Yep, got out of the house again. The weather has been a real treat the last few days....sunny, few clouds, low wind and almost record warm temps. Had a low of only 33 degrees, so actually above freezing for the low.... Denver was supposed to get up near record high territory with like 70 degrees and we'd probably see 55 to 60 as a high here in the Arkansas River valley. (FYI, it was 25 degrees this morning, the day after, as I write this, so cooling down again.)
Loaded up about 10:30AM, headed over to the river. Arriving it was good to see that the old dirt road I tried several weeks back, that had over 1 foot of hard packed snow was mostly melted off now... So, I put it in 4-WD and drive up the river to one of my favorite spots, parked and hiked down to the river with my shovel to see if the bench material was unfrozen enough to work and sluice. Yep... Hiked back to the Jeep, got my equipment and returned.
I setup my Le Trap after building a rock ledge under water, then started pitching cobbles and smaller rocks. Needed to roll a few big rocks around some to get to the sand/gravels below. Sample pans showed really good coarse black sand and the orangish/reddish glacial clay I like to see.....which I am 110% sure came from Cache Creek hydraulic ops back in the day and some decent fine flood gold color too.
My Le Trap setup:
So, my plan today was to go kinds fast, shovel directly into the flair of my Le Trap, hand rake any bigger rocks on out the back, repeat.....take what I could get. 80% of a bunch of shovel loads would be better than 90% of a few classified buckets.
The day was simply superb! Sunny, warming nicely, only a light wind down the river bed. The Ark was flowing clear, cold and pretty stable, although it did drop a couple inches by the time I left that afternoon at 2PM.
The bench material above the water line was still mostly frozen solid, so I worked at the water level for the most part. Good black sand in most every shovel full and that meant I had to be patient and let the water clear each load thru the sluice. No black sand on the Ark, about zero chance of any flood gold. Ha.
My first dig spot at the waters edge:
My Le Trap full of black sand:
I rolled rocks, pitched rocks and shoveled pretty steady for about an hour, then has a sandwich and some chips and a bottle of water for lunch. What a nice day... Quite the gift here in High Colorado in the middle of winter!
My next several dig spots, to try and get unfrozen material:
A close up showing some of the really good black sand in this particular layer I was digging:
Back to sluicing.....and before I started shoveling sand/gravels again I bent over and looked at my sluice box....since it had about 15 minutes to clear out some... Yep, could see a lot of tiny little specks and flakes showing up in the black sand in the top 3 drop riffles. Yeah! Always motivating to see shiny gold in the bright sunlight.
I made one short video of my little "Gold Adventure" for your enjoyment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCclEOg ... e=youtu.be
I kept shoveling and sluicing at a decent pace until 2 PM. By then my lower back was telling me I'd tried rolling several BIG rocks that I probably should have left alone and did about 100 squats too, so as to hand rake out the bigger rocks that didn't want to tumble on thru...
On my cleanup into my tub I washed the silt and clay and blond sand off the black sand, and I could see a bunch of little specks and flakes in the black sand....ha....."the stars coming out at night". So, I know I did good.
As I left the river I snapped a couple pics to show just how beautiful it looked:
On the drive home I stopped to look at a nice herd of Elk up on the plain, out in the open, grazing away:
Back home I put all my equipment away, my boots/socks/gloves in the sun to dry and hand panned up some of my black sand cons. Yep. Very nice fine flood gold. Here's several pics FYI:
Anyways, sorry if this Trip Report seems like all the rest, but here in High Colorado, in the middle of winter, one has to do what he can, go where he can...
Hope you get out soon too, get some gold of your own!
Randy "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz
Your great posts are anything but redundit!! Nice to see someone who will,and is able, to put up with frozen ground and still catch some of them free range flakes. Scenery, critters and vista always included ,as winter finally hits here YAHOO. tons a au 2 u 2-John
I lost my fingernail and now it's FINALLY grown back to a decent nail, 6 months later.