New to this site..... Anyone have info on Beach Prospecting? Where to go

[wpareig]

Hello, I am new to this site and have fornd the people who post and reply to be extreamly informative and knowlegable and am hoping some of you can give me a little help (info).

I am wondering if any of you do any Beach Prospecting and if you can give me info of where I am alowed to go (any state) and what equipment I am alowed to use there. I know there are a LOT of restrictions nowadays as to what, when, how and what can be used.

Also, if anyone has any areas they go & would like some company (help) on your next Beach Prospecting trip, I would definately be interested....

Thank you,

Jim

 

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[Nashoba]

You can always try down in southern Oregon close to Cali. Gold beach has gold but it is a tough place to get any decent amount. The same can be said for the upper Columbia river.
Now ALaska one the other hand has some really productive beaches.

Best o' luck to ya!

~Nash~

 

[wpareig]

Thanks Nash,
I had heard of Gold Beach Oregon, but have not been able to find and info or regs on that area. I love prospecting in Alaska, but, I am working on a prototype for ultra-fine gold recovery from beach sands up there and was hoping to try out the equipment and make any modifications here in the lower 48 before putting out the expense of hauling everything up there and then find out I have design or manufacturing flaws.

I love a good challenge, that's why the beach prospecting is so interestting to me. A lot of work for a little gold but, if I can find a way to make it more productive and have the same amount of "fun" I think that's what it's all about.... I can't work as hard as i used to, but that doesn't mean I can't still work smart.

If anyone has any info on Gold Beach including equipment regs I would really appreciate it.

Thanks again for the info Nash. Best of luck to you too.

 

[Nashoba]

You are very welcome and best of luck to you as well.

~Nash~

 

[stefen]

There is a black sands bluff / beach area northerly of Trinidad, California. This area is maybe 40 miles south of California / Oregon border.

 

[wpareig]

Thank you, I'll see what info I can find on that area.

Jim.

 

[stefen]

Here is a start...its called Gold Bluff Beach...

DESTINATIONS California's Waterfalls
Gold Bluffs Beach Falls

Adapted from
California's Waterfalls
by Ann Marie Brown

The only thing that keeps Fern Canyon, Gold Bluffs Beach, and the Coastal Trail's waterfalls from being completely overrun with tourists is the long, unpaved road to reach them. No trailers or RVs are allowed on gravelly Davison Road, so that eliminates plenty of visitors right there. In addition, the road has different moods in different weather: Sometimes it's smoothly graded, almost like glass, and sometimes it's full of potholes, or has a foot-deep stream running across it. You just never know.

Gold Bluffs Beach Falls

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park
Off US 101 near Orick

Access & Difficulty: Hike-in or Bike-in 3.0 miles RT/Easy
Elevation: Start at 90 feet; total gain 0 feet
Best Season: December to June

Well, if your vehicle can make the seven mile drive from US 101, you're in luck, because there are many hidden treasures at the end of Davison Road. Probably the most famous is Fern Canyon, a secluded, rocky grotto on Home Creek that is a veritable paradise of ferns growing on 50-foot-high canyon walls. There's also an excellent chance of seeing magnificent Roosevelt elk, maybe even looking eye-to-eye with some of these resident deer-on-steroids. Plus there's Gold Bluffs Beach, a pristine, windswept stretch of sand along the Pacific, where you can beachcomb and walk for miles. The Coastal Trail

And last but certainly not least, there's the Coastal Trail, with three sweet waterfalls that drop alongside it. The trail traverses a flat route from the end of Davison Road to a backpacking camp 2.2 miles out, then it continues for another 2.2 miles along the coast before it climbs back out to the highway. If you just want to see its three falls along Gold Bluffs Beach, you need only walk (or ride your bike) 1.5 miles out from the parking lot.

