Jerry the Prospectors Adventures of Color County

[mytimetoshine]

Wow! You know I didn't even know this was you. I remember seeing it on the forum and dubbed it the "foot" but this was before we met and I never realized. I think you need to tell the story of this find again on your journal. How did this find not make Banner?! Im sure people find stuff that's in another league but they don't post it on this forum. Should have been banner.....

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Treasure of Victoria Peak - Grab it through Amazon!

[Asmbandits]

View attachment 1228483

Wow! You know I didn't even know this was you. I remember seeing it on the forum and dubbed it the "foot" but this was before we met and I never realized. I think you need to tell the story of this find again on your journal. How did this find not make Banner?! Im sure people find stuff that's in another league but they don't post it on this forum. Should have been banner.....

Thank you Eric, Im lucky to have stumbled onto that piece for sure lol. It was just one of them places that everyone overlooks and for some reason I didn't, kind of like your recent find! I did recently un fold it though.. It was driving me mad every time I looked at it, wondering what it could possibly look like, or how it should look like .. I gave in and im glad I did its a very unique piece. I haven't seen many that resembled it, It looks to be like a crystalline formation of a leaf shape. Reminds me of coral you see in the ocean.. Its traveled on one side well but the other is in very pristine shape because of the way the fold protected it. I borrowed the wife's camera and took some better pics.



It does have a story, I don't want to divulge to much info on location but I will say it came from the middle fork American. One of the many trips with my dad this summer, took him somewhere deep in the canyon that took us most of the day to get to. This place was so deep in the canyon and we had bush whacked are way through there wasn't even a trail lol.. Once we were there we got split up, I saw him go up river last I saw of him, so I went looking..and looking.. I probably hiked 5 miles up and down the river about three times yelling for him, blowing my whistle but nothing.. My old man is tuff and still has the agility of a 30 year old but I was afraid possibly he slipped or fell, it didn't make sense for me to have not ran into him as much as I looked. It started getting late and I sat near the area the trail out was, and waited.. I remember looking up at the canyon and thinking how out there in the middle of nowhere I actually am, and If I didn't leave in an hour or so id be hiking mostly in the dark. We had left some gear near the trail and his was still there at this time, so he didnt leave.. It was then I caught a glimpse of him down stream, happy as ever panning and had no clue ive spent the whole day looking for him.. So, at this point I had hardly done any prospecting, and now I could hopefully get a few pans in before we hiked out. I did a couple of pans with color here and there, but then decided to hike to the top of the exposed bedrock and see if I could spot a nice crevice. Got to the top no joke about 65 feet vertical from the water I spied a nice jagged crack on smooth well traveled bedrock. I found what was though to be the best place to dig in the crack since it was about 20 feet long and only about 4 inched wide. I dug out mostly pine needles and sand, there was one large rounded rock wedged in there and when I moved it I found a perfect pocket underneath. I dug it all clean, was only a pans worth of material of mostly debris and sand, hiked down to the water where the old man was panning and started cleaning everything in the pan and garret 1/2 classifier. Im lifting the classifier out of the water and string though it with my hand all in one motion as I catch a huge flash of gold right before I tipped to dump it all out.. It was strange I was in shock or something I picked it out and held it in my hand and didn't even look at it, just spouting out curse word after holy curse word! My dad came over slowly not sure of what was going on, I still haven't even looked at it yet and I just hand it to him, he looks at it and says " that's gold?" " F@%$ yeah its gold!" I say as he hands it back and I get a better look.. I could understand why he said this though, it was very muddy and had the look of a dirt clod with gold foil mixed in. Well to say it made the trip was an understatement. and The pan of material under the classifier didn't even hold a spec of color go figure! I remember my dad being happy for me, he said "All the times you have gone out and came back empty handed, but thats what you were looking for and now ya found it".. It really felt good, And the ride home I wouldn't shut up about how much I though it would weigh must have drove the old man crazy lol. Im very lucky to have found it, it was in an area im sure was well worked in the past, makes me feel like I nabbed one the old times missed lol.

 

[KevinInColorado]

What a fun tale to read. So glad your dad was fine!

