Panning in Albuquerque ?

[jonathan_174]

I'm 15 so I can't get a job and I don't have any way of transportation and my mom and dad won't take me to the mountains ( Sandia and jemiz )I really want to use my garret panning kit that I got about a week ago . I went to the rio grande but as most people know , there is NO gold in there . I live right next to the Mesa , and know where a nice bedrock formation is l should I go and dry pan there ? I'm going to California in a month and being sure to bring my minelab 350 to search the beach but I'd lik to find a place where I can prospect close to me .

 

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[bobw53]

Hey Jonathan,

The river didn't discourage you, that's good. The shiny stuff is addictive...

Now here is the crappy part, we both live in the desert, we both live near the Rio Grande (a few 100 miles apart).. The
old time westerns and the Youtube videos of panning in a stream in Colorado and California are never going to work for us..

We live in the desert, we are desert prospectors weather we like it or not... Digging behind that pretty rock in that bubbling
stream in those gorgeous green mountains just isn't going to happen unless we travel.

I've only been at this for a short while, but one thing I do know.. Coming across info on desert prospecting is tough... I don't think it
is because there aren't a lot of us, I think its because the rules really don't apply......

Let me clarify that... The rules, or RULE still applies.. Gold is HEAVY!!!! Problem in the desert is that the wet stuff that normally moves gold
in a stream, (and in the desert), is sporadic and random, in intensity and duration here... We don't have constant water flow to gather gold on
bedrock or behind a rock.. When the water stops, the gold stops... Where the heck is that? If you find that out, let me know...

Pretty much all of New Mexico has some gold (except that flat barren wasteland out in the south east by Texas). ABQ may not be a hot
bed in and of it self, but there are a lot of gold producing areas around there..

Think outside the conventional box, think like gold, think HEAVY!!!

As an aside, and something for you to think about, since you can't hop in your car or truck and take off to the mountains.. I was up in Colorado
over Christmas, I visited my first prospecting shop.. The owner and his wife were awesome, freely sharing tons and tons of info (or maybe I have
it backwards, it could have been the owner and her husband, but either way, awesome people). They had a vial of gold, pretty fine stuff, and asked
me if I knew where it came from. They said I was the first one to guess correctly.... It came from the dirt in their paved parking lot.. They sweep it up and
process it after it rains... I'd say it was over a 1/4 ounce of gold (and some platinum).

Think about it... You could become the worlds greatest urban prospector... At least until you get your drivers license.....

I wish I had started this hobby at your age.

Remember... Gold is where you find it... And I believe that applies even more so to the desert..

 

[jonathan_174]

This was great ! I couldn't be more encouraged now . I had gold fever ever since I accidentally clicked on " ask Jeff Williams " YouTube videos I'm not sure if you know who that is but he's great . Like you said gold is where you find it , even if that's in the most unexpected places so hopefully we'll find some in this dry place . How long have you been searching for gold ? And what's the most gold you've found ?

 

[bobw53]

Jeff Williams is a lot of fun... My little lady thinks I'm an idiot when I'm watching his videos. She can't believe he wears a wedding ring... As in,
she can't believe he is married... Either way, I've learned a lot from him, though I wish he would go a bit more in depth on a lot of things. More
info than the Discovery channel, and funnier than the Simpsons, I enjoy his stuff.

I've only been at this since late October. And at that point it was more to placate my Dad... He had wanted to find gold forever... But we were from
New England, and he still lived there, so he had little chance for any real action... He had been up my rear end for quite a while... I live right down the hill
from a "mining district", which did produce gold, though not a lot.

And there is a pretty nice arroyo going through my backyard... The prospector pick marks "the spot". The metal detector(AT Gold) said
"dig here", and I got 6 colors in a small scoop.... And she was still screaming at what was left... The pick is still there, I haven't got
back yet... 60 feet from the corner of my house. Found that just a few days ago.

And my drive way...

I've found a few nice bits there, and when I got a currency microscope.. A ton of super fine stuff... 4-6 itty bitty colors per teaspoon.
I know its there, but I don't even know what to do with it.

How much have I found? Been going up to Hillsboro, here is the BEST pan yet.... 50 plus colors... Its all little...
In all honesty, I haven't paid for all the JetDry yet. Bad pic, it looked so much better in person.

Some more Hillsboro color, 20+ colors in that pan. (of concentrates)

My Folks are out here right now, and we've been running dirt from anyplace we can dig it... The other night we
got skunked on a few sample buckets from up in Hillsboro, we were on the back porch here at the house, so I went down
and took 2 soup spoons full of dirt from under the dog house (the Dog Majal) which has a full fledge dog dug basement, and
found 2 nice bits of shiny stuff...

