Extreme hiking for some mediocre gold

[BoulderTroll]

I'm not the most experienced either I know all the classic gold traps and stuff but it's pretty much only good for flood gold or if I find bedrock cracks or eroding gravels. Also the Lennox area is pretty much my first "treasure hunt" and I'm willing to navigate the difficult terrain. Since I haven't found anything here's some leads and stuff I've collected on the area which I'm sure you have
read maybe you have some insight that I don't? I don't doubt there is placer gold here it just might be buried under tons of boulders or overburden. Also I didn't really see any quartz in Bear creek or Lennox. If the area doesn't pan out the exploring is worth it.

You pulled up more info than I recall looking at up there. You do the research AND not afraid of getting a little dirty haha good combo
I have always been interested in making it up to those old mines and taking a few samples. But lost interested in the area after 3 trips resulting in no Au.

 

[quintcork]

You pulled up more info than I recall looking at up there. You do the research AND not afraid of getting a little dirty haha good combo
I have always been interested in making it up to those old mines and taking a few samples. But lost interested in the area after 3 trips resulting in no Au.

Yes, I am going up there soon! I might try getting way up Cougar creek and try panning close to the supposed old placer claim named "Beans Macaroon". Also try to find that devils canyon mine. My next adventure after I lose interest in this Lennox place is figuring out the source of the Raging river's gold which will include even more bushwhacking and sketchy terrain navigation hopefully no bear encounters 🤞. Washington Beach Mining on YT talked about wanting to find it at the end of his last video posted two years ago. Maybe he found it and struck it rich?? lol!

 

[quintcork]

Another successful morning on the Raging River under I90 (couldn't get to my usual spot). An hour messing with the dream sluice and an hour test panning. Im finding that there's good flood gold in the top layer of clay/roots of grass and vegitation (mostly invasive stuff). The gravels deeper hold very little of anything.

 

[Quinc]

Looks like you are doing well! Keep panning and you will find the spots. One creek I go too has great color in every pan, but on only one side of the creek. Other side has nothing. So keep testing.

 

[BoulderTroll]

My next adventure after I lose interest in this Lennox place is figuring out the source of the Raging river's gold which will include even more bushwhacking and sketchy terrain navigation hopefully no bear encounters 🤞. Washington Beach Mining on YT talked about wanting to find it at the end of his last video posted two years ago. Maybe he found it and struck it rich?? lol!

I've never tried the Raging River, but think about it every time I drove over it on 18 as I'm heading up to the Cascades.

Not trying to challenge you, but just kinda thinking about that river.... What makes you think that there's a source up there?
Here's why I ask:
1) It looks like the highest elevation of the peaks there are 3200-3300ft. Which is probably low enough to have been nearly covered by the ice sheet in the last glacial maximum.
2) You're finding it on the surface, and not so much down deeper.
3) Shape and size of the gold looks a lot like glacial flood gold that you can find everywhere in the Puget Sound lowlands.

My opinion based on very limited info is that it looks like you're getting glacial gold not locally sourced gold, and you're not going to find a source.

 

[metalman2024]

So I decided to get out and check a new spot on the Raging river. As most prospectors in the Seattle area know, this river gets hit hard even though the gold is.. let's just say thin, light, and overall bad. So I decided to get access to a section which would not be easy to get to. Needless to say it was not worth it. I hike in 2.5 miles via a power line trail which ends abruptly 400 feet above the river. Extremely thick brush all the way down and 45 degrees+ steep. I check out if there's a path on the side and it's a shear cliff (pic below 👇) finally I get around it into a forested area and bushwhack using my shovel all the way down. After 2 hours of production panning and testing I end up with .02 grams 😬. Was the adventure worth it? Yes. Will I be going back? Absolutely not.
View attachment 2209258
View attachment 2209257

never found flake or nugget gold myself while panning, so if you ask me, it was well worth it, even if they seem "relatively" insignificant, you learned something for sure? and you were not totally skunked

 

[quintcork]

I've never tried the Raging River, but think about it every time I drove over it on 18 as I'm heading up to the Cascades.

Not trying to challenge you, but just kinda thinking about that river.... What makes you think that there's a source up there?
Here's why I ask:
1) It looks like the highest elevation of the peaks there are 3200-3300ft. Which is probably low enough to have been nearly covered by the ice sheet in the last glacial maximum.
2) You're finding it on the surface, and not so much down deeper.
3) Shape and size of the gold looks a lot like glacial flood gold that you can find everywhere in the Puget Sound lowlands.

