Went up to Cache Creek, Colorado, again recently for 2 back-to-back days of sluicing...
Friday 5 July: A cool, cloudy day with even a few rain showers from thunderstorms up above from Lost canyon Mountain. I went back to the previous place, but tried diggin' in a new spot, where others had worked a LOT.
I sampled about 6 different spots and layers/colors of material, and carried a bucket of each 100 yards back to the creek to sample pan it, but nothing I dug had more than a speck or two. Bummer... That's the interesting "hit or miss" way Cache Creek is... With all the old mining, hydraulicing, ground sluicing and booming/flume/sluice ops, some spots have decent fine gold that was lost and others nothing.
After not much luck, and after lunch, about 1 PM I packed up and walked down the creek to the previous spot I'd worked and did O.K. at previously. Luckily, nobody else was already there, so I set up and started diggin' and sluicing and by 4 PM I was tired, had been working 3 straight hours diggin', carrying buckets and sluicing. I did a cleanup every hour, so I had some good cons to pan out later at home.
Here's my sluice setup, spot and such. Got showered on a few times. Felt good! Here's the old dig site downstream I went back to:
Here's my final gold take, all cleaned up. .75 grams of nice Colorado gold, with 2 pickers! Yeah!
O.K. With that success, I just had to go back again...
Saturday 6 July: Wanted to get an EARLY start, so up at 5AM, out of the house at 5:30AM and parked at Cache Creek just before 6AM. I was the first car in the lot. Over to my spot as the sun came up and I was running buckets starting at 6:15 AM. Today was to be clearer, warmer, sunnier....so LOTS of sunblock and bug stray for the millions of mosquitos.
I was chasing the orangish, gravely layers in the hole that was becoming a small pit:
I carried about 10 to 15 2 1/2 gal pails each time before a cleanup. I'd have to add water to the bucket, to make a slurry and help break down the clayish material, and hand feed it into the flair of the sluice to ensure as best I could the gold was free from the clay/material. This was very tiring...
After 4 cleanups and at least 40 pails for the day, I just had to stop at 2PM from exhaustion. So, I cleaned up, hiked back to parking...tired, but a day WELL spent.
At home I panned out the cons.....got a nice 1.04 grams of gold, including a nice flake & few bigger pieces:
So, overall, I had 2 full days up at cache Creek..........prospecting, sampling, diggin', carrying pails, sluicing and enjoying nature! Oh, got a total of 1.79 grams of gold too.
One word FYI to all... Apparently a person that owns a piece of private property up above the BLM property in the National Forest has lately been diverting, shutting off and messing with the water flows. The feeder creek by the parking lot everyone uses has been completely cut of 3 or 4 times in the last week w/o any notice or reason and on 6 Jul 13 when I was sluicing on the main channel of Cache Creek proper (not much bigger than the feeder creek where I was), about 9 AM the water flow suddenly & unexpectedly dropped about 50%. Made me maximize my rock water weir, sluice box angle and feed material in at 1/2 rate...
I e-mailed the Canyon City BLM office today and complained to them about this travesty. The CGOC Camp Hosts tell me this has been an "issue" lately and the private land owner seems to think he can do what he wants with the water/creeks. Let's see if BLM and the Forest Service can talk/research the water rights issue and put a stop to this... Water that originates up on USFS lands above his property and flows thru his property to Cache Creek BLM land and to the Arkansas River needs to be shared.
Besides all the prospectors that come from all over the country........take time off/vacation time.........drive, spend $$$ on gas, etc., there's the wildlife, plants, trout, etc., that ALL depend on water flowing...too.
Hope BLM works it to some "win-win" outcome!
Anyways, hope you get out and get some "wild" gold too, soon.
Randy "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz
I'm in the midst of the same but with a logging company. They built a HUGE dam and have a new lake to pull water for dust control. Problem is they are taking over 75% of the natural flow. Had a nice conversation with them greedy dogs as they don't need 1/10th of that volume and in this heat evaporation is huge. Give'm a week in writing then FS complaint. Luckily 2 of my neighbors are private property with deeded water rights,they don't use the water BUT rights still in place and we all get along sooooo water wars a comn'--John