Well...........success was mine on so many fronts during my recent trip to Denver, Colorado. Despite the cold weather, snow and ice, and frequent frigid winds, I had a blast and proved that someone CAN prospect in the middle of winter in the "High Country" of the Rocky Mountains.
Day 1: 31 Jan -- I intentionally booked the earliest flight out of Atlanta so I could land Denver about 10 AM, get my bags/rental car early, and since I couldn't check into my hotel until after 3 PM, I met up with a new gold prospecting buddy, "Red". Red is the owner of Gold-n-Sand, and makes some really neat hand dredge units. His web site is at: http://gold-n-sand.com/ I invite everyone to go take a look!
So, about 11 AM I pulled into his driveway, and he was loaded up in his car, and after I did a quick change of clothes into prospecting gear, we headed up out of Golden, CO, on Hwy 58 to Hwy 6 to Hwy 119 towards Central City. Central City is known as "the richest square mile" on earth, owing to the many hardrock mines and half billion dollars worth of gold taken out of the mines since about 1859. We stopped at a pullout on the North Fork of Clear Creek about 7 miles shy of Central City. We unloaded my equipment & sluice, and Red's homemade highbanker setup, and carried it all to the creek and set it up.
The water was flowing O.K., and most of the snow in this area had melted off, as the sun could hit it at peak periods at this higher elevation, but the temps had been WELL below freezing day & night, making most everything frozen solid. Even at noon, I estimated the temp to be mid to high 20s. We got the highbanker running next to a dead tree root ball area and spent the first 45 minutes shoveling and digging and chipping the frozen material with a big steel pry bar, feeding it into our header box on the highbanker. Plenty of black sand showing up in the riffles of the sluice box early on gave us hope we'd get some good color too! I chipped away and poured buckets of creek water over the areas we were digging at to help melt the ground. If you didn't work fast, it just refroze again.
I took some videos and pictures of our "team" effort and the fun we were having going for fine Colorado gold. After about 2 hrs we did a clean up on the lower half of the highbanker sluice box and got loads of black sand, but limited color, so Red suggested we brave the hike up the nearby dry gulch and get some material about 100 feet up off the side of the steep hill, where he'd found good color before. Only problem was the gulch was very steep, and now snow and ice covered, being mostly in the shade. Heck, why not risk it? So we did. We made several slow and careful trips up and back down, and sample panned and found color, so I set up my hand sluice and proceeded to sluice the gold-bearing material and Red went back up for more material.
In the end, we'd been out about 4 hrs, and by 4 PM the sun was behind the big, steep hill to our West, and the shadows were falling fast, and the temps were dropping rapidly as we broke all the equipment up, carried it to the cars and did a final clean up. Greatfully, we did get some good fine color and Red gave me the gold as a gift........nice to be given gold..........Thanks Red!
We wound our way back home, down the totally beautiful Clear Creek Canyon, and I amired the sheer cliffs, the snow drifts, the ice encrusted creek and deep bue skies overhead. At the Hwy 58 merge Red headed home, and I headed to my hotel, tired but richer in so many respects. That hotel bed felt GREAT! I slept especially well...
Day 2: 1 Feb -- Since my Air Force duty didn't start until 1 PM, I had time to get up early, hit the hills, and prospect until about 11 AM. So, I did. Up at 5:30AM, out the door at 6 AM with coffee in hand, and I drove in the cold darkness back up to that same spot. I got there just before sunrise, and waited until I could see well enough to suit up and carry my sluice to the creek. Got to see a awesome sunrise at 9,000 feet in the crystal clear air. I estimate the temp was in the mid to high teens. My sluice had ice all over the sides and my gold pan would instantly freeze over and to the ground as soon as I set it down.
I elected to work in the creek water at the waters edge, as everything else was frozen solid, too hard to dig, chip or shovel. After about 1 hr I had a decent hole, and some nice dark cons building up in my Wolf Trap sluice. I used my barnd new Heavy Hitter sluice magnet for the second time, and found it really pulls out the magnatite! Problem for me was it's big in diameter, and by placing it as low as I needed to pull the magnitite out, it does restrict the water flow & velocity thru my sluice. As I left my 1/2 inch classifier home, larger rocks would jam up on the magnet causing me to constantly clean them out.
By 10:45 AM I needed to stop, and on cleanup I saw I had good color in my as sluiced black sand cons. Too time consuming to pan in the creek in that cold weather, so I took them back to the hotel and panned them later that night, in comfort & warmth! Overall, those 4 hrs were very fun and I admired the high mountain beauty, even if I felty like an Eskimo, all bundled up.
Day 3: 4 Feb -- Owing to a stroke of good fortune, the Air Force TDY I was on ended 2 days early, as we devised a plan to split the planned work amongst 4 groups. I then coordinated for 2 days of leave time en route (vacation) there in Denver, and went on full-time gold prospecting! Again, up at O'Dark 30 and this time up towards Boulder, Colorado, to hit Left hand Creek, in Left hand Canyon, Northwest of Boulder, CO. It was snowing lightly all the way up on the drive, and the snow flakes in the headlights were both pretty & concerning. Luckily, the roads stayed mostly clear, if not a little slushy. Getting to the Roosevelt National Forest area up Left Hand Canyon I could see the snow was MUCH deeper, the creek iced over about 95%, and my chances of prospecting pretty grim. I did locate one area to try my luck, and broke out the ice covering the creekbed, and set up my sluice, chair and proceeded to dig gravels in the creekbed. Everything else was totally frozen solid. I estimated the temp was about low 20s. So, for about 2 1/2 hours I dug gravels, sluiced and tried to stay warm. I took some pics and more video footage. About 10:45 AM I did my first and final clean up, and was rewarded with 2 small flakes and some specks of Colorado gold.