My opinion based on very limited info is that it looks like you're getting glacial gold not locally sourced gold, and you're not going to find a source.

Well it probably is glacial gold. The river gets replenished with lots of fine gold with the occasional picker after every flood but I have read that further up above highway 18 there is less gold but there are some nuggets that can be found. There's also a creek called Holder creek that has ultra fine gold coming off tiger mountain going into Issaquah. Maybe the source isn't a vein but there could be better concentrations or larger pieces up stream.

(the largest piece I ended up losing after taking it out of the vial one time. won't make that mistake again.)

 

[quintcork]

never found flake or nugget gold myself while panning, so if you ask me, it was well worth it, even if they seem "relatively" insignificant, you learned something for sure? and you were not totally skunked

Yeah but in the PNW I know there's better gold to be found. Especially when you can drive 2 hours up to a public panning reserve in BC and do better in one pan than what I get in a day.

 

[BoulderTroll]

That does make sense seeing that there's some bedrock up there towards the top of the mountain that could catch it. All the small stuff gets washed down, and the bigger stuff sinks and sits.

 

[Johnnybravo300]

Well it probably is glacial gold. The river gets replenished with lots of fine gold with the occasional picker after every flood but I have read that further up above highway 18 there is less gold but there are some nuggets that can be found. There's also a creek called Holder creek that has ultra fine gold coming off tiger mountain going into Issaquah. Maybe the source isn't a vein but there could be better concentrations or larger pieces up stream.
View attachment 2214301
(the largest piece I ended up losing after taking it out of the vial one time. won't make that mistake again.)

If you dropped your gold on carpet you can always rip it out and burn it, then pan the ashes.
Might be worth it for a big piece!

 

[quintcork]

If you dropped your gold on carpet you can always rip it out and burn it, then pan the ashes.
Might be worth it for a big piece!

It was hardwood floor and i gave up after 30 minutes and a magnifying glas. Im going upstream in a few days to try and get some bigger gold. That flake was maybe 0.02 grams. Not worth losing sleep over.

 

[quintcork]

Little update on my adventures. So about a month ago I tried making it up lennox creek for some test panning and hiking. About a mile from the trailhead we got a flat. Had everything to change it except a lug wrench. Luckily there were some tweakers just down the road camping out for 4th if July weekend and one of them had what we need.

I've been doing more panning on the Raging and am finally happy with the gold I'm getting. Still havent gone hiking upstream but I got lucky at a local spot and found someones massive hole.

they are following this hardpack clay layer that orignates from the hillside and has acted like bedrock. Well I bet they did really good because within the first pan ontop of the clay I got this doozy of a flake and specimen (strange I thought this river only had flat glacial gold 🤔).

I guess this is the trick for rivers without bedrock. Heres the take from two days in that spot.

~0.11 grams total.
Close up:

 

[gold tramp]

Little update on my adventures. So about a month ago I tried making it up lennox creek for some test panning and hiking. About a mile from the trailhead we got a flat. Had everything to change it except a lug wrench. Luckily there were some tweakers just down the road camping out for 4th if July weekend and one of them had what we need. View attachment 2218417
I've been doing more panning on the Raging and am finally happy with the gold I'm getting. Still havent gone hiking upstream but I got lucky at a local spot and found someones massive hole. View attachment 2218420they are following this hardpack clay layer that orignates from the hillside and has acted like bedrock. Well I bet they did really good because within the first pan ontop of the clay I got this doozy of a flake and specimen (strange I thought this river only had flat glacial gold 🤔).
View attachment 2218418
I guess this is the trick for rivers without bedrock. Heres the take from two days in that spot.
View attachment 2218421View attachment 2218422
~0.11 grams total.
Close up:View attachment 2218423

Good the tweakers were there save your butt, you give 20 bucks...
Gt...

 

[KevinInColorado]

When I prospected for the first time I made a 4 inch sluice (which quickly fell apart) out of some sheet steel and made a short silicone rubber made using a lego mold inspired by Alan Robertson. I've heard bad things about making wooden boxes although cheap they fall apart and are heavy. I think the plan is to bend up a 10 x 36in sluice and invest in some dream matting considering all the ultra fine gold we get here in the cascades. And yeah, always in it for the adventure!