The waterfalls are just slightly off the trail; you must listen for the gentle sound of splashing water, and keep looking to your right for spur trails leading into the trees. Each of these spurs is your ticket to one of three tall, narrow cataracts, all of them hidden in grottos carved from a canopy of spruce and alders.

Start your hike from the Fern Canyon parking lot, by negotiating the sometimes tricky crossing of Home Creek. The Coastal Trail starts due north of the lot, at a signpost on the far side of the creek. After the stream crossing, the rest of the trail is incredibly easy and flat, and it stays fairly dry even in the wettest weather. That's why bikes are allowed on this section of the Coastal Trail; the windswept bluffs have soil that is tough enough to withstand their weight and speed.

From the Forest to the Ocean

After a brief stint in the forest, the scenery opens up and you walk with the ocean on your left and tall vertical bluffs on your right. Be prepared to see big elk, who are usually grazing somewhere along the trail. In three trips here, I've always passed at least a dozen, usually big males with impressive racks. They tend to completely ignore hikers, although hikers rarely ignore them.

At 1.1 miles out, start listening for the sound of falling water on your right, and look for an unmarked spur trail leading into the alder and spruce forest. Follow the spur and you'll find the first cascade, an 80-foot narrow freefall, reminiscent of Hawaiian waterfalls — tall, slender, and delicate, surrounded by a myriad of ferns. On one visit here, we saw literally hundreds of three-inch-wide mushrooms growing on a log near the base of the fall, forming a thick forest of fungus. Walk a quarter mile further, listen for the sound of water, and look for the spur trail, and you'll find yourself holding court with Gold Dust Falls, even taller and more mystical-looking than the first fall. (The park has put up a sign on the Coastal Trail pointing out the spur to Gold Dust Falls, but every time I've visited, the sign is laying on the ground or hidden in the bushes.) Gold Dust Falls has a bench placed near its base for waterfall watching, but it's often soaking wet and covered with moss.

Gold Dust Falls

Gold Dust is the only fall of the three that has a name; it's dubbed for the short-lived 1850s gold rush along Gold Bluffs Beach, when five prospectors discovered gold dust in the sand and staked a claim. Thousands came to this beach and set up a tent city, but alas, extracting the gold turned out to be hard work that produced little profit. The boom ended almost as quickly as it began.
The third waterfall is very close to Gold Dust Falls; another couple hundred feet on the Coastal Trail brings you to its spur trail. It, too, is a tall, narrow cataract, hidden in the deep shade of forest and ferns. Pay a visit, and then turn around and head back, or continue hiking on the Coastal Trail. Your options include an out-and-back trip of up to nine miles along the coast, or a seven-mile loop: You can turn right on the West Ridge Trail at 2.2 miles, then connect to the Friendship Ridge Trail, and follow it back to Fern Canyon and the parking area.

Trip notes: Unlike the other waterfalls in this survey, there is a day-use fee for the park. A map of the park is available at the entrance kiosk. For more information, contact Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Orick, CA 95555; (707) 464-6101.

Directions: From Eureka, drive north on US 101 for 41 miles to Orick. Continue north for 2.5 more miles to Davison Road, then turn left (west) and drive seven miles to the Fern Canyon Trailhead. No trailers or RVs are permitted on unpaved Davison Road.

 

[stefen]

Here is some history with highlighted areas:

History


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History of Humboldt County California - Historic Record Co., Los Angeles, 1915




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CHAPTER XVI.

Gold Mining in Humboldt County.



No history of industry would even approximate accuracy if it should omit some account of the early mining excitement and mining scenes in Humboldt county, which really got its first impetus from the mining industry along the Klamath river. It is interesting to hear the early settlers describe the old Gold Bluff excitement of 1852, a period when by all accounts even the ocean itself became a miner and washed up thousands of pounds of gold on the beach of Trinidad. The accounts of the gold found in those olden days read like a romantic story from the times of the Spanish conquest.

