snow,sleat and hale

Gravelwasher · Feb 20, 2011

Well I have been itching all week to get out and sluice and finally the weekend is here and I wake up to a few inches of snow and some more falling. Ya like that's going to stop me, just had a couple more cups of coffee :coffee2:

and off to the American river, the spot where all the rafters go by..lol. Oh ya I picked up a buddy to , poor sap gave him the fever and heard all about it from his lady. Ran about 16 five gallon buckets classified to 1/2 inch between the two of us. Here's some pics, enjoy..Gravelwasher :laughing7:

russau · Feb 20, 2011

well i guess we cant have everything! but it sure is some nice gold!kinda made it all worthwhile!!

Astrobouncer · Feb 20, 2011

Looking good man thanks for sharing.

freddy williams · Feb 20, 2011

Nice gold man HH keep up the gold work...

Gravelwasher · Feb 20, 2011

Thanks guy's!!

I went back to the American river today,no snow or hale today, panned out 4 pans 3 had color. I will try to get some pics of it downloaded later, finally got some pics of the river and such to. Gotta run time for some dinner, mining all day sure does build an appetite. Gravelwasher!!

Gravelwasher · Feb 20, 2011

Ok heres some pics of the American river, some of the tailing piles to and some of the dirt, all the good stuff. :icon_sunny:

Gravelwasher

Hefty1 · Feb 22, 2011

Hey Gravel
Nice color,
But I myself would not post pics of my diggins.
Wouldnt want to give any ammo to F&G or FS here in Ca.
Just me.

Hefty

Gravelwasher · Feb 22, 2011

The spot where the slide happened was just that a spot on the trail that gave out no dirt was moved by me, only a couple of rocks were replaced were we thought they went, figured if all the hikers put two rocks back it would be fixed quick. Just to clarify, thanks for looking. Gravelwasher :icon_sunny:

Hefty1 · Feb 22, 2011

Oh!!!
Sorry Gravel, my mistake,

Hefty :icon_thumleft:

63bkpkr · Feb 26, 2011

Mornin,
Interesting pictures of the American. Right now depending which fork you are on the water is flowing around 2000 cubic feet per second. I've tracked it for many years and therefore know that it hits 20,000 cfs every now and then and likely higher when I was not looking. It was good that you wrote about Putting Boulders back even though you'd never touched them. I'd posted some pictures last year of a site I was working as well as pictures of how I'd reclaimed it at the end of the year. I'm Very interested to get back in there to see what the site looks like this year!

I noticed that the water in your pictures looks clear, is that correct? I've been in on a sierra river in February during a rain storm and the river was roaring and extended from wall to wall. Trees had been ripped out of the ground and were floating quickly down river and the water was milk chocolate brown. This sort of Natural removal of trees, boulders, plants, tons and tons of dirt and such is NORMAL for all spring runoff rivers that have a reasonable tilt to their downriver flow but I've never heard anyone in the forest service talk about what the rivers look like when it is just mother nature causing it. What little additional erosion is caused by our small time mining activities is a joke to what occurs naturally but we do not hear about that. BUT it is wise for us to reclaim our sites when we've finished with them as well as to have photographic proof of the reclaim work that is IMHO.

Regards and good luck with the search, 63bkpkr