I couldn't believe how many campers were on the flats when we arrived. At least 40 campers, turns out that the GPAA was having an outing that weekend. They had a big cookout on Saturday and lots of friendly people about.
On Saturday, I assembled my 5" dredge, complete with a newly welded 3" ring, at the bridge. Then proceeded to play draft horse and drag it up current to the Beans and Bacon claim. Whew....what a workout. I located some exposed bedrock and spent 2 hours (one tank of gas) cleaning up that bedrock. I did a cleanout and took it back to camp and my gold cube. Now I know why the bedrock was exposed, someone had already dredged it clean. I only got six colors for 2 hours.
On Sunday, I went back to the same place and started cleaning cracks with my blaster nozzle. The bedrock was coming apart in chunks with clay and gravel in the cracks. After 3 hours I did another cleanup, back to the gold cube. I ended up with this little bit for my efforts.
The bigger piece, on the left, had 3 dimensions and actually rolled when you turned the vial, while the rest just slid on the glass.
On Monday Christina dredged for a couple of hours while I packed up the camp. Those concentrates are still in my cleanup tub awaiting me to setup the gold cube and see what's in them.
One of the guys camping near us showed me his cleanup from Saturday. He had about 1/8 oz. of nice chunky pieces about the size of the white seeds in a "seedless" watermelon. He was on a block of claims downstream of the flats. He said that he got the best gold in the top two feet of gravel/cobbles.
Thank you Leonard for letting me get away and do a little dredging. That was the first time my dredge saw the water this year.
Trevor