The Dream Mat is a great idea. That’s what I run these days too!

Also, a big YES to finding better gold where there’s a clay layer or sticky clay mixed with sand & gravel. The bigger the waterway, the more important that is!!

 

[quintcork]

I've finally got the motivation to post an update on this thread. As summer approaches I'm ready to do more prospecting out in Washington. At the end of last summer I was able to make one last trip out to the Cascades before going to the east coast for another year of uni. Had to run it back with the climb up Cougar Creek/Dog mountain after that flat tire the first time. Went up there to find the Pine Marten cabin which @BoulderTroll had mentioned

after we explored we traversed west off trail to try to find an old mine called devils canyon mine that I saw on some old maps.
Very steep and lots of ferns to push through and one of the sketchier things I've hiked slipped too many times to count.

No luck with the mine as we didn't have any coordinates just a few pins on a map of where it could be.
We did HOWEVER find several holes dug across the hill side most likely looking for quartz specimens. We weren't too far off trail but there were no active claims in this area and the drive and hike is difficult so no clue what led them to this area. I know middle fork Snoqualmie is very popular for quartz prospecting and we weren't too far from there. Lots of nice quart pieces just forgot to take pictures.

Continued the climb to the ridge below the summit of dog mountain but decided to turn back due to being tired. Got this photo from above Marten Lake. The Taylor river is located down in that valley.

Full hike was around 11 miles and a great way to end summer. I'm ready to do more hiking and try to get into new spots on the raging river as well as maybe explore new rivers such as the sky.
And of course I cant make a post without some gold so here's some raging river gold:

 

[BoulderTroll]

That's too bad you couldn't make it to the mine either! I've been thinking about getting up there to check out the old Lennox mines someday, but it's quite a trek just to drive up there.
Thanks for sharing your adventures!

 

[quintcork]

Im sure Ill be back up there to try to find the mine and summit Dog. Me and my friend weren't fully prepared. Im pretty sure we were too low on that hillside and needed to go higher and further west. If you do decide to go out there let me know. Its nice having an extra person/vehicle in case of anything. We are just college kids 20 and 24 so it's understable if you wouldn't want to join. Also do you have any insight on how the floods have treated us in western washington as far as gold goes?

 

[BoulderTroll]

Im sure I’ll be back up there to try to find the mine and summit Dog. Me and my friend weren't fully prepared. Im pretty sure we were too low on that hillside and needed to go higher and further west. If you do decide to go out there let me know. It’s nice having an extra person/vehicle in case of anything. We are just college kids 20 and 24 so it's understable if you wouldn't want to join. Also do you have any insight on how the floods have treated us in western washington as far as gold goes?

Maybe someday I’ll get back to that area, and I’ll let ya know.
Haven’t had a chance to find out about the effects of the floods yet, as most places I worked before are still covered in snow. Going to see how far I can get up the roads tomorrow though. Have a little snow camping trip planned 😁

 

[BoulderTroll]

I was able to get up to the mountains last weekend. Not a lot of snow at the lower elevations, and river is running high already. The floods did some damage. Saw a wash that blew out and filled a road with boulders and debris, and made a mess of a campground. Lots of erosion to the banks. Could see lots of new deposits of gravel, but no luck on gold when I was testing them. But I didn't get to test that much since this was more of a scouting trip.

 

[quintcork]

Another update:
Made it out for the first gold of the season. I went to check out a creek which was recommended by @BoulderTroll near the Raging did around 10 pans from different spots all I got were 1 or two fly poops and 1 nice garnet. Reading small creeks like these are hard and I definitely don't have the knowledge on the best places to test pan a creek.
Here are some photos of the creek and the material:

the black rocks are actually charcoal which seem to be fossilized.

After messing with that creek for a few hours I stopped at the Raging where I left off last year. The river has changed a lot including this landslide just upstream from the sharp inside bend I work.

This is the clay layer I worked last year which some other people already got started on.

There seems to be similar amount of gold in this spot from last year where you'll get 1 nice flake and a bunch of specs per pan.
I worked in the hole that the people before me started. Did around 10 pans and this is what I ended up with:

Will be back with the sluice box and buckets next week.