Return trip to New Hampshire - Twin River Campground & Wild AM River

[brianc053]

After much planning throughout the Winter of 2015-16, a group of us from our GPAA chapter (Delaware Valley GPAA, in Eastern PA) took a trip up to New Hampshire to stay at the Twin River Campground and to dredge the Wild Ammonoosuc river. Dredging is legal in NH (with a $50 permit), and the Campground has one mile of river that they make available to those that bring dredges. Two members of our chapter have dredge nozzles (a 3" and a 2"), so we combined those with two of our high banker boxes (mine and another guy's) and formed a four-man, two-dredge operation for Saturday and Sunday in mid-June.

In May my son and I came up to Twin River for a preview of the area (see this link http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-prospecting/502246-trip-twin-river-campground-wild-am-river-new-hampshire.html), so I had some ideas of where to take the two dredges. This area was up near "Split Rock", on the more upstream part of the Twin River Campground waterfront, and it has a gray clay layer that begins at the shoreline and descends in a "V" to the middle of the river, where the clay can be 10-15 feet below the surface. We don't have compressed air (obviously; we're using cobbled-together dredges to begin with!) so we stayed near the shore. The local guidance we'd been given was that the whole river's been dredged - every square foot - over the years, but near shore there's annual replenishment of the gold from the eroding banks. Our strategy was to move some (very) large rocks, in hopes that we'd be on relatively untouched material and have a shot at a picker or two.

I put together a 7 minute video that covers the trip and the cleanup (I'm not a professional at video like AGP, so please forgive the amateurish nature of this):


And now let me get to the pictures - it's what we all like to see! I've included a bunch... Here's the list:

• Picture #1: The setting. We were up near "Split Rock". Those are 4 kids from the group up on the rocks!
• Picture #2: Where we dredged. At Twin River Campground's land you have to stay to one side of the River because that's the side they own.
• Picture #3: A brook trout visited me while I was running the 3" nozzle (in my previous post nh.nugget mentioned that there are some nice trout in this river; I was happy to get to see one up close!)
• Picture #4: Day 1 gold - at first we had to work some overburden to get down to the clay, and we hadn't moved any large rocks yet. Not too much gold.
• Picture #5: Day 2 gold - this came from under the larger rocks and we were working the gray clay layer most of the day. About 2X the gold from Day 1
• Picture #6: Day 1 and Day 2 side-by-side. We got about 0.4g of gold total. Lots of work for that amount of gold... But it was tons of fun!
• Picture #7: We got a lot of this heavy stuff. The shiny ones are likely pyrite but they don't crumble like pyrite I've seen before. They're actually hard to break. The brown ones are actually shiny under that coating (any idea how to take it off? Vinegar didn't work, and it doesn't scrub easily).
• Pictures #8 & 9: Since there were four of us we divided up the gold into four equal shares. Everybody gets a little bit in a vial to remember the trip!

Thanks for checking this out.

Picture #1 Split Rock area
View attachment Sy362lW.jpg

Picture #2 where we dredged


Picture #3 brook trout


Picture #4 - Day 1 gold


Picture #5 - Day 2 gold


Picture #6 - Day 1 and Day 2 side-by-side. 0.4g total


Picture #7 - unknown heavies (Pyrite?)


Picture #8 & 9 - four shares of gold



- Brian

 

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[matt_unique]

Fantastic! One heavy looks like a hollow point

 

[njcommercialdiver]

the "hollow point" looks like an "egg" sinker,
nice haul. when are you guys going next? i used to belong to the delval club back in 2003-2007ish. maybe ill head up with you guys and bring my 4" or backpack 3" dredge. how big are the sites at the campground? i have a 28ft toy hauler

 

[brianc053]

Hey NJCommercialDiver! Thanks for taking a look at our trip report.
I agree, the one item was a (slip) sinker.
I'm not sure if the club (DVGPAA - you can find them on Facebook) is planning another NH trip this year, but I will definitely be going back up, maybe more than once. I was just reviewing the campground's 2017 rates and looking for a long weekend to plan for.
The campground's sites are large and navigating is easy. You'd have no trouble with your trailer. They do get a lot of all-season folks, so my only worry would be availability.
I'll send you a PM and we can discuss further.
- Brian

 

[Golden_Crab]

I realize the river doesn't normally cut across mountain tops.. paint is unforgiving. Anyways you are in a back arc basin similar to the way the carolina slate belt was emplaced, the majority of your fine gold comes from the band of quartzite containing free milling gold throughout and glacial deposits washed into the valley. The white color represents the center of the volcanic activity within the basin. Your unknown heavies are "bog iron", there were quite a few iron and copper mines operating near easton / sugar hill. Cheers

 

[brianc053]

Thanks for the annotated map Golden Crab, and for the bog iron connection. I'll take a closer look at the map from my computer. I'm looking forward to getting back up there this spring.
- Brian

 

[njcommercialdiver]

where is that area in reference to the campground?

 

[brianc053]

The area where we were digging in the video is about 1 mile (maybe a little more) up stream from the campground. It's on land the campground owns (they own from the road to the middle of the river), and there are plenty of signs to remind people that it's their property and you have to be a campground guest to prospect there. They call the area "Split Rock" because big split rock shown in Picture #1.
Locals also told me that Split Rock is probably the most heavily prospected area, and that the Campground has a bit more land that goes another 100-200 yards upriver from that area that might be a little less prospected. I haven't tried that area yet. Because of a guard rail along the road it's a little harder to access.

- Brian