The Gilded Couple (The Gilded Lens) - A golden journey.

[Duckwalk]

As far as reading the river (I am no expert by any means) I have to keep reminding myself. "Gold is heavy as hell compared to most everything else in the creek, if it has any chance to drop it will" look for those dips, cracks and bends.

 

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[KevinInColorado]

Love, love love your pics and writing style
As to where to dig, it's hard to guess. If the area is popular, I sometimes find the best gold in the third best looking spot as the newbies hit the obvious spots over and over.

Sample, sample!

 

[The Gilded Lens]

Love, love love your pics and writing style
As to where to dig, it's hard to guess. If the area is popular, I sometimes find the best gold in the third best looking spot as the newbies hit the obvious spots over and over.

Sample, sample!

Ha ha! Thanks! I forgot my Nikon this trip so these are just sad cell phone pics. My writing style? Huh, I don't think I've ever had anyone comment on the way I write or that I have a "style". Out of sheer curiosity what do you like about it or what would you call it?

It's definitely a popular area. Good idea about hitting up the not-so-obvious spots. I know I tend to find an interesting spot and sample and if I find some color I end up wanting to dig half way to China just to make sure I didn't miss any nugs. When in reality I should probably be sampling my heart out and then digging to China.

 

[KevinInColorado]

I like the way you describe things and your subtle humor/positivity. Keep digging and write more

 

[goldenmojo]

Mr. Gilded's surgery went well. Now he's just healing and going crazy from cabin fever. Yesterday I couldn't take the sad puppy eyes any longer and took him to river on the condition that he behave and that I dig his material.

We had a fun time and the easy hike did us both some good. He behaved, didn't get wet and even got more gold than me.

Ahhhh
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Mr Gilded's last pan of the day. Garrett super sluice pan.
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Intriguing but I couldn't get under it. I was also specifically told not to become flat by my husband.
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Got some flood gold in a dip on this "slide" and a few micros from the base.
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The hole. Someone has been in it since we were there last but ah well they helped me out a bit. Wish they'd fill in their other holes though. Tsk tsk.
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Beautiful sunset on the way home.

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TGL The hole area looks interesting. Are you digging out buckets at a time or sampling by layer. I would take the area where you have the pan sitting and take a layer at a time like an archaeological dig and pan it out. Check each pan for how much gold was in the layer and you will start to get an idea of how the gold was deposited where you are working. On your slide rock you have a bunch of blow off sand to the left and some flat cobble on the right. I would toss a few of those off and take a few samples to see what is there especially where the cobble meets the rock. You may end up digging deeper there as you find some. Good luck

 

[The Gilded Lens]

TGL The hole area looks interesting. Are you digging out buckets at a time or sampling by layer. I would take the area where you have the pan sitting and take a layer at a time like an archaeological dig and pan it out. Check each pan for how much gold was in the layer and you will start to get an idea of how the gold was deposited where you are working. On your slide rock you have a bunch of blow off sand to the left and some flat cobble on the right. I would toss a few of those off and take a few samples to see what is there especially where the cobble meets the rock. You may end up digging deeper there as you find some. Good luck

Tiny Garrett pans at a time just because it's so tight. It's between boulders so it's like being birthed again every time I got out to pan. Ha ha. Kinda. I found myself scooping a lot towards the bottom as the bottom is either bedrock or another huge buried boulder. The biggest pieces we found were near the bottom.

I already totally buried my rock slide area, maybe I'll go back, but I wasn't finding enough to keep me hungry. You can kinda see the tip of a large rock protruding out of the middle-bottom of the slide. I dug under it and just didn't find much. The most color I got was surprisingly out of the little dip about half way up the boulder in the narrow waterfall section of the slide.

Thanks for the luck!

I would like to clarify for anyone wondering that this trip was not in State Park lands as that is hands and pans and we didn't want to deal with that bologna.

 

[The Gilded Lens]

On a side note tangent; I wonder what would happen if I found a metal working friend who would bend/craft a scoop out of a riffled metal gold pan. *Devilish Grin*. Hands and pans, eat your heart out!

 

[The Gilded Lens]

Really really want to go sluicing tomorrow but don't want to drive all over the place go to a place that allows it. Ughhhhh. #californiaminerproblems

Wish I was better at understanding law gibberish so I could find out the regs for DOD land.

 

[The Gilded Lens]

Little bit of history in the woods.

 

[arizau]

For hands and pans areas maybe try small steel pans to clean out hard to reach areas. Don't know if their use will cross a fine line with authorities though. Check akmining.com and look for classic steel gold pans. Also saw them at blackcatmining.com. under steel pans. They have several sizes 7" and down.

Traditionally some of the smaller pans were/are now? used especially in onsite, mill assay, labs.

 

[The Gilded Lens]

For hands and pans areas maybe try small steel pans to clean out hard to reach areas. Don't know if their use will cross a fine line with authorities though. Check akmining.com and look for classic steel gold pans. Also saw them at blackcatmining.com. under steel pans. They have several sizes 7" and down.

Traditionally some of the smaller pans were/are now? used especially in onsite, mill assay, labs.[/Q

Thanks, I have a few steelies laying around. The area in question buys steel pans for their demos... you know, so they can teach the kiddos how to be a miner and then tell them they can't actually do anything to get the gold. They basically want them in the middle of the sand bars scraping up pyrite.

 

[The Gilded Lens]

Well, was going to go panning tomorrow, but not sure if the area will be open or not. Was awoken by air tankers and a helicopter. Spot fire in the canyon in the park. Looks like in a super steep section above the trail but below the road. Fire crews got it knocked down and are mopping up. Hope it cleared some of the poison oak! Just a 50x50 spot fire. Under investigation. My guess? Either some doofus tossing cigs out the window from above, or all the glass from the glass pipes and beer bottles from the party/stoner types.

 

[The Gilded Lens]

Got out today. Baked in the sun. Drank water like a fish and still feel off.



Found a plastic culvert lodged under a MASSIVE suspended boulder.


First attempt at sniping. Found a penny and an old pull tab.

 

[goldenmojo]

TGL how deep is that hole in the top pic?

 

[The Gilded Lens]

TGL how deep is that hole in the top pic?

Hrm.... maybe 2 1/2 feet at most? The bottom is either bedrock the top of a giant boulder.

 

[The Gilded Lens]

My pin wasn't enough, had to make earrings. Now I need to get back out in the field and get some gold to fill them!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Nice! Put fools gold in one and real gold in the other. It could be like a prospector's test.

 

[The Gilded Lens]

Nice! Put fools gold in one and real gold in the other. It could be like a prospector's test.

That's actually a pretty sweet idea! And would come in handy as I'll wear them to work and people are always asking me. I have a vial of mica for example but not any pyrite. Anyone got any chunky pyrite?

 

[The Gilded Lens]

Finally got out for some sluicing after Mr. Gilded's surgery. The flow was kinda meh for the Zooka but we made it work. Got some gopd but not enough to quench the fever. I'll post some pics soon as I took my Nikon with me.



It's not much, didn't even bother weighing it, but what tips the scale is the fun we had in the forest. I mean who wouldn't love going on a prospecting overnighter with their husband.

Itching to go out again but somewhere a little closer to home.

 

[The Gilded Lens]

Ok, here's a couple pics from our last trip. Now we have to figure out where we wanna go THIS weekend.

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Zooka blew that traditional sluice out of the water.