In those years it was generally said and quite commonly believed that almost any man of good enterprise and muscle, stirred by ambition, could take his hat and a wheelbarrow, and in about an hour gather up enough gold to last him for a year or two. But this excitement, bad as it was for some things, really led to the settlement of the county, although it did not lead to fortunes for those who followed it. It frequently made people dissatisfied with everyday affairs and created a gambling craze.

In the early days placer mining was followed with a considerable degree of success on the Klamath river, but the gold digging has always been of nominal importance when contrasted with lumbering and agriculture. Recent reports from the Government at Washington indicate that Humboldt county may have a new era of placer mining, especially if modern methods of looking for the black sand containing platinum are put into use.

It should be remembered that the Klamath river country north of the great redwood belt is possibly the most inaccessible part of the county, containing many mountains and rocky stretches of country. It is even yet unexplored.

For a time quartz mining occupied considerable attention, and during the period of the quartz mining excitement a few very valuable mines were discovered. For a long period hydraulic mining was carried on to some extent, and at one time there were twenty-four miles of running ditches. During the year 1880 almost four thousand inches of water were used in mining operations each day. The hydraulic mining met with little or no embarrassment such as confronted it in the Sacramento Valley country where the bottom lands were practically destroyed by the hydraulic mining debris. Humboldt county has swift-flowing rivers and no bottom lands along their banks to be destroyed by hydraulic mining if it should be carried on in the north.

For a long time a bench flume at Big Bar, which was eight miles below Orleans, was successfully worked by the hydraulic process. It yielded dividends for about five years, and it was the opinion of Judge J. P. Haynes at one time that this process would revolutionize all mining in the Klamath region.

Prospecting was for a long time directed towards the high bars and benches on the Klamath which a number of persons believed would afford the best mining region in the state. The mining properties were owned very largely by private citizens, who pocketed their own dividends without consulting anybody else or any corporation.

Orleans bar, a famous place upon the Klamath, was known for many years to the old miners, because the gold belts which run transversely throughout the Western states from Colorado, seem to terminate here on the Pacific coast. Placer mining was prosperous and a large amount of capital was invested in that enterprise. The early dreams of the placer and quartz miners were doomed to disappointment, however, for they failed to bring forth as much as had been hoped for in the way of profits. The beauty of the property when it was worked was that the slickens, which is a very serious question in some other parts of California, did not injure anyone on the land below.

It should be said that gold has been found in almost every part of the county extending from Dobbyn's creek to the Trinity section and Scott's bar.

An old writer says that the starvation times on Salmon river formed an interesting chapter in the history of that important region. So great was the fear of wintering that not half a hundred men were to be found on the stream in December, 1850. These had provided themselves with a sufficient supply of provisions and passed the winter comfortably. As soon as it was believed that the more rigorous part of the winter had passed, miners began to flock in from Trinity river, Trinidad, and Humboldt, and some came up the Sacramento river and even through the famous Scott valley. This was late in January, and early in February, 1851. Many of those from Trinidad and Humboldt were unprovided with supplies, as they had expected to find them on the river, and knowing that there were pack-trains at those points preparing to bring in provisions, they were a little bit careless. The result was that although a few small trains arrived with supplies the provisions were soon eaten up and there was a crowd of several thousand men without anything to eat, and this is the reason that the name of "starvation camp" attached to the neighborhood. In the month of March a terrific snow storm set in, and blockaded the mountain trails so badly that it was impossible for pack trains to pass through to the relief of the unfortunate miners. One may still hear stories of the sufferings of those days when the miners were forced to live on mules, on sugar, and sometimes got along half-starved, on almost nothing. The olden writers tell us that those who took their rifles and went hunting met with very poor success. We read of one man who killed two grouse and was offered $8 each for them, but he declined the sale, for he needed them himself. The extremity to which some of the men were reduced was very great and for more than a month not a pound of extra food beyond the scant provisions they had on hand came to their relief. At last the packers got as far as Orleans bar, and men who had made a trail through the snow took small packs on their shoulders and carried them across the mountains to their starving friends. The records say that toward the last of April a train of mules made its way through to Salmon creek and found a hearty welcome among the half-starved miners. Hundreds of men who had been snowed in had made their way over the mountains, some to Orleans bar, others to Trinity, and others to Scott's bar, and the newly discovered mines at Yreka Flat. They suffered terrible hardships on the way, and reached those places almost famished.