 

[Asmbandits]

Thanks Kevin! Yes he really worried me that trip for sure but it all worked out in the end.

Eric I bet this piece started out looking a lot like your avatar!

 

[mytimetoshine]

Awesome story man! Crazy that your dad disappeared like that. I would be upset if my partner had me looking for them all day. Especially not hearing your whistle. That's all bad, glad it turned out good.

 

[Asmbandits]

So, a couple of days ago I had a day off and it just so happens a good friend of mine did as well so we headed back up to the spot we found on my last trip out with Mytimetoshine and Goldenmojo. Ive been out with Cibb a couple of times in the past and mostly worked my claim but on those particular trips for some reason we didnt do very well.. Knowing how productive this area is it was a perfect redemption to get some gold in his pan so im glad he was able to make it! We got there early and left at sun down, we started off downstream and worked up stream past where ive worked previously. Gold is funny i'll say, we worked some cracks that looked amazingly good but yielded very little. We worked up stream most of the day, chasing these great looking digs that had just enough color to keep up digging but they never seems to kick out much of anything but that. The last hour or so we moved down to the area I worked on the last trip but I think we cleaned that spot out good as there wasn't much coming out of anything we could find to dig. Cibb was happy as he was still finding more gold than he ever has and was enjoying the trip. I had a very fun and decently productive trip, the weather was perfect and we had fun playing radio while separated. I didn't get as much as I though I would but I still came home with some gold and a great day in the books.This particular area has a lot of potential and I hope to do some exploring there soon. There has to be more pans like Mytimetoshines waiting to be had just around the bend

Still drying it out the gold but will post the weight soon..

 

[Asmbandits]

Well im guessing since I was getting more pickers from that spot last time and I wasnt getting that many this trip, I tricked myself into thinking I didnt do that good.. Looks like I pulled .64 grams this trip which is more than the first time, looks like all them smalls and that lil chunike add up just fine.

 

[kabah088]

Great journal.

 

[Asmbandits]

A few friends and I thought it would be a good idea to venture out on the river for an overnight trip, as it was getting closer we realized it was going to be much colder and likely rain We all had so much excitement to get out and this particular weekend was the rare occasion all of our schedules allowed this so everyone was still game for the most part. I was a bit nervous this last week, there is a lot that can go wrong and especially given the weather we could possibly get trapped at this spot since you must cross the river multiple times to access it. I did have a backup plan and way out down river with no crossings but it would have been twice the hike. Towards the end it really added a level of excitement and challenge to it that truly made it an adventure.

We made our ways back up to Color County and arrived around 8am, myself along with my buddies Cody and Casey meet Erik the prospector at the river. We chatted a bit then quickly made our way towards the spot, it was only about a mile or so along the river but it gets quite challenging towards the end. Luckily we all had brought waders and put them on for the final stretch of river where you must wade through wist high water at times. We all took our time, the weather was nice just cold no rain. Everyone made it through with no issues and we all stayed dry. Once we arrived we had a quick victory beer then began laying out and setting up camp, leveling off an area in the sand to sleep and building a fire pit. We took pride in our makeshift fireplace/pit, carefully stacking to make a backstop to hopefully push heat into the shanty. Its amazing how much satisfaction the simplest of tasks can create when given the right circumstances! We collected a massive amount of driftwood as we were sure we would need it to stay warm all night in 30 degree darkness.. Our shanty was just a simple lean to with tarps for floors which when it rains worked perfect and stayed dry, at night it was almost to warm with a sleeping bag but you could feel the cold once the fire died down and it would wake someone up to tend to it.