I'd say I'm around a gram total so far.. BUT, I'm still trying to figure this whole thing out... I'm not much further ahead than
you are. I hope my tiny bit of beginner wisdom helps... I've found gold, though not a lot almost everyplace I've looked. I'm the
guy stealing rocks out of the flower bed at the hotel, and sweeping up the dirt next to the curb...

And the rocks, don't go there, it opens up a whole other can of worms... I just got a Falcon MD20.... Lets just
say I'm lucky I already have a "significant other". She understands, but I can't imagine a first date where I had to
ask her to hold up for a second while I scoured the corner of the parking lot of a fancy restaurant for pretty rocks.

Have fun with it, I'm having a blast... First hobby I've ever had that I can do almost anywhere(you can pan in a motel sink)
and has the potential to hopefully pay me back.

 

[stefen]

I remember reading about this older gentleman who lived in the Palm Springs area maybe 50 years ago, and had an old military jeep rigged with a home-built MD unit.

He would drive around in the desert arroyos, and on ocassions he'd find a nugget or two.

So it takes all kinds of of people and environments to find some yellow stuff...

Enjoy the hunt...

 

[russau]

that sounds like my kinda prospecting for me now-a-days!

 

[GoldDiggerBill]

Jonathan have you had any luck with your panning?

I am in the process of moving to you area and I need to find places myself to pan in this area. I hear there is gold everywhere though. May just be flour gold but its better than nothing. I plan on when I get there to spend alot of time in the desert plains and around the lower slopes of the mountains. I really wanna check out the Sandia Mountains. I am a rockhound as well so Im good with either gold or stones. Its all good to me.

Anyone ever have any luck in the Sandia Mountain area or ranges. I hear there are aload of trails out there.

This is my first post aswell. Did a search and this thread came up so I joined. Seems to be alot of good information here.

 

[travelkirk]

Desert Panning

This was great ! I couldn't be more encouraged now . I had gold fever ever since I accidentally clicked on " ask Jeff Williams " YouTube videos I'm not sure if you know who that is but he's great . Like you said gold is where you find it , even if that's in the most unexpected places so hopefully we'll find some in this dry place . How long have you been searching for gold ? And what's the most gold you've found ?

I know this thread is a couple of years old, but, this info will help anyone who reads it ...

I lived out in the Mojave Desert part of California, from 1992 to 1996 .... we used to dry pan out there ... here is how it worked ... we would drive out into the public lands, and find a nice, old, dry river bed ... we panned in the places where the old river beds made the most turns, and, we also looked for back sand ... when we found places, in the river bends, with lots of black sand, we would fill up 5 gallon buckets with as much material as we could shovel in ... only thing I would do different, is, use a 1/4 inch separator to make things easier to pan ... once we had filled up all our 5 gallon buckets with as much material as possible, we would drive back home ... later, whenever we had spare time, we would grab a bucket, go out into the backyard, turn on some music, and, with a water hose nearby, we would pan the material .... pretty simple .. and, just so you know, we ended up with lots of gold dust mixed with black sand ... back then, I was working full time, thus, never really took the time to separate the heavy material ...

There is lots of desert gold ... most people never bother looking for it ...

 

[Maddog23]

The Palomar hill, east of the Crest ridgeline-but down nearer to Placitas has a gold mine listed on the Digger website. Long since a relic, it is not the only such mine in the East Mountains. My theory is the deposits will be more likely found on that side. I would love to go prospecting, but am so far just a scientist who bears an interest.

 

[arizau]

The Palomar hill, east of the Crest ridgeline-but down nearer to Placitas has a gold mine listed on the Digger website. Long since a relic, it is not the only such mine in the East Mountains. My theory is the deposits will be more likely found on that side. I would love to go prospecting, but am so far just a scientist who bears an interest.

Learn how to use this site. Welcome to Land Matters. It lists all current existing claims, by state, therefore the general areas as to where to start prospecting when you do. Respect the claims, private and restricted government property, laws, etc.

Heavy Pans

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[Maddog23]

Hello! I can collect buckets of magnetite from the washes in the Sandia Mountains, but need a better method to separate than by panning...any ideas?

 

[DaveVanP]

Maddog - I have seen/heard much of using the LeTrap sluice in a recirculating setup,(set the sluice on a stand, with a bucket to catch the runoff, them pump the water back up to the head of the sluice). A sump pump (for boats) can be found at any dept. or outdoor store, for about $30-$40. It will still leave you with some black sand with the gold, though. Another concentrator is The Blue Bowl, which is VERY good at getting extremely fine gold, but takes some preparation of your paydirt - it needs to be classified/sifted down very fine - at least 30 mesh or smaller, 50-70 mesh is even better. A good combination could be load up your material into 5-gal buckets using a 1/2" or 1/4" mesh screen, take it home, run it through the LeTrap, then screen the concentrate from that, and use the Blue Bowl...There are YouTube videos of how to use both methods.