I had an amazing California “gold adventure,” 25 Sep thru 4 Oct 2010, where I visited family, prospected a heck of a lot, and set a new personal standard for “hard fun” in the late Fall California heat and beautiful Sierra Nevadas...the Mother Lode country! I was able to get all around the hills and many different rivers. What a blessing... Plz let me take you along....
This trip I endeavored to metal detect for gold, sluice, crevice and hand pan too, often splitting my days between each effort........all in search of the unknown, fun, and the beautiful yellow metal. My personal goal was a nugget, any size...sadly, not to be.
Day 1 & 2 – Sat 25 & Sun 26 Sep 10: Up at o’dark 30 in Georgia to make breakfast, load up, drive to Atlanta, and catch a flight to Sacramento, CA, where my twin sister Judy & younger sister Susie were to pick me up, with all my gear & stuff, and “head for the hills” direct. We had reservations at the old hotel in Washington, CA, an old 1850s gold town up on the SF Yuba River. This place had $10.5M of gold extracted in its day. Landed about noon, and once loaded up, we headed up I-80 to Auburn, and then got on Hwy 49 to Washington. On the way, we stopped on a high ridge, looked out over the hills, and saw fall in the air and many “diggings” on the distant hills, where mines and prospects showed the miner 49ers willingness to struggle in the heat, cold and very steep/rugged hills to mine gold.
At the hotel, we checked in, unloaded our bags, changed clothes and headed up the river to find a place to prospect/pan before it got too late.
I was in the “Wyatt Earp” room at the hotel, where he stayed in December 1902, laying over on a trip 4 miles upriver to see & invest in a hard rock gold mine. Much of the river was private property or “claimed”, so the old metal signs on the trees said... A Ranger we asked said 3 miles upstream was a public campground where we could prospect without problem on the SF Yuba, so off we went! After 2 miles of paved road, the last mile was bumpy dirt road. At the campground, we unloaded in the late afternoon heat, like 90 degrees, and carried all our “stuff” to the river, and set up in a section with decent water flow to sluice. Within minutes, we were enjoying the cool, clear water, sluicing and crevicing for gold. Luckily, the afternoon sun was moving behind the ridge to the West, and so we did not get too much sun.
By 5 PM, it was time to pack out, get back to the Washington Hotel, change, and head to the back patio to smoke a cigar, sip champagne and relax. Therefore, we did!
The Yuba flowed right past the hotel down below about 100 feet, and the evening was cooling nicely...... After libations, we did dinner there at the hotel, and the food was very good!
Up about 8 AM we had a super breakfast in the hotel and went back to the same spot 3 miles upriver. My twin sister, Judy, and I crossed the river and went to metal detecting for nuggets. How nice it would be to get a “nuggie” to show & tell! After about 1 hour digging up one piece of rusty iron after another, we realized trying to find a nugget was to be a real challenge. We had collected a HUGE pile or iron chunks, nails, bolts, screws, etc. Therefore, we switched over to crevicing in the far side bedrock and hand panning.
Luckily, crevicing paid off much better, and we were getting nice fine specks & flakes in each pan. Therefore, we worked to clean out a huge crevice and hand pan the material.
We worked as a team and by the end of the day, we had done pretty darn well for just hand panning & crevicing.
I posted several YouTube videos sharing these two days...27 videos in total. Left about 5 PM and got back to Rocklin, CA, about 7 PM. Man, were we tired...
Day 3 – Monday 27 Sep 10: I was up early and headed to Mineral Bar, just East of Colfax, on the NF American River. Stopped by my favorite dry gulch & plunge pool on the way to the river. This dry plunge pool was the end of a long & steep gulch that runs water at times. I have dug and panned material from the pool before, and have found fine gold in it.
So, for 2 years I wanted to metal detect WAY up the gulch for gold. I brought my White’s MXT & 6 inch oval DD coil this year... About 9 AM I was detecting every crevice and small dry pool area..........hoping for a nugget or gold in quartz, or something good.
After about 1 hour detecting, climbing this steep gulch, and digging many targets, all I had to show was several old .22 lead bullets, some rusty iron pieces, and a few high iron magnetite rocks. Dang it.......no huge gold nuggets or gold in quartz specimens.
Oh well, to make my way safely back down and hit the NF American River.
BY 11AM, I was parked at the river, all loaded up and slowly/carefully walking UP the river to go sluice & crevice. I have never been upstream before and made it a point to go take a look... I stopped at the North end of the campground to make a video of the tremendous rock cobble pile that covers the bench area beside the river. Wow, what an amazing pile of rocks........all 25 lbs to 200 lbs each.
Thousands of rocks hauled up and out of the riverbed so the miners could get to the bedrock and gold. Crazy amount of effort, and cobble piles can be seen way down & up the river.
About ¼ mile upstream I stop, unload, and get to sluicing with my new prototype “shorty” Wolf Trap sluice. I pick a spot with good water flow & good material behind a big rock at the water’s edge.
After about 45 minutes sluicing gravel, I try to flip a big, flat rock that is slowly sliding into my hole over, and end up having it hit/scrape my left leg/ankle...........OUCH! Made a big bruise, scrape and almost broke my leg. Luckily, I could soak my left ankle in the cool water and keep sluicing.
Early afternoon, I decided to clean up, pack out, and hobble back down stream, and crevice & hand pan along the way. By now it was blazing sun, HOT, and an effort to guzzle water and stay hydrated and prospect.
Must have been mid 90s, even for late September... Along the way back to the Pilot, I stopped and creviced and hand dredged several spot, but only found a few specks & flakes. My ankle hurt, I was tired, so home I went early afternoon.........
Susie had a kiddie pool set up in her back yard on a table under a patio cover in the shade, so I panned out a ½ bucket of plunge pool material I dug up on the way home. Found a little fine gold, but not much.
Day 4 – Tuesday 28 Sep 10: Decided to take it a little easy, given my swollen left ankle, and head to the “confluence” of the NF & MF American Rivers just East of Auburn, CA, and crevice & hand pan for the day. Worked my way up stream and decided to pitch rocks & pan material behind a big rock in the riverbed.
After 30 minutes and three pans, I only had a few specks & small flakes, so up stream I went. Worked all day below the huge, long bridge that runs across the river. Creviced, used my hand dredge, but only found O.K. color. Then, spent most the day slightly further up stream cleaning a bedrock area on the bedrock behind several big rocks.
Dug material, creviced, used my hand dredge to pan out some decent fine gold.
Worked further up stream crevicing & hand dredging, but found more lead than gold.
Day 5 – Wednesday 29 Sep 10: New location for me........Ponderosa Way, NF American River. Took the less traveled route to the river out of Weimar, CA, and after 3 miles of paved road & 2.2 miles of dirt road I got to the river.
After parking, I took my White’s MXT detector and panning/crevicing tools downstream.......
Within the first 1/8th mile, I come across a HUGE hole dug in the gravel bar to the bedrock..........like 10 feet wide and 8+ feet deep.
Man that took a LOT of work! Therefore, I could not resist getting down into it and detecting around with my MXT. After wanding all over, I got a BIG signal in the bedrock in a crevice! Well, after a lot of diggin’ and detecting I found a big chunk of iron and rocks bonded to it. Oh, well........in the 4 or 5 buckets of material I panned I got one god flake & small fines...
Next, worked my way down stream detecting............as the sun made it HOT& sunny............like low 90s by 2 PM and near 100 degrees by 4 PM.
I found a LOT of iron nails, bullets, old ammo casings and trash........no nuggets.
Back to the car and the temp gauge read 100 F! By the time I got to base camp in Rocklin, CA, it was 102F, on 29 Sep.................talk about a late Fall HEAT WAVE!
Got some nice fine gold....
Day 6 – 30 Sep 10: My mother & sister Susie met and headed for the higher Sierra Nevada’s around Downieville, CA, and Sierra City, CA, to gold prospect & have fun together.....On the way up we stopped for a rest on the SF Yuba river, took a few pics, had lunch, creviced and went on our way....to Downieville.
The whole 3-day trip was marked by picture postcard perfect weather.........cloudless skies, milder temps, clear/cool water & of course, some nice fine gold most everywhere we creviced & panned. While mom & Susie picked blackberries, I used my hand pry bar to tear a few bedrock crevices apart & panning was rewarded with some nice speck & flakes.