Even in the olden days it was known that there were thousands of dollars to be made in the gold dust lying waste along the beaches of Humboldt county, but if it was a puzzle that could not be solved then, it is still a puzzle to capture the fleeting dust and flakes of gold from the sand. From Table Bluff to the Klamath river, over a distance of more than sixty miles, there is an almost unbroken gold-bearing sand beach exclusive of the Gold Bluff beach mining claims. The deposit is said to have accumulated from the crumbling debris of old gravel banks which came upon the beach and from the ample discharge of the waters of the Klamath river.

This process of erosion and dissolution is going on continuously, and there is said to be not a panfull of sand along the entire expanse that will not show golden colors, while in many places where the action of the water has been just right the sands appear yellow in golden streaks. There were more than ten thousand acres of this gold-bearing sand worked between Table Bluff and the Klamath river for a time, and there are thousands of acres that might be utilized under modern methods today if those modern methods were to capture the secrets of utilizing the fine gold.
The Gold Bluffs are located on the beach twenty-five miles north of Trinidad and nine miles south of the mouth of the Klamath river. In the days of the early gold excitement of California, Gold Bluff was one of the most notoriously rich of all the placers. After many years it still held a reputation as a steady paying proposition, but the amount of treasure taken out of its claims will never be exactly known. The gold-bearing gravel bluffs extend some eight miles on the beach, and in many places the beaches are a perpendicular wall of unbroken gravel three and even four hundred feet in height.
Some years ago a writer describing the conditions obtaining in this region spoke as follows: "Every winter, after the parching of summer has cracked the earth, the soaking rains of winter caused large slabs of earth and gravel to cave in and split off the perpendicular face of the bluff, millions of tons falling upon the beach. At high tide the noisy surfs washed to the base of the cliff, which is subjected to incalculable washing and swashing during heavy storms. The cakes of gravel become dissolved and are ground to pieces and carried about by the action of the water."

From time to time and during a long period of years efforts have been made and a great deal of money has been invested in the attempt to save the fine gold that could be found in large quantities along the beach from Crescent City to the mouth of Little river. As heretofore said, this gold is very fine, a mere scale, and to separate it from the sand is the problem that has baffled the skill of almost all inventors. It is known that a large number of machines have been put on the market, backed with claims that they would accomplish wonderful results, but as yet, the machine to do the work has not seen the light of day and most of the beaches which gave promise that they would make many men rich have been abandoned. It may be that some day the beach mines will be worked to advantage, but this can not be until great improvements have been made on the methods which now obtain.
Recent reports by various departments of the Federal government indicate that placer mining may reach a stage of perfection which will enable many of the tracts of gold-bearing sand in Humboldt county to be worked to advantage. It should be said in conclusion that the government reports indicate that Humboldt county's placer mines contain, probably, some of the richest platinum possibilities to be found anywhere in the United States. At any rate the Humboldt county placer mines are destined to receive a great deal more attention from mining men, engineers, and scientists than they have ever received in the past.

 

[wpareig]

Wow,
thank you for all the information Stefen.... That sounds like the EXACT type of beach I am looking for.... Very fine gold and platnum, the same as what I am developing the equipment for to use on Kodiak Island and a few other areas in AK.... If the beach is accessable with my equipment this would be the perfect location to work the bugs out and make any improvments on the equipment. From the article it even looks like the state wants prospecting done on the beach in order to find a way to do it effectivly. I'll have to start contacting state agencies.

Thanks again,

Jim.