I had the opportunity to guide a gold prospecting adventure for a family visiting the U.S. from Sweden yesterday.
Mats and his family were in the U.S. two years ago on another 2-week visit, but this time wanted to focus on the intermountain region of Utah and Colorado. Well, July in High Colorado is a perfect time to see the 14ers, hike, camp and yes.....gold prospect!
I coordinated with Mats several months back to lead a prospecting outing for him, his wonderful wife Karin, son Tim and daughter Sara. We met about 8 AM and drove up to Cache Creek. I stopped by the old Granite Cemetery first, for a few minutes of historical discussion, telling them of the old timers, the gold mining operations in decades past and to show them the lay of the land and where we'd be prospecting up the valley. I pointed out Mt. Elbert, the highest 14er in Colorado at 14,433 feet and Mt. Massive beside it, at 14, 428 just to our North. It was a cool morning, with a little mist and rain drops. Luckily, the weather was clearing after several days of clouds, thunderstorms and wetness. At least the dirt roads were dustless!
We drove on up the valley to the placering area, signed in with Randy the GPOC camp host and parked. With 5 people it was easy to carry all the equipment we'd need for the day over to my current favorite spot on the creek. Everything was wet and cool from the rains the night before. On the way I showed them several beaver ponds, the Brown Trout in them and the endless piles of rocks, berms and evidence of hydraulic mining in the years past when Cache Creek was an operating, big time gold mine.
Arriving the spot it was good to see we were the first there, but 2 other prospectors had "staked out" the spot too, leaving all their sluices, equipment, stuff. They had buckets and a shovel in the pit, so we decided to work the berm. We setup our two sluices above them in the creek and would have to walk/carry buckets only a short distance. No telling when they'd return, if at all for the day...
The mosquitos were out in FULL force, so we sprayed up with bug spray, got our gold pans and shovel and commenced to sample pan some of the orangish clayish material I had worked successfully last time I was at this spot. I instructed them on how to get the material wet, break up the clay, swirl and wash the lighter material off and eventually get to black sand and gold. We were able to backwash & tap up a few little colors & flakes in pretty much each pan. This was their very first gold prospecting and gold panning experience, so they were in for the real thing today!
O.K. Great. Off and running...Mats & Sara sample panning:
Next step was to get some water in our buckets, shovel in several big scoops of material, carry them back to our sluices and slurry the material to free up the gold and then hand feed it into our sluices. Working clayish material isn't easy, but they worked it hard. I kept sample panning, trying to find the best material for us to run.
Karin & Tim sluicing:
Luckily, the weather improved over time, with the sun shining, warming & drying out the place. Good too was we never had the usual clouds build that would turn into thunderstorms and rock, roll and drench us in a huge shower. A nice day, high and dry.....except for those dang mosquitos wanting blood...
Tim worked the Wolf Trap sluice mostly and Sara worked the Le Trap sluice mostly, with Mats & Karin alternating between them to keep the operation on track and going well. Sara & Mats were taking to panning real well, taking time to dig samples and pan out the material, helping me try and locate the most gold. I must say, Sara got her panning down in a big hurry. I think she's a natural born prospector.
Our Le Trap setup:
Unfortunately, Tim was suffering from a cold and wasn't feeling all that good, but he did his best to keep our little operation going. A big bummer to be sick on vacation. Hopefully, he will push thru his sickness and be able to enjoy the rest of his time here in the U.S.
Our dig spot:
About 11AM the two other prospectors that had all their equipment there showed up, said "Hi". They intended to run the remaining material they'd screened up, clean up and pack out to another spot up the creek that they liked better and was coming open due to the current prospectors there heading home. So, these two guys worked their material and invited us to work the pit, if we wanted. I did three sample pans in the spot they said they were finding gold, but I didn't get a speck, so we just kept working the clay material. The clay is hard work, not many want to put in the effort, preferring to work the very sandy/gravely pit material.
We just kept sample panning, diggin' and washing buckets and enjoying the great day... About 1 PM everyone was slowing down and it was time to start cleaning up our sluices, pan out our gold and do a final cleanup on our snuffer bottle. No sense working too long and have the "fun" become "un-fun".... I did the cleanups on both sluices, quickly panned out our black sand cons and wallah, we had some nice Cache Creek gold! I put it in a glass vial for easy viewing and so they can show off their gold from their prospecting adventure.
Our gold:
We packed back to the parking lot, loaded up our equipment, changed shoes and said our goodbyes. It was rewarding to me to deliver an honest to goodness real gold prospecting experience to Mats, Karin, Tim & Sara.....coming all the way from Sweden. We got mosquito bit, wet, muddy and yet had a great "gold adventure" in the High Colorado mountains....and created a family memory not soon to be forgotten.
Mats, Karin, Tim & Sara:
Hopefully, you'll get out on a Gold Adventure of your own soon.
God bless,
Randy Witham "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz
spread the fever worldwide-John PS-an organic compound,REPEL,works better that that nasty liver poison DEET and consists of eucalyptus oil and a dash a lemon and instant mosquitos free and ya live longer for it. I'll never forget the damage done to glasses and camera Leonard showed me from deet usage,LL NO....