Well, I had the privilege of meeting up with a brand new to our hobby prospector, from my Gold Adventures Forum and we went sluicing on the Arkansas River, Tuesday, 19 February...and got some fine flood gold!
Rich lives in Colorado Springs, about 90 miles to my East, and contacted me about possibly meeting, going prospecting together several weeks back. See, he's brand new to our great hobby, had bought a few bags of cons off internet sellers, had panned them out, and felt ready to go out on his first every hunt for "wild" gold. He's wisely joined the GPAA, the GPOC and one other local club, so he's got access to a lot of claims w/i a reasonable drive, but just needed a good first immersion before striking out on his own...smart.
He asked me to show him the basics and get him off to a good start....and I was happy to do it. The weather reports said clear but cool, and no big winds, so Tuesday was the day. I had been out by myself on Monday, but the temp never got above freezing despite the sun being out, and the wind was howling & gusting most the day, like 10 to 15 gust 25, so it basically drove me off the river after a few hours. Couldn't stand it, which doesn't happen very often...
Anyways, Rich arrived at my house about 9 AM, we talked, had some breakfast burritos, and loaded up our gear and headed to town. We weren't in a big rush, as the low temp that morning was a balmy minus 2 degrees, so we had a LONG way to go to warm up enough to hit the river and not be too cold...
After a couple pit stops in town I toured Rich up the Arkansas River, on CR 371, and showed him the BLM lands, the open prospecting area at the BLM Elephant Rock campground, the private land, where I knew private claims were on the Ark and also the GPAA claims block at the old railroad bridge, since he was a GPAA member. Always good to know where one can go and where one needs to avoid... The river was still mostly iced over, except on the East side of the bank in spots, where the afternoon sun can warm the rocks & melt/sublimate the snow, somewhat...
About 11AM we arrived at one of the only 2 spots where I can pan/sluice, as small feeder springs flow out of the lower bank and into the river and don't freeze solid, like everything else. The water flow is JUST enough, if I dam it up well at the flair of my Le Trap sluice to run material slowly. Hey, all you can do is what you can do... That, however, meant we had to set the sluice up between several boulders and hunch down between them to hand feed in our screened material. Oh well, we did and it worked.
With the sluice setup and flowing O.K., I walked Rich upstream a ways, talked a little about "reading the river", looking for good holding points for flood gold, identifying colored & clay layers, black sand, etc. I also explained about how to sample pan a sand/gravel bar, the lower banks, ID color, and plan where best to dig. Anyone can "wash dirt" all day, but everyone wants to "wash" the BEST gold bearing dirt all day!
However, since I'd been to this spot before, and already accomplished all the sample panning months prior, I knew just where to dig. Dig. Ha. Well, scrape is a much better word... The top 1 or 2 inches, being warmed in the sun, was able to be scraped with my pry bar, but not much deeper. Still frozen solid, like concrete. Regardless, we were able to clear off some of the rocks behind several boulders, scrape & 1/2 inch classify several 2 1/2 gal pails, with about 2 gals of dirt each, and head back to our sluice.
I demonstrated hand feeding material, letting the water flow slowly erode the material back & into the sluice, over the drop riffles and out the back. We could see, from time to time, little specks & tiny flakes slowly "walking" their way back, along the bottom of the flair as the black sand washed inside. Groovy!
Nothing more motivating than seeing hard fun paying off, and getting some gold, even if it's tiny little flood gold!I let Rich work the sluice and he did great....in no time fed the material like a pro on day 1. I went back to get him more dirt, and he kept feeding our very hungry sluice. The sun was out still, sunny, warming us and it was a very nice, peaceful time on the river, which gushed along happily about 30 feet away...
Rich feeding the Le Trap:
With the ground so frozen we had to scrape dirt from several different areas upstream, around the boulders, and carry our pails the 100 yards or so downstream. Luckily, of all the walking up/down, neither one of slipped and fell on the snow, ice or smooth polished granite rocks/boulders...
About 2 PM the sun went behind some building clouds for good, and behind some tall trees on the West bank too, and things got decidedly colder, and a bit darker... We had a quick bite of a late lunch, and decided to run a couple more pails and cleanup, call it a day. Rich working the sluice like a pro:
We still had to get back to my house, transload equipment into his car, and he had to drive all the way back to C. Springs. All in all, I think we successfully scraped up & 1/2 inch classified about 8 or 9 2 1/2 gal pails of dirt. At 3 PM we called it a day, hiked back to the Jeep and headed home. Back at my house I quickly sample panned out 1 table spoon of black sand cons and yep, little specks & flakes in the cons, so I knew we didn't get skunked. A representative picture of what we got here, I forgot to take a picture:
I gave Rich the cons from the days "gold adventure" to take home and hand pan out and recover any/all gold he could... I almost felt guilty, as that small tub of cons was to be nothing more than an "Expert Panner" bag with nothing but very heavy black sand & 50 mesh & finer flour gold, and with Rich being a brand new prospector & panner, well, talk about trial by fire! Few ever attempt my Expert Panner bags, so GOOD LUCK Rich! Ha. Nobody ever said your learning curve wouldn't go vertical!
So, in summary, Rich seemed to have a great very first time out prospecting for "wild gold" experience, and under some of the more challenging circumstances of winter time ops -- frozen ground, ice/snow, cold, slow spring water sluicing speeds and heavy black sand cons with flour gold. If this doesn't scare him off, nothing will. Ha.
I did make one short video to post on YouTube of Rich sluicing & how beautiful the early part of the afternoon was, but I guess the camera batteries got too cold, voltage dropped too much, as it didn't save and was lost. Bummer...
Hope everyone else out there gets up the gumption to plan a trip out, make the most of it, get some gold too, even if it is winter!
Randy "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz
good on ya Nanook of the frozen great north as jus' tooo cold up there for me. The storm this week washed away the snows on my claim and turned the access road into a creek so quite a mess. Going back today to mutz,putz and get a area ready for a raping. But cold at about 40,no sun and wind blown' pretty good. After being cooped up ill for 3 weeks it felt RIGHTEOUS though to feel alive again. thanx for update as pix sizing here still drives me bonkers to post-John 