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Highgrading the box |
A visit to a Commercial Operation page 3
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Highgrading the box |
Before shutting down last winter a small amount of material was ran. The weather then turned bad and the plant was winterized and put to bed for the winter. The boxes were never cleaned out as only a few loaders full of material had been ran. We decided to see if there was any gold in the small amount of material behind the riffles. Here we are cleaning out the best looking gravel behind the first riffles. That's where all of the good gold should be. First we dug through it looking for the clunklers. They are the ones that are big enough to go "clunk" not "plink" when they are dropped into a pan. We didn't find any. That wasn't a surprise as there really isn't big gold found in this area.
By the way, the owner of the claim was with us!
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Working it down. Keep the horses back! |
We didn't exactly have the best water to pan out the material. Since the plant hadn't been in operation yet this year, about all the water we could find was in an old tub. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable panning position but for only one pan, it was endurable.
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Color in the pan |
The result was gold! Not a lot but anytime that beautiful color shows up when all else that's left is black sand, I rejoice. In Colorado we aren't spoiled like California and Alaska. Any gold here is good gold. It doesn't take a lot of color to really perk up the the looks of the pan.
Would you like to see this plant up close and personal? Would you like to see it in operation? How would you like to share in one day's worth of it's gold production? All of this is possible. There will be several 1 day common operations this summer using this plant with all gold production split among the participants. Here's your chance to see a large scale operation up close without having to do all of the hard work. Cost is $100.00 per day. For more information contact them on their website or:
Vista Mining Adventures
Buena Vista, Co.
719-395-9425
Tell them "The Golden Optimist" sent you.