Panning for the first time tomorrow! (Colorado)

[agolddigger]

Hey all - new to the forum, the state of Colorado (moved this week), and this hobby =D

Found a shop in Idaho Springs selling some prospecting gear. I've wanted to give this a shot for a while so looking forward to seeing if I can find anything.

Not sure how many CO folks are here but current plan is to go to the spot along 6 btw Idaho Springs & golden on Clear Creek that everyone talks about. Sounds like the gold isn't great but honestly if I can get a tiny speck of gold I'll be happy. Main goal for this first trip is just to figure out how to use a pan properly.

Let's see how it goes :-D

 

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[russau]

Welcome agolddigger ! theres a lot of mercury in Clear Creek and its covering the fine gold youll find there. Make sure you keep that gold separate from and clean gold you have OR itll be completely covered with mercury

 

[rodoconnor]

You might try getting in touch with Kevinincolorado. He might get you dialed in .

 

[Kenmitch]

Search YouTube for videos. Panning is pretty simple with practice. I found a tiny little round piece of lead (1/32nd) when panning recently. I just throw it in the pan before adding the other material and pan away. Figure if it's in the pan when I'm done I pretty much got 99% of the gold. Couple little floaters might get out which I'll retrieve later anyways. I use a 10" pan while panning over a larger pan as a safety net. The dirt I just let dry out and save it for practice by throwing my gold back in. I'm too far from the motherload to go often. Panning at home at least somewhat satisfies the cravings till I get back up there again.

 

[agolddigger]

Welcome agolddigger ! theres a lot of mercury in Clear Creek and its covering the fine gold youll find there. Make sure you keep that gold separate from and clean gold you have OR itll be completely covered with mercury

Are you referring to clear creek, CA? Haven't seen any info about mercury in clear creek, CO but wouldn't be surprised given the mining history.

 

[agolddigger]

Was out for ~3 hours today but as far as I can tell I only have black sand to show for it.

I think the biggest problem was that I wasn't digging in the right spot. The obvious places (behind large rocks) were dug out & I didn't have waders to get to others. Still had fun but want some gold next time

For those curious this was right at the first parking place in Clear Creek Canyon Park - maybe 100 ft from the parking lot so clearly I need to venture out a bit further (and get some better gear for walking through the creek).

Bottom center of the picture is the hole I was digging from. I was standing on a sandbar in the middle of the creek, figured it might have some gold from times of high flow but probably won't be concentrating right there. Next time I'll spend more effort on spot selection & less on working through material.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Hey there and welcome to "Colorful Colorado"...color refers to gold in your pan of course!

You'll find better gold at Arapahoe Bar than in the Canyon. The Bar is just downstream of the big Coors plant/property. There's info on that site in one of the first posts in my blog at www.findingGOLDinColorado.com
...along with lots of other info to accelerate your entry into our favorite pastime!

PS pm sent with invite to meet up tomorrow at Arapahoe Bar!

 

[agolddigger]

Hey there and welcome to "Colorful Colorado"...color refers to gold in your pan of course!

You'll find better gold at Arapahoe Bar than in the Canyon. The Bar is just downstream of the big Coors plant/property. There's info on that site in one of the first posts in my blog at www.findingGOLDinColorado.com
...along with lots of other info to accelerate your entry into our favorite pastime!

PS pm sent with invite to meet up tomorrow at Arapahoe Bar!

To follow up on this I did in fact meet up with Kevin (twice!) and he showed me the ropes.

Now I have some real gold and more importantly have gold fever ;-)

Went to Cache Creek today which was awesome. Here's the results of a single bucket from the best hole we found (of course at the end of the day as we were packing up!).

 

[Hunt4gold]

Welcome to Colorado and prospecting!
Am also new to prospecting, but have been in Colorado for 30 years. Kevin has helped several of us newcomers to prospecting. We should have a "new to prospecting" day out at Arapahoe Bar or some other nearby location.

 

[Johnnybravo300]

I've never been to arapahoe bar but I want to check it out the next weekend I'm in Denver.
Ive been to Clear Creek twice and cache creek quite a few times. It's always exciting to dig at new places.
Its a trip from gunnison but during the winter there's too much snow here.
I might go to az this winter to see what I can find!