Gold Fever

One of my co-workers goes gold panning a few times a year. I'd always wanted to try it, so he set up a trip this past weekend and a group of us went up to Roaring Camp Mining Co in Pine Grove for some camping and treasure hunting good times.
http://roaringcampgold.com/

First some scenic shots of the camp, it's an old 49ers gold camp from the 1800's.







They also have some good trout fishing in those rivers


Getting to work!






The mining company provides a seeded pile and we also did some digging around of our own but mostly worked in the pile since we were only there for one day. So... lugging bucket after bucket from the pile down to our area.

Then you fill your pan with the goods:


Take to the river's edge and shake shake shake


Also take some buckets to work through the sluice box




and ta-da!


Whoo hoo!
I had such a blast and can't wait to go back. Way more fun that I thought it would be. Also a lot of work, but it didn't feel like work.

Then after the long day we all got filled up on some new york strip


Didn't see much wildlife, a deer, quail, couple western fence lizards. I did get some decent shots of a big ol' banana slug:




Then Sunday on the way home we stopped by the Indian Grinding Stone Historic State Park


Some of these holes were really deep!


me again, cause why not


And then a quick stop at Sutter Creek, looked like it might be a decent place for some herping one day


thanks for looking!

Looks like fun! I've always wanted to try gold panning.

Yeah, that does look like fun. Probably better odds than playing the lottery....

I got interested in metal detectors a while back, and they had models that were optimized for detecting gold. I wound up buying a more general purpose machine, but honestly never got around to playing around with it. They are actually a bit complicated and require quite a bit of actual hands on experience to be any good to you. From reading up on it, it's actually quite an art to making sense out of the audio and visual clues a detector will give you. But much of your learning curve will involve digging up a bunch of aluminum can pop tabs. Evidently aluminum reacts quite similar to gold in many of the non specialized detectors.

Usually the detector coils are water proof, so I wonder if they would be of any use in a stream to help pinpoint gold to give you better odds of actually finding something? Could also be helpful if the detector could indicate how MUCH gold might be at any given spot.

But heck, then again, maybe that would take some of the FUN out of it...

So how much gold, in weight, did you actually find?

ooo I like that idea of using a metal detector! I've always wanted to play around with those. I'll have to ask my friend if he's ever thought of using that or seen/heard stories good or bad. Thanks for that idea!

Originally Posted by WebSlave

So how much gold, in weight, did you actually find?

Approx 1/2 a pennyweight, estimated worth of about $30-40.

I did not know you could still do this, but now I wanna try!

Originally Posted by FireStorm

I did not know you could still do this, but now I wanna try!

That's so neat!
Glad you had fun and congrats on your gains!

you guys should try it, it's a lot of fun - especially when you see that sparkle in the pan.

We're already planning another trip

Wow, that actually looks like it would be really fun. I'm going to have to see if there is anything around my area like that. Thanks for sharing the photos & feel free to pass on any tips.