Colorado Gold Camp

http://rockies.craigslist.org/for/5414293969.html

Is this club worth joining? It depends on what kind of prospecting equipment you are using. They claim it is possible to pay of your extremely costly $165.00 membership in one day. As a fairly experienced prospector, I don't believe the hype. That is impossible if you only plan on sluicing and panning. The claims are not conducive to sluicing. It's nearly impossible to set up a sluice without a stand on one of these claims, and who wants to mess with a stand. Needless to say, you obviously won't pay off your membership if your just planning on panning. If you dredge or highbank, you can do that on these claims, which might make it worth the membership purchase, depending on how many times you actually get out during the season. Here's another downside to this club. You can't bring a non member with you for the day without them having to sign a waiver. This will likely take more than a week to get OK'd by the clubs owner. I think the owner is kind of shady, and many the members on the forum are not very helpful and can be condescending. I am not impressed with this outfit.

I belong to the internet part of that club and all ive seen was straight up GOOD people! If I lived closer , id join it! get on their internet site ( www.coloradogoldcamp.com)and read about whats happening and the friendship that's there to share! with the attitude you've stated here ,you sound bitter from the git-go!

Matt,

Well.............a couple years back I went to the CGC "base camp" property.....on Twin Lakes Creek, part of the Dennis O'Neill property I believe, on 26 January 2013, with a CGC member as his guest.  Yes, I had to sign a release of liability form.

It was cold, snowy, icy, mostly frozen.  I decided to just set my sluice up in the creek, after breaking a bunch of ice and he setup his Gold Cube beside the creek.

I simply scooped/sluiced gravels in the creek as I could.  Most everything was frozen solid.  He walked a LONG ways away, dug & screened dirt into buckets from a bank in the sun that looked to be virgin material.  After a couple hours we stopped, too cold, cleaned up.

I got a little bit of gold.  Think he got about the same...  Wintertime prospecting isn't a good test of summertime prospecting.  I think they have one other claim on the Ark just below Balltown (O'Neill's property) that's permitted for motorized ops.  I saw a YouTube video years back of some CGC guys on that Ark claim suction dredging.  Their cleanup looked to have some nice fine flood gold...

Still, for $165 a year one would have to definitely spend a good amount of time to recoup the cost & then make it pay a little...

Maybe some CGC members will see this post, chime in...............give you their opinions on the CGC and their claims...

Russ,

Well...........on the "bitter from the git-go" comment on Matt & the CGC...  I'll say that 3 years ago when I moved here to Buena Vista I contacted the CGC leadership....introduced myself....said I was interesting in joining.  But, I first wanted to go take a look at their claims, see where they were, how far a drive, what the water, access, etc., looked like.  I was met with an attitude that really turned me off.  I was basically told I'd have to JOIN first.....pay my $165 BEFORE they'd share any info on their claims, location.  Only AFTER I joined could I get the "secret" info...  They said they were afraid of me just claim jumping them.  Ha.  I told that that there was a bigger chance I'd accidentally prospect their claims if I DIDN'T know where they were...  So, in the end, I didn't join.  IF they couldn't be a bit more open, willing to let me look first, well.....I didn't need them.  

Randy  C-17A  

Here's a few pictures from that cold day:

Hey Russau,
I'm not really bitter, I'm just realistic.  I've been on the forum.  I've been in the club.  I didn't renew my membership.  I've worked Base Camp in the winter and in the winter. What I'm saying is it's not worth it to join for me if I'm only sluicing.  CGC raised the membership from $125.00 to $165.00.  Way to much money.  $125.00 is too much for a sluicer.  I'm balling on a budget.  I'd rather work the GPAA claims on the Ark.  At least I can make my money back in gold because there membership price is really reasonable.  As long as Cache Creek is available to us, I'll work that before I paying to be a member of CGC. I would recommend the club to people who primarily high bank or dredge, because there is not many places where you can do that in CO.  Other than that, I would recommend GPAA to prospectors who don't have it within there budget to spend $1000,00.00 on a highbanker or $2,500.00 on a nice floating dredge.

Hey Randy,

Colorado Gold Camp advertised that they had at least one claim near Denver, so I joined because I only lived an hour away. The closest claim they had to Denver at the time was in Breckenridge, which is a 2 hour drive. They are liars from the git-go. The claim was bogus, and I couldn't get any help on the forum. The website claims there is running water near the Buffalo Placer, so you could sluice, which is a flat out lie. I spoke to a hiker in the area when I was there, who lived there for 10 years, and they said they had never seen a running stream in that area, besides Salt Lick Creek. You would have to be the Incredible Hulk to haul buckets to the creek from the placer area. The only kind of prospecting you could do on that claim is metal detect. The funny thing is, nobody in the club seemed to work that claim. Gee, I wonder why?

Well since you've both have more hands on experience with the club I have to bow to your experiences rather than my "internet only" experiences. I do know several of the club members personnaly and they always have been a good reference point for me and others that have asked on line about different things. I do understand their point of being tight lipped on their claims locations due to people being lazy about doing their own research into a area. Ive seen many times people just going out and start shoveling a area without knowing if its claimed or not. I like these people of CGC and they've helped me and until that has changed , I wont talk down about them!

Well, I agree with russau about the internet group (they are helpful; nice folks) and with the others about the lack of helpfulness in trying to determine more about their claims before I ponied up $125 (the price when I was thinking about it).

The GPOC is cheaper; to sluice, to dredge or high-bank (I am a member). Cache Creek is there if you just sluice.

I think the claims are run by the owner of them; perhaps he is just prickly.