Well, finally time for a new Trip Report from me!
I had the great fortune of going to Denver, on Air Force business, and decided to go out a day early to have Sunday afternoon to pan & sluice on Clear Creek, under the Hwy 36 overpasses, and show my friend Bruce how gold prospecting is done. Bruce had never dipped a pan or run a sluice before, so this was to be his first "gold adventure"!
Day 1, Sunday 8 May 11: Happy Mother's Day!
Landed Denver IAP about 1015 AM, got baggage, a rental car, to the hotel, changed and out on the creek by about noon. I was very lucky in that I found my way to the park w/o even one wrong turn, despite having not been there since February 2010! The day was clear, sunny, and getting pretty warm. I slathered up a lot of sun block, and by 4 PM it was about 85 degrees on the creek, so I was glad I did to prevent gettting sun burned.
At the creek I looked over the huge/long gravel bar I had worked the year previous for fine flood gold. The water level was really low & slow, so I set up my Wolf Trap sluice box next to the North side in good flowing water.
I showed Bruce how to "read a stream", look for good holding points, and how to set up a sluice box. We sample panned in numerous places, and all had color! Maybe 10 to 15 little colors in each pan, so I decided to not carry 2-gal buckets of material any further than needed, and decided to expand a hole already started by another prospector in the gravel bar.
We only worked the surface to about 6 inches down, as there was more color on the top than down deeper. The water was nicely cool on a warm day, but sure not ice cold at this "lower" 5,280 foot elevation. The mountains around Denver to the West were just covered with snow. Lots of snow! So, with the creek as low as it was I could tell the melt sure hadn't started yet.
I showed Bruce how to classify the material with a 1/2 inch classifier, and we sluiced away. I ran the Wolf Trap high & fast. I wanted to keep the riffle bars clear. In the end, I probably should have reclassified using my 1/8th inch screen and slowed the water speed down, with the flood gold being so small, but I didn't. Live & learn. Always a trade off between efficiency per bucket & moving the most buckets with the least effort & time spent.
Ran four 2-gal buckets and did a clean up into my plastic tub. Quickly panned a small amount and saw fine gold, so we were off to the races!
I showed Bruce where to look for gold holding points behind large rocks, in tree root balls and we took a break from sluicing to sample pan around. Funny, the gravel bar always had the most gold, and right on top!
Bruce left for the hotel to get some work done and I stayed until 4 PM, doing 3 total clean ups and running maybe 10 2-gal pails thru the sluice. After a final clean up, I saw I did get a nice amount of very fine Colordao gold for my "effort"!
I packed up and went back to the hotel for a shower & dinner. Throughout the day passersby up on the walking/bike path stopped for a minute to watch me prospect, but nobody every came down or even asked one question. A perfect afternoon on Clear Creek finding fine gold!
Day 2, Monday, 9 May 11: 7 AM Early Morning Go...
Up early, as I had some time to prospect again before work started about noon. I hit Clear Creek again, but decided to not sluice but walk up stream and sample pan around. I walked a ways upstream from the Hwy 36 overpasses and found a big boulder/concrete dam built by the city for flood control and saw about 10 HUGE carp in the big pond just below the dam........swimming around. Bet they were 5 to 10 pounds each.
At the base of the dam I decided to dig some loose material between the rocks & sample pan. I worked this spot for maybe 20 minutes and panned out 4 pans, but only found a few tiny specks. Not what I was hoping for.
So, I moved to the gravel bar below the big pool, and found color, sampling top, middle & bottom of the bar, but not as good as down stream where I was on Sunday afternoon. While wading downstream, I stopped in a small boulder field right under the overpasses & decided to pan from behind a boulder pretty much in the creek bottom.
Each pan had some nice specks & smaller flakes, so I decided to work it. Below the top 4 or 5 inches I found a nice dark clay layer and gug and panned it. Color in each pan...
By about 9 AM it was time to get back to the hotel, get breakfast & cleaned up. So, my Monday morning prospecting was over, but the morning was cool, about 60-65 degrees, low humidity, no bugs and a good breeze kicking up from the West. I found some fine gold and one lead birdshot.
I made 5 short videos, posted on YouTube, first one here. Plz go take a look at them all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7-7uVjJFPM
I was considering holding over on Friday, to get a few more hours in panning/sluicing on Clear Creek, but starting Tuesday night the clouds moved in, and it just rained non-stop for 2 days. Everything was soaked, muddy, and pretty cool now........low of 38 and high of 50. I could deal with the cold, but not the unending rain, so I caught a Thursday afternoon flight out of DIA back home to Gerogia.
Overall, I had a blast & a carbon copy of my prospecting adventure there in February 2010 in downtown Denver.
Wishing you all a great "gold adventure" for you too.Here's my final gold take picture in a vial. Not a lot by weight, but pretty little flakes none the less:
Cheers,
Randy "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz
John
Whatever you do DO NOT TRY TO DUMP ASHES FROM A PLANE. O myne gott what a mess and snorting Grandma was indeed a drag--crusty ol'broad crunch crunch n'your teeth too 
nooooooooooooooo fun-John