was perfect, clear, sunny, warming fast...so on went the SPF 50 sunblock and bucket after bucket I slowly sluiced. About 11 AM Ed & Rick were suited up and dredging in their holes in the river. The Clark's Nutcrackers were flying overhead left & right, the fine gold was showing up in the vacuum formed lettering in the bottom of the flair "LE TRAP"..."MADE IN CANADA".
I always love it when I can see fine gold in the letters, as I know the riffles are catching even more...My dig spot in the boulders:
After my first three 2 1/2 gal pails of dirt, I did a clean up, quickly panned the cons and yep, a nice flake and goodly amount of fine gold. I walked downstream to show Ed had put me in a good spot. He was backwashing a scoop of his cons from his dredge cleanup and I was impressed at all the colors & small flakes. Wish I had a dredge again!
About that time Mike showed up, another firend, and he chatted with us & decided to sluice up stream with Rick. So, back to the diggins & gold recovery with my sluice. About noon I had sandwich as I sluiced. Soon Ed stopped to make sandwiches & offered me a nice cold IPA beer. Yummy in the warm sun. Lunch was a nice break up at his trailer.
After lunch back to carrying buckets, sluicing... I think I ran about 12 pails total, but unfortunately one time, returning with my 3rd bucket I saw the rock holding the back left corner of the sluice had washed out, allowing the sluice to fold over sideways, and I lost the vast majority of 2 pails of cons back into the river. Oh well, that's river sluicing. Glad my Le Trap didn't wash away!
About 4:30PM it was time to cleanup for good. I was tired, had enough sun, and needed to get home. I screened my cons with an 1/8th inch screen & panned it....nope, no big flakes or pickers. I quickly panned the black sand cons and yep, a nice "smile" of really pretty fine, bright, Colorado gold.
Many thanks to Leonard, Ed, Rick and everyone for the invite and letting me dig & sluice on their High Hopes claim. Hope to team up with them again someday soon... One more push pin in the ground on a spot I prospected & found some color.
Here's links to my two short videos I posted on YouTube:
First video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBPjUtSU ... t_received
Last video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2GN6tFX ... ature=plcp
Hope everyone gets out soon, as we slip into Fall, and find some gold & have a "gold Adventure" of their own before winter hits.
God bless,
Randy "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz