Yep, more cabin fever, so I had to get out and see just how cold & frozen the Arkansas River was on Saturday... There was some snow on the road, but not a problem.
I went sample panning for about 1 1/2 hours, and it was tough to find anything not frozen like concrete or a place to safely get out to the river and pan, as the ice is now so thick, so extensive, a lot of the river now is simply flowing under the ice.
I walked up & down the river, slippin' & sliding on the ice, and came across an interesting spot....one where a large spring was flowing water right out of the hillside into the river. Hmmm....
The water was relatively"warm", well, warm enough to not freez solid in the weeks of below zero temps we have been having. So, I sampled sand/gravel in the spring behind some large boulders and was encouraged to see some decent color...
Sample panning video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TK13PSk ... e=youtu.be
I decided to go back on Monday, today, 7 Jan 13, and bring my plastic Le Trap sluice & 2 inch deserdog hand sucker tube to better get the material up & out from around the rocks & boulders...
Got there about 11:30AM and carried all my equipment to the river and then downstream to the spring spot. It was challenging to decide just how to try and direct all the flow out of the hill above to get enough flow to sluice with, but I did it.
By 12PM or so I was sucking gravel and dumping it directly into the sluice flair... I made a short 4 minute video of my ops. It's on my YouTube channel. Link here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaabUF5A ... e=youtu.be
I worked diligently, using my crevice tool & pry bar to losen all the rocks I could move/dig out, and kept sucking & sluicing. After about 1/2 hour I let the Le Trap clear and I looked at the riffles. Yeah! I could see lots of little specks & small flakes in the top riffles. There was a goodly amount of black sand in the material I sluiced, so I was pretty hopeful I'd not get skunked...
The day was nice, some high cirrus clouds, no wind and above freezing in the sun. I kept diggin' & sluicing and at one point just scooped with my PVC gloved hands all the loose sand/gravel up high in the spring bed down stream and directly into my Le Trap. Kinda felt like a mini-hydraulic operator!
The water sure helped wash the "good stuff" down & into the sluice. I cleaned out 2 holes pretty good:
I did about 5 cleanups in 3 hours of on/off sluicing. At 2:30 it was time to pack it all up, as the sun was behind some trees, it was getting cooler & I was in the shadows now...
At home I screened my cons with a 1/8th inch screen and panned out one big scoop of black sand. Got some nice flood gold:
On the drive home, about 2 miles from my house on County Road 361, there has been a large herd of Elk lately, just hanging out. I estimate about 150 in the herd. I stopped and snapped a few pictures...
Anyways, I had a GREAT 3 hours on the river, sluicing river bed material in a feeder spring of all things... So, even with nights as low as 14 below zero, and several snows in the last 2 weeks, it's still possible to have fun, get out, find some gold!
Hope you get out soon too...
Randy "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz
It's 9:22 AM right now and sunny out, but still 3 degrees below zero.
