Well, haven't had snow in a week or so, so I decided to try getting over to the beautiful Arkansas River, just North of Buena Vista, and maybe try sluicing for fine flood gold for a couple hours...
Cabin fever is a terrible thing to deal with and I was willing to risk the icy roads, snow and such to get a gold "fix". Arriving at my favorite spot I soon realized that there was going to be NO way to park the Jeep, as the road had been plowed and all the snow was pushed off into the campground parking spot and the 2 pullouts further up the road too. The snow was over a foot deep and icy/hard, so no way to park w/o GREAT risk of getting stuck. Didn't want that, all by myself out in the hills...
What to do? Go home and give up? Nope... I drove back down the river to another spot I thought I could sluice at, a place I had worked last winter some, where a feeder spring bubbles up beside the river and flows into the river, keeping the surrounding area "unfrozen". Arriving I saw the road was much better plowed and the pullout just down the road was clear enough to park, so I did...
Arriving at the river I could see that yep, once again the spring was still flowing and I setup my Le Trap sluice with JUST enough water flow to work, if I hand fed the material slow enough...
Up river view:
Down river View:
So, I started diggin' around the boulders & big rocks about noon and sluicing.
My dig spot in the rocks:
The up river and down river views were pretty, as the snow was still on/in most areas shaded and the ice was building up on the river from the edges out... The most challenging thing was going to be the wind. As soon as I got setup it seemed to come up out of nowhere, blowing down river a good 10Kts steady, with gusts up to 15 -20 Kts at times. Brrrr.... Sure made my nose run.
Oh well, that's the way it goes. The day was clear, mostly sunny but only about mid-20s for the temp.
My sluicing spot:
My sluice:
I rolled rocks, pitched rocks and sluiced the gravels as best I could for about 1 1/2 hours total. I stopped at 1PM for a quick sandwich and some water behind a big boulder, in the sun, on the South side out of the wind. It was pretty nice in that spot.
As I hand sluiced and hand washed the muddy gravels I could see little specks/tiny flakes on the flair as the black sands eventually eroded away, so I knew I was getting at least a little color.
By 2 PM I was just a bit too cold to keep going. Funny, my shovel handle built up a layer of ice about 1/4 inch thick as my wet gloves from hand washing would rewet it after each scoop I sluiced and so I'd have to tap it against a rock to break it off from time to time. Ha. All good fun...
My Le Trap with black sand building up:
After cleanup I proceeded to hike back up the river bank to the Jeep, but wow..........trying to get back up that bank with both arms full of equipment was a big challenge. Coming down was real easy, but every other step up the snow would give way and I'd go down on my knees, struggling for traction. I made it, uploaded my stuff, got out of my waders and drove home.
Here's my gold. 2.6 grains or .17 grams of nice little flakes & specks:
I made one short YouTube video, posted to my Channel for you to enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0z6b7Xy ... e=youtu.be
So, despite the snow & wind, I had a fun 2 hours on the river....watching a beautiful Townsend's Solitaire fly all around me, checking me out, coming and going as it pleased.....watching me getting some cold gold!
Hope you get out soon too.
God bless,
Randy "C-17A"
http://www.goldadventures.biz