TheNewCatfish
Sr. Member
- #1
Thread Owner
There is a place in Colorado called "Cache Creek". It's located near Twin Lakes below Leadville. It is a BLM area where large scale hydraulic mining took place about 60 years ago. Today the area is set aside for recreational panning. For about 25% of your daily take, sluices, high bankers, pumps and hoses can be rented from the gate keeper who oversees the site. There is no fee for camping and campsites are plentiful and located close to the digging. Prospectors run the whole gambit from newbies with just a backpack sluice and a pan, to teams of five or six guys working with generators, pumps hoses and highbankers. It's a great place to network and meet other prospectors. Your stay is limited to 14 days, but nobody is real strict about enforcing that rule as long as you behave yourself and respect other people's work sites. I had the opportunity to share my dig with an older gentleman who was diagnosed with lung cancer and came there to fulfill his lifelong dream of prospecting for gold. I saw one five hundred dollar nugget during the 28 days i was there and a few flakes big enough to be "clinkers", but most of the gold was pretty fine and difficult to locate. Are there any similar places in Oregon ?