I decided to pull chalks and pack out and drive the hour South back to that same spot on North Clear Creek out of Golden and finish my day. So, I did. Arriving and all set up, I decided to hike back up the steep dry gulch and carry buckets down to pan and sluice. It was slow going, as it was steep and slippery in spots, but over 4 hrs I carried six 2-gallon buckets down and sluiced them. One has to remember that for a "low lander" like me, hiking up/down the steep hills with a full bucket of material is a heart pounding joy at 9,000 feet... The one bucket of mostly gray material I sampled had almost no gold in it, but the common hillside "dirt", at that elevation about 100 feet above the creek all had some gold in it. My clean up came at 4 PM and I had some nice small flakes and very fine -100 mesh gold. No pickers or small nuggets...... Back to the hotel for a full strength Man'O War "Ruination" cigar and some Islay Scotch whiskey, and I called it a fine, fine day!
Day 4: 5 Feb -- Well, no rest for the prospector in me.......so I was up again at O'Dark 30 and headed back up to Clear Creek, North Fork, but decided to try the creek further up stream, more towards Central City. I found a spot where the bank above the creek showed obvious signs prospectors had dug and worked some areas and decided to try this locale for the day. Problem was there wasn't any real open areas on the creek, frozen over and snow covered. So, I took about 30 minutes to stomp & use big rocks to bust open and clear a spot large enough spot to set up my suice and sit on my chair.
With my sluice operable, I went up to the hillside to sample the materials and found the following: The dirt on top layer had zilch gold. The next layer down of white/gray crushed quartz & granite had no gold. The gray clay layer had no gold. The thin orange layer had lots of black sand and nice fine color. The thinner black layer, mixed in with the orange layer had the best color. The wide sandy layer below that had only the finest -100 mesh gold. So, I took the time to caefully dig the orange & black layer as much as possible and sluice it. Gold's where you find it.....so work only that material!
Hour after hour I carried 2-gal buckets and carefully sluiced the material. My Heavy Hitter magnet on this trip was too much of a water speed brake, so I removed it. It did catch a lot of black magnatite, and when I panned it separately, I didn't find any trapped gold, thankfully.
I had a short lunch of canned sardines/crackers & water, which was freezing in the bottle. During lunch a father/son team stopped by to observe and ask me about my prospecting ops. I was glad to share my experience & advice on where they could come back and pan for gold. They had to leave, but came back about 3 PM. I told them what I was doing, how I was doing, where I was getting my material to sluice and about crevicing for gold. The proceeded to crevice and sample and pan. They didn't go away skunked!
By 4 P I was done, cleaned up and packed out. Sad my last full day in Colorado was drawing to a close, but not before I got to the hotel, enjoyed a nice Oliveros XL Bold cigar, sipped a little end of day Scotch and took a long, long, hot shower.
Day 5: 6 Feb -- Last day In Colorado........bummer. I coordinated to meet up with Leonard Leeper, from the Colorado gold dredger video fame. His web site is located at: http://www.golddredger.com/ Leonard has a wealth of videos and runs a Forum too, so please visit and check out his many videos.
I packed out of my hotel, and met Leonard at the McDonalds on North Washington street, and then we drove to, of all things, Clear Creek, but this time in downtown Denver, Colorado! We then met up with Rick and later Steve and proceeded to pan & sluice in Clear Creek, in the heart of Denver proper, where the low water had exposed numerous rock & gravel bars and inside them was fine flood gold to be had! We packed our sluices and hand equipment to the creek and proceeded to sample the bars, banks and such. Now the last 5 days of crystal clear & cold weather had given way to gathering high clouds, as new storm fron was approaching & was to bring new snow to Denver, but for our use the day was perfect.
Rick suggested I set up my sluice in the fast water an simply dig with a shovel and feed in the stream bed material side by side, so I did, at first. Leonard sample panned all over and concluded the big rock/gravel bar exposed in the middle of the creek had the most color. By about 11 AM Steve showed up and coached us all as to where to dig and sample, as this was his prospecting stomping grounds. Right he was....the deeper you dug didn't meean more & bigger gold, so I went back to skimming the top 12 inches of the gravel bar going after last summer's flood gold.
By about 1 PM I was done.........tired........wet.........and needing to pack my prospecting suitcase and head for the airport. I took my final black sand cons with me and have yet to pan them out. Will do shortly. By about 4:25 Pm I boarded my flight back to Atlanta, GA, and my fun, fun, fun winter gold adventure to the Denver area was over. I got home at about 11:30 PM EST. Ugh. What fun, despite the cold weather, ice and snow, a times. I got some fine gold, not a lot by weight, but it is what it is......better than being sunked.
Note: I will post some video links to my many short videos when I get them uploaded and ready to share. Also, a final gold take pic when I get my digital camera back from my wonderful wife.
Get out there -- gold prospect -- don't let the winter weather/ops slow you down or prevent you from going for the gold!
Respectfully,
Randy "C-17A"
. Colorado is famous for it's flour gold, while California's is more coarse and somewhat plentiful, comparatively speaking 
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