I used my awesome new Keene crevice tool, with a spoon at one end and a long curved hook at the other to really dig into some cracks & crevices I knew others had hit in the past, but this long/narrow tool really reached deeper and that little bit of material always had gold! Thank you, Keene!
Arriving Downieville, we checked into our hotel right on the edge of the Downie River, downtown, right across the red iron bridge & got settled in... Not yet ready for dinner, as it was about 4PM, I asked the owner and he said with nothing more than a hand pan, I could walk the short trail downstream to the confluence of the Downie & NF Yuba Rivers and pan/prospect there....so I did. Arriving, I surveyed the exposed bedrock up the NF Yuba side, took a short video, and looked at numerous spots others had creviced, but saw one area higher up, and decided to work it. Scooping the sand up and into my pan, I got out my paintbrush, scraped it once with my crevice tool, and brushed the crack. As I looked closer, in the bright sunlight, I saw GOLD in that crack! A nice piece stuck there.... I worked my crevice tool behind it, and pulled it right out.
A nice big flat picker of a flake! Yeah! I took pics and a short video. Ready for more. I creviced & hand panned for about 45 minutes, went back, and showed my sister & mom my find. Great way to start a gold trip is with gold. After dinner & some drinks, it was time for bed.
Day 7 – 1 Oct 10: Before Susie 7 mom got up, I was awake and across the street at 6:45AM detecting a little city park called Tin Cup Diggins Park. Story goes that in the 1848-50 era, miners that owned this claim area could dig a tin cup full of gold nuggets every day, and head to the saloons. I hoped for even one. Found a few coins, iron and a old rusty hatchet head. Susie will put that artifact in here patio garden as a memento of our trip.
This was a Friday, and after a bite to eat, we loaded up and drove upstream of Downieville on the NF Yuba and looked for a spot to prospect. Sadly, mile after mile had so many “Mining Claim” signs on the trees at most every pull out, I was beginning to wonder if we would ever find a place that was not private property or someone’s claim. So many signs were so old, shot up, I could see no monuments or boundary markers, made me wonder how many were still “active” and up to date.
Driving back close to Downieville we saw a side road to a resort that was close to the river and no claim signs. After a quick look around, we decided to pan here and do lunch a bit later too. The water was cool, clear, perfect, and we could see where a LOT of others had creviced, busted bedrock, had dug holes in the gravel bars......basically prospecting central. Getting mom into her chair with her book at the river’s edge, Susie & I set out to find a nugget! I busted some rough, flaky shale like bedrock, broomed up the dirt, and panned it. Nice display of specks & small flakes! So, as I creviced and bedrock busted, Susie like to get into the water with my hand dredge and try to suck heavy material from holding points in the bedrock. Hour after we played, had fun, prospected and found fine gold.
About 4 PM, we had had a lot of fun, but were tired. Therefore, we headed back to town, cleaned up and went for a pizza dinner with some awesome micro-brew beer, much like IPA. At the hotel, we turned in early, as we were pooped out, and needed to get up early, check out, eat breakfast and go prospect again.
Day 8 – 2 Oct 10: Saturday was a lot busier in town with bikers, motorcyclists, campers and tourists.......so we headed up the river about 12 miles to Sierra City to check it out, have breakfast and say we’d “been there, done that”. What a gorgeous drive up to Sierra City! Downieville is about 2,900 feet, and Sierra City is at 4,200 feet. The NF Yuba was stunning........clear water, polished boulders & bedrock, and amazing cobble piles of rocks all along the way, a testament to the old miners that moved thousands of rocks to get to the gold bearing gravels...some at the river and some pile way up o benches. We even saw one house, garage, out buildings all built between the HUGE cobble piles.......several as big as a house!
Arriving Sierra City we ate breakfast at the Buckhorn Restaurant on their outdoor patio.........amazing as the Crested Buttes above/behind to the North give them a runoff creek that flows water right thru their patio, and the landscaping & flowers were so beautiful.
I was simply impressed, and the food excellent! We then walked down the street, looking at stores & shops, went into the gold prospecting shop, and chatted with the owners..........a nice couple. I bought 2 nuggets as future gifts, my mom & sister bought a vial of gold as a souvenir, and after some talk, were given a bunch of locally collected quartz rock for free to take home.
