My Colorado Gold Hunt.

[GrizzlyGremlin]

What an amazing state. Seeing the rockies for the first time is a religious experience. Anyway, i step off the airplane at 930 am. 5 hours later the rental guy found me my "reserved car". Im 3 weeks out if wetting a pan so off i go. Hit the goldndetectors store in golden and 20 min later im digging at clear creek canyon. Few unclassified buckets with a pan and the first pic shows the total. Im shocked at this point at how rich the dirt is. Every pan has many colors down to stupidly small powder. Did the next few days in steamboat springs with good friends and an even better time partying on top of steamboat. From here we moved south to Leadville did one day on the Arkansas and one day on cache . The gold was good everywhere!! I wont be cocky or snark the gold Gods but compared to NH, colorado gold is easy. The pieces are chunks and round and sit amazingly in a sluice box! I drove 1200 miles on the rental car and cant wait to see more!! Special thanks to Kevin in colorado and jmoller and everyone else, you guys made the trip worth it.

 

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[63bkpkr]

Hello GrizzlyGremlin and Good Morning to Ya!

Really nice post, of course I loved the pictures with great looking mountain country and pans of gold but what I liked the most was how the Friends of Tnet helped you out! Glad you trip went so well, you had such a good time and will likely do something like it again, keep at it!!.........................63bkpkr

I will as well!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Great to hear your visit went so well and I LOVE seeing that nice gold you found...we do have it easy here . ...if by easy you mean good hard fun that is!

 

[GrizzlyGremlin]

Oh ya!! Digging compacted dry dirt is definitely hard work but boy i cant wait to get a 3" dredge highbanker combo out there. Next summer im comming back for u colorado! Permanently!! Yes the tresurenet folks are great. Everyone is helpful and sharing. I didnt see very many prospectors tho. I even prospected with the GPAA group. Comparatively lazy to others i met but still few prospectors. NH is loaded with gold hounds and little hold. Go figure

 

[KevinInColorado]

Well, we have lots of prospectors but they get spread out all over since there are so many gold bearing areas. Lots of the harder working, more experienced prospectors are off in the woods somewhere that you, as a tourist, will never see them. Secret spots, federal mining claims, private property, etc...it's a whole different thing out here once you get past the entry level. Of course a lot of GPAA folks never get past that first stage of involvement. All good as that's all they want. Just not enough for me!

 

[jmoller99]

You did great. Next time you will have a better idea what you are looking for, and come prepared for it. The biggest challenge is the altitude, but if you can pace yourself and carry plenty of fluids (and sun protection), you should do well.

As you discovered, the extra step of sampling a few places has higher payback. Also, you found out that you don't have to go up to the high mountains to find gold - it's available when ever the weather allows it down in the Denver/Golden area. I started working the Denver areas on Easter Sunday (March 31st). We alternated from nice warm days to snow storms until about June this year - all with good prospecting days mixed in.

 

[49er4ever44]

Grizzly! Talk about stoking the fire! We leave tomorrow and hopefully get similar results.

 

[GrizzlyGremlin]

Lol 49er you will crush my results. Your heckler will trump my keene a51. You also have lots of time. Heres the thing. SAMPLE!! And then sample. Then sample some more. What i did is brought 5 pans. Classified 1 very full pan at 5 different spots then compared the pans. The difficult thing is that every pan i sampled had gold in it. We dug buckets from the best and 2nd best test holes. The gold out there is NOT evenly distributed. Our best results came from digging out a big boulder sitting on a vertical bedrock wedge. Colorado is Amazing! I WILL be back! Knowing that i just hit the spots which are all over the internet makes me absolutely giddy as to what can be taken out of the ground at the not so popularly worked spots. Colorado really drove home for me the fact that mining is 50% about how much dirt you process and 50% about how much gold is in the dirt. When you put the 2 together and run lots of dirt that has lots of gold. You become a Bonified Miner! Im not a miner yet but i darn sure will be... With the governments approval to do so or not!! Another thing that blew my mind was the lack of prospectors compared to here in NH. its nothing to see 40 panners in a day in NH. Except for a gpaa outing that i prospected with i only saw 3 prospectors on a saturday and sunday. Sorry for blowing up the state! Lol next summer i will be moving there permanently. Guess what im doing for the first 3 months im there? Yup! Chasing down every yella flake from fly poop to ounce nugs!!! Its all mine!!!! Haha

 

[KevinInColorado]

I love your enthusiasm for Colorado Grizzly, I can relate myself! It'll be great to share the state with you

I have to admit that you might be even happier somewhere with even more gold such as CA, ID or AK...even AZ with the right gear. Of course I love CO for the weather, skiing and all that too, curious to hear more about what convinced you?

 

[Sawyer]

Good for You! Hope you love Colorado! I know Colorado will love another taxpayer!