need help

[wkristoff]

Hi im new to gold prospecting and i need some help with finding a place to find gold near Grand Junction Colorado?

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Minelab PRO-FIND 35 Waterproof Pinpointer Metal Detector for Experts with Tone ID & Adjustable Sensitivity - Grab it through Amazon!

[Terry Soloman]

Hi im new to gold prospecting and i need some help with finding a place to find gold near Grand Junction Colorado?

Gold Prospectors of Colorado - Home

Colorado Prospector - Gem and mineral prospecting and mining information for National Forest and BLM land.

Gold Prospectors of the Rockies - Home

Colorado Gold Camp - Colorado Gold Camp Prospecting Club, CGC Prospectors | Colorado Gold Camp

 

[wkristoff]

i was trying to stay away from the clubs if i can

 

[B H Prospector]

Your best chances will be with a club. You will get a place to mine and get all kinds of help from experianced miners. Greenhorns should never shy away from clubs.. Welcome to the forum. you will learn alot in here.

Good Luck!

B H Prospector

 

[Terry Soloman]

i was trying to stay away from the clubs if i can

If you were looking for a place to learn and play baseball, would you try and stay away from the local teams and fields?

Big Gold to you!

 

[Fullpan]

If you were trying to learn Astro-physics, would you go to jungles of Borneo?

 

[DesertNuggets]

Join a club.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Or at least something informal like connecting with a few more experienced folks who live near you.

There is some fine gold in the Colorado River fairly near you and also on waterways an hour or so south but you need local expertise to find the spots worth going...or a LOT of patience to do your own web research or sample panning.

 

[wkristoff]

do you think it would be a good idea to join the GPAA to learn what they have to offer and see what i can learn from them? also do you think that would be a good investment to do?

 

[KevinInColorado]

Maybe. You don't have to join to attend the meetings so go to a local meeting and see if the people you meet use a GPAA claim regularly or (more likely) don't but instead have some other spots they go.

 

[wkristoff]

Okay thank you

 

[KevinInColorado]

Sent a private message...

 

[jmoller99]

The Grand Junction GPAA has some claims near Gateway Colorado (I have been there - Drywash or work the river - altho you may need a 20 foot ladder to get to the river in most places). There are GPAA claims on the Deloris river. Gateway Colorado is pretty much in the middle of nowhere and because you are in a deep stone gorge, you will not get any Cell coverage.

We also Detected there with my White's GMT - found a few small pickers. One nice thing was there was practically no trash (highly unusual from my experiance of detecting known gold sites) - we were dry washing too.

This place is around 60 miles from Grand Junction. All of the good access areas here that are not on private property are claimed.

 

[wkristoff]

Is the sluicing there worth it? If you spend all day there will you get a good amount of gold?

 

[jmoller99]

If you have right equipment, you will do ok (however, like all gold in Colorado, there tends to be a lot more fine gold than gold bigger than .1 gram). I use a Gold Cube and in doing so, use a battery powered pump (1000 to 1200 GPH) to feed the Gold Cube, along with a 1/8 inch (8 mesh) screen. If you run too much water thru it, you will loose the fine (100+ mesh) gold. What this says is that I don't use a traditional sluice (you tend to lose lots of the fine gold with them here). The guys at the Grand Junction GPAA (that own claims there) are finding enough that they use the claims a lot - You really need to talk with them - My trip there was over a weekend in 2011.

NOTE: Gateway Colorado is a town without much of anything there. There is a 4 star resort very nearby and is very expensive (they sell fuel and supplies, but you will want to stock up before hand because of the cost). You can camp on the claims if you are a member of the club (GPAA has general claims here too).

I attached a picture (my handicapped wife is on her scooter metal detecting - in the yellow shirt), Alton Oakes (treasurer of our Colorado Springs GPAA) working the dry washer and and another member of the club looking on. Across the road is the river, as I say, you would need a 20 foot ladder to get to the river at this location (and a machete to cut a path to get to it). The ancient river bed is about 6 inches under the ground people are standing on - that is where were were prospecting. There is cactus everywhere. There are places you can pull off that is right on the river (claimed by the Grand Junction club), but that is not where we were digging (also a claimed site). There was gold here.

A 12 Volt canister vacuum would have been good to have along. The 2nd picture shows that was not much digging to get to original bedrock (we ended up sweeping it up as best we could once you went thru the overburden). Bring a lot of water, you'll dehydrate in the sun.