Heading back down river to Downieville, we determined the same place we prospected the day before was the safest & best bet to try again. Some pullouts had VERY steep and long trails to the river, and that was not going to work for mom. Back at the river, we set up again, and I went to prospect different spots.
One long, wide crevice in the bedrock I dug for 30 minutes and hand panned at least five pans of material from had nothing but a few specks. Disappointing...... Another crevice at the water’s edge which I had to use my pry bar & hand dredge to suck out did not have even one speck. Wow........both seemed like the perfect nugget holding points. So, back to busting dry bedrock and hand panning shale fragments & dirt and again I was finding fines and small flakes.
Susie & mom took occasional dips in the cool river water to stay cool, and I ran max pans of material as I could, knowing we’d have to stop about 4 PM at the latest & drive all the way back to Rocklin, near Sacrament, ending our trip. At 4:30 PM we were packed up, loading the Pilot, and off we went home.......a great “gold adventure” and a lot of family fun memories richer.
Day 9 – 3 Oct 10. Sadly, Sunday was my last day to prospect & get out in the California hills and find some gold..........and hopefully a nugget, maybe. I decided to take my prototype Wolf Trap sluice out again, and really give it a good run, and go back to NF American River & sluice from this huge gravel bar where I’d sample panned up some nice specks & flakes several days prior. Arriving the parking spot, and hiking the ¼-mile or so downstream, I was set up and ready to sluice about 9:15 AM.
There had been numerous prospectors here before..........water weir built, a big hold dug into the gravel bar between two willows, and so I dug my dirt and sluiced.
The test was to dig and classify to ½ inch, using a 2 ½ gal pail, run 3 pails and clean up. I would run with fast water riffle bar setting, flip over to slow water riffle bar setting, and repeat digging from a different part of the bar. Four test runs, four clean ups, and we would see if there was any difference. Three ½ hours of effort paid off. In my estimation, the fast water setting got a little more gold, especially the small, flat flakes that tend to wash straight thru very easily.
This is hard to get flood gold that is either 100 mesh specks or very fine, flat flakes. The Wolf Trap got them both—very happy with its performance.
At about 1:30PM I was hoofing it back to the Pilot, with sluice hanging from my neck by a strap, my backpack on, a folding chair, tubs and bucket in my hands, to have lunch. The weather had cooled, and actually rained/sprinkled lightly that morning, on and off, and so of all my heat wave day, I finally had an overcast, cloudy cool day! At the Pilot I ate a quick lunch, got out my White’s MXT detector, new 36 inch pry bar, crevicing tools & pan and headed upstream to go get a nugget! I spent about 1 hour digging targets only to find .22 bullets, copper bullet casings, old rusty iron wire, nails and fragments. Therefore, with my last day almost gone, I decided to get off the bench areas and get to the river bedrock and crevice/handpan.
At the river, I spotted a nice big area where I could lever big sections of bedrock apart, and capture the free material, and pan it out. My new 36-inch pry bar really worked great! I worked for about 2 hours here & there and found some decent fine gold and was happy I had switched from detecting...
At about 4:30PM I was loading up the Pilot and driving up the dirt road & canyon from the NF American River to Rocklin, CA. Bummer, my California “gold adventure” now over... but I got to have a GREAT time with both my sisters & mother too, and find some gold, and enjoy God’s creation. Odd I purposefully planned this year’s visit a full month later, and even looked at historical weather/temp data, and who could have guessed a heat wave for nine of my 10 days in late Sep/early Oct would be 10 to 12 degrees above historical norms. I saw 101 or 102 degrees in Rocklin several times and 92 to 100 degrees in the hills as well.
Day 10 – 4 Oct 10: Flew back to Atlanta, GA, and my super wonderful wife, Dee, picked me up and I was home at 10 PM. I had a lot of “hard fun” on this trip, found some nice California gold and hope each and every one of you are inspired to get out, prospect, have fun and enjoy God’s green earth, before winter arrives and makes it too cold.
I posted 27 short videos on YouTube, a new record for me, so plz go take a look! Here’s the first one to get you into my video listing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI-Yxo2w6os
Here’s two final gold take pics. Thanks to both my sisters, Judy & Susie, for the help in panning this out with me!
God bless,
Randy “C-17A” www.goldadventures.biz
tons a au 2 u 2-John