Here's a Trip Report on my latest Cache Creek outing...
I decided to give up sluicing & carrying buckets for the day and try metal detecting again for the very elusive gold nuggets that are supposed to be hiding around the BLM Cache Creek property.
Back in the day, from 1860 to 1884ish and from then when they started a big hydraulic, booming, ground sluicing and rude/crude mining operation they supposedly got enough nuggets and bigger gold to keep the place running for decades. They were shutdown in 1911 by an environmental lawsuit, NOT from running out of gold.
So, I grabbed my White's MXT and standard 9 inch coil, my 3x5 inch DD coil, my pin pointer and hand pick, treasure scoop, etc. and headed over to the FAR side of the property, at the very Southwest corner of the property......where they last stopped ops hoping to walk the hills/cliff faces and luck into a nugget.
Got going about 9:30AM and was fighting mosquitoes the whole way, so took a bath in Deep Woods OFF. That helped!
I walked the cliff faces as best I could, swinging my detector and not trying to slip/fall. The sun was up and getting hot and I was oddly sweating with my headset and hat on... After about 1 hr I switched to my smaller DD coil, as I worked between big rocks, cobbles and up several old draws and gulches created by the vast network of water ditches used to bring in Clear Creek water for their many uses.
I tried prospecting mode, jewelry mode, and lots of different discrimination setting trying to optimize performance and block out some of the zillions of signals for iron. Decades of mining ops meant zillions of nails, both square & round, pieces of wire, tin cans, pull tabs and lost of bullets, cartridge cases and junk out the whazoo...
I started keeping some of the trash in my bucket after a while as show and tell relics... I got up on top of the cliffs on the South side of the worked area and swung my detector up several old water ditches, hoping for a nugget. Not to be. I did get high enough up past the open area to the tree line to see the remnants of their main water ditch system, some of the old wooden water weirs and water control gates. These were over 100 years old and still there, up and down the area, like ghosts of hydraulic mining past. Very cool...
I had lunch in the trees, detected back down the ditches to the cliffs and kept swinging. Virgin cliff material all around!
I was just sure that my MXT would eventual give me a strong signal I was looking for...............then go it. Single, strong, in the 30 to 50 VDI range in prospecting mode. As I dug and scooped it 1/2 way up a cliff face I got an old lead slug.
Looks to be about .44 caliber. Not gold, but close! My White's MXT:
I made one short YouTube video to show the area:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-LD5fwk ... e=youtu.be
I detected all over until about 2 PM and decided I was tired, and needed to head back to parking. So, I detected my way out across the open rocks areas and found nothing but more junk, nails and a 1977 copper penny. Ha.
Here's my "finds" for the day, well, the few that I decided to keep:
Anyhoo, I had a great time searching for that elusive gold nugget, got to see part of the old timer's intricate water delivery system and marvel at how much work it all was, in remote High Colorado about 9,500 feet.
Next time I'll go back to sluicing for the fine gold leftover and lost by their rude/crude operations.
Oh, FWIW, the feeder creek that most people use closest to the placering area parking lot was high & dry. Been cut off for several days now the GPOC Camp Host said. BLM reps had been out to discuss, but he got the impression BLM wasn't too eager to challenge the water issue with the private property owner upstream that's been diverting/cutting off the water to Cache Cree & prospectors/wildlife/plant life below...
I hope my e-mail to BLM gets a dialogue going with BLM, USFS & the land owner and we get a win-win outcome and the water gets turned back on, soon. Lots of folks that were camping at Cache Creek have left. Others have shifted to prospecting downstream by the Granite Cemetery at the East end of the property, as Cache Creek proper seems to still be running O.K.
Regardless, hope everyone gets out and has a "gold adventure" of their own!
Randy "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz