Well, I had the rare treat to have my 80 year old Mom and twin sister Judy visit me here in Buena Vista, Colorado, from hot, dry Kalifornia. As part of the local sightseeing and shopping and driving around, I decided to take them up to Cache Creek for the morning to pan and sluice for some Kolorado gold...
We left the house about 8 AM, got to Granite and then up to Cache Creek about 8:20AM. I explained some of the local gold mining history, lore, showed them some old 1800s black & white pictures of the mining operations there at Cache Creek in the later 1800s. We stopped by the old Granite Cemetery to see it, look over the valley, observe all the evidence of the past hydraulic operations............cobble piles, cliff faces, ditches, fluming, etc. We then drove up to the placering area parking lot, got our equipment and headed out to a spot I've worked lately...
Arriving my spot about 9AM I could see the water flow in the little feeder creek I use for panning and sluicing was down a lot since last week...........but, by putting my Le Trap sluice further up, at more of an angle, we had JUST enough water flow to make it work well.
We sample panned a few pans, saw some color, then started diggin' buckets of material and sluicing it. Mom started sluicing first, then Judy traded off and we rotated back and forth between panning, sluicing and diggin' buckets...
Here's my mother Wyanell sluicing for gold:
My twin sister Judy washing dirt:
Nice to see, after the very first pail of dirt we could actually see a few nice flakes showing up in the top 2 riffles! Wow. Gold showing that fast...
Our sluice setup and dirt dig spot:
The mosquitoes weren't too bad at first, but about 10:30 AM it was warmed up some and they came out in force... Ugh...
Here's Judy diggin' dirt and runnin' another sample pan, to keep us in the best color:
My mother collected some interesting rocks in-between sluicing ops and rest breaks and Judy took to panning samples like a pro. I forgot my big pan, so we used my smaller 10 1/2 inch Garrett pan for sampling ops.
Sluicing ops in full swing. Nice to be in the shade, out of the intense sun:
As the day went on we could see more and more specks & flakes of gold building up in the top 4 riffles, especially if we let the sluice clear for a few minutes. Now, THAT's motivating!
A rare picture of yours truly, in my element:
About 12:30PM we decided we'd all had enough "hard fun" and ran our last 2 pails, did a cleanup...
Here's a few pics of the gold showing in the upper riffles, after letting the Le Trap clear a few minutes:
Here's our chunky, Cache Creek gold I panned out of our cons:
After cleaning and drying at home we ended up with .81 grams. Not bad for 4 hours and about 25 2 1/2 gal pails of material.
So, back home for some hot showers to get the bug spray & dirt off......lunch......and a GREAT family memory for us out gold prospecting in the Colorado "High" country.
Hope you too get out soon, get some "wild" gold for yourself.....as Summer is slipping into Fall. Time is flying by...
God bless,
Randy Witham "C-17A"
http://www.goldadventures.biz
A family that digs together stays together-great pics. Makes me miss my folks all the more and those family good times. GREAT gold for sure-kudos and thanx-John
