Colorado -- Sluicing Cache Creek with Matt -- 22 Apr 2016

Hey Gold Adventurers...

Well, my prospecting buddy Matt called me on Thursday, said he wanted to try Cache Creek, after big Winter Storm Vexo had passed thru on Monday and a lot of the wet, heavy snow at the lower elevations had melted in...  I said, "O.K.", let's give it a try and see if we could dig some dirt, sluice...

We met at 8:45 AM and the roads were all clear, no problem getting to the cemetery parking lot, walking down the hill to our favorite dry gulch.

A view of Mt. Elbert at 14,433 feet, totally covered in new snow:



Mt. Massive to the North all white too:



Mt. Belford & Mt. Oxford just as white:



My trusty Le Trap all setup:



A look up the creek with my sluice and Matt's Le Trap above:



A shot up the gulch.  Kinda slippery/muddy from all the snow melt and dark topsoil:



My dig spot in the compacted gravels above the bedrock and a close up of some of the layering.  Notice the layers of heavy black Magnetite? A very good sign for gold.    




Matt at his dig spot:



The day was beautiful...........no wind, sunny, started off about 40 F and warmed up to probably 55 by noontime.  I ended up digging 12 total 2 1/2-gal pails of material.  I sample panned a couple buckets dug further up the gulch, but just a few specks, so where we're at now is still the closest/better dirt.  I had a roast beef sandwich at noon.  We saw a Cooper's Hawk earlier in the morning, out hunting for breakfast.  Perched on a granite outcropping above us and then flew on down creek.

I stayed until 1:30PM.  By then I was tired, so I cleaned up, hiked back to the Jeep.  Matt stayed longer to sluice more material, get more gold.

Back at the Jeep I took this pic to show how most the 2+ feet of snow had melted into the ground in just 4 short days:



Driving back home I spotted this small herd of Elk across from my house, so I took a pic.  Nice to see the Elk hanging around the area, around my house more these days.     :



Well, I panned out my Cache Creek cons and here's my gold.  A total of 3.1 grains or .20 grams.  Definitely not a bonanza day, but hey...........didn't get skunked AND enjoyed a day with Matt in the great outdoors.




I made two short YouTube videos.  The first documents our sluicing ops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRSWjQGi3f4

The second shows some of the gold I got in my on-stream cleanup:      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upVyp5ZNUy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upVyp5ZNUy0

So, pretty much a carbon copy from about a week before, before the big snow storm...

Hope you too get out, find some "wild" gold for yourself!

Randy  C-17A  

Sir:

Thanks for sharing, always makes it a little easier when a person can't be in the field to at least see someone else is having a little hard fun. Really does look like you two had a beautiful day to chase that elusive Yellar Colorado Gold. Just checked 10 day forecast doesn't look good for next week, but I think that I will try and make a trip over the following week, maybe if you are available we can get a little feeder creek/berm action, if it starts flowing...

Ron

Chief,

Matt was panning his cons today and called me and sent me a pic of a nice little picker he got. The pic is a bit blurry and I can't download them off my old phone anyways, but maybe i'll get a better pic to share with everyone.

This afternoon we got a bunch of thunderstorms that built up here over Princeton, Yale, Columbia & Harvard.....been raining good for the last 1/2 hour or so.

I am reloading some ammo now, but once I finish that little project I am going working on my "Long Tom" sluice box again for my 4 inch dredge.....BUT use various types of GH matting. I'll need to get you over one week/weekend to help me try it out and see how the GH does.

If it stays warm & wet, MAYBE that water by Randy's Hole MIGHT start flowing again...

Randy C-17A

Yes, it looks like you had a beautiful Colorado day to enjoy outside! The mountains all look drenched in powdered sugar

Once again, half of my post is cut off and missing! Anyway...Next weekend Susie, Linda and I are going to try our luck in Dunsmuir. We'll keep you posted. Thanks for the report!

Sister,

Ha.  Sorry on the cut off post.   Seems the Forum hosting service started new banner ads that rotate about every 15 seconds.  When a new ad shows up it seems to "disconnect" your typing and/or link to the Forum.

I have to look at my text now as I type, fix any dropped words or letters, even hit "enter" or reclick my cursor to get relinked sometimes to keep typing...

When I write a longer post or a big Trip Report now, I write it in e-mail first, then just copy/paste all at one time. NO dropped words, no dropped letters, no missing text.

I may look into paying for Forum hosting w/o the annoying ads...

Anyways, yep...  It was a great day in the hills, billion dollar views, no bugs, no sweating.  

Good luck in Dunsmuir!  Find some GOLD!  Come back, write a Trip Report.  Take some pics.  If need be, e-mail me the pics and your story and I'll post a Trip Report for you.

Randy  C-17A