Once we had camp built we focused on gold and I brought everyone over to a huge chunk of bedrock I had noticed last trip that I knew could be moved with a bar and the right amount of people. It looked good enough to think that it could hold a nice pocket of gold if we could move it and everyone agreed so we spent most of the day prying and hammering until lunch then went back at it again.. Spent about 4 hours total messing with this rock but were able to move it and it held a good amount of material yet not much gold at all about a 1/4 gram. I will say it was quite an accomplishment to us lol that rock must have weighed over a ton. I have video thanks to Casey and i'll try to post it. It started getting dark in that canyon at about 2pm so that was almost all of the prospecting we could get in but we had quite a nice evening cooking, talking and sharing some whiskey around the fire and even watched a shanty movie out there thanks to Casey before nodding off. We awoke to rain at about 6:00 am and I slept for about another 30 min until I thought maybe we should get out now before the river swells and we cant. We hung out for about 45 min, Casey made Coffee on one of his beer can stoves.. Packed up camp in the rain and slowly made it out of there. It was about 10:00 when we arrived at the truck, would loved to have stayed but the river rising is just to dangerous, I could have worked in the rain I was dry but id rather still be alive at the end of the day or not trapped!

In all was a great trip, that rock coughed up .25 grams and I pulled some nice pickers from another crack and got another .18 with that. Not much gold but we had a blast with everything else, it was almost funny how comfortable and relaxing the trip turned out while also having a little adventure dabbled in here and there.. It was fun and I cant wait to do it again but will wait till next year when I have some day light to work with!

 

[Asmbandits]

Here is some video of when we were able to get the bedrock to let go..

 

[KevinInColorado]

Pretty awesome! (Even tho the gold was just ok)

 

[mytimetoshine]

Looks like a great time. Part of me regretted not going but the other part of me that woke up at 6am to heavy rain and wind while nice and toasty in my bed did not. Lol. Yea man I looked out the window and thought..damn.. I hope the boys are ok in the canyon.

Hopefully I can get a rain check for the next outting!

 

[mytimetoshine]

Damn I can't believe there wasn't good gold under that bedrock. Pretty cool the way it fell and broke apart. As soon as it was free you know you wanted to dive on that dirt like it was a live grenade. I can see it now doing reverse snow angels on it screaming "MINE"! The ancient Egyptians comment was hilarious. Good times..

 

[Jeff95531]

Thanks for tagalong, ALL the stories/pics/Vid! Made me smile a bunch of times. Good for you guys! And you "southerners" crack me up. "ONLY got 1/2 gram ...oh well." Maybe you guys can come up and show me what I'm doing wrong!

 

[SchoolOfHardRocks]

Looks like a GREAT TRIP!! Let me know if you all have room for a tag-along next time, I'd love to join!

 

[Asmbandits]

Damn I can't believe there wasn't good gold under that bedrock. Pretty cool the way it fell and broke apart. As soon as it was free you know you wanted to dive on that dirt like it was a live grenade. I can see it now doing reverse snow angels on it screaming "MINE"! The ancient Egyptians comment was hilarious. Good times..

Yeah I was thinking for sure there would be some trapped chunkier stuff under there, it just looked too good.. That thing was ready to go from the get go just needed a push lol.

 

[Asmbandits]

Thanks for tagalong, ALL the stories/pics/Vid! Made me smile a bunch of times. Good for you guys! And you "southerners" crack me up. "ONLY got 1/2 gram ...oh well." Maybe you guys can come up and show me what I'm doing wrong!

Thanks Jeff, yeah really for hands and pans 1/2 gram is a decent day id think, a gram is probably my good day goal, anything past that is good/very good for hand tools imo.. If your ever down in this neck of the woods let me know and i'll get you on some gold for sure!

 

[Asmbandits]

Looks like a GREAT TRIP!! Let me know if you all have room for a tag-along next time, I'd love to join!

Yeah we do quite a few outings and its only a matter of time im guessing before we cross paths in some way or another. Next time I go out more than likely with mytimetoshine or Erik the prospector i'll let you know!

 

[Jeff95531]

Thanks Jeff, yeah really for hands and pans 1/2 gram is a decent day id think, a gram is probably my good day goal, anything past that is good/very good for hand tools imo.. If your ever down in this neck of the woods let me know and i'll get you on some gold for sure!

AH, so it's NOT me, just my area. You're too kind!

Thanks for the offer and anything above 49 degrees and we'll talk!

 

[EriktheProspector]

Hey Jerry buddy, love the thread, love the pics. Voted to banner. Your daughter is adorable! Keep up the great work. You've got some great finds already! The ~5g nugget, the platinum nugget, etc. A lot more to come for you, I know it. You've got what it takes to be a great prospector, and you are!