{"id":1149,"date":"2008-03-21T20:51:03","date_gmt":"2008-03-22T03:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1149"},"modified":"2020-07-20T09:42:56","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T16:42:56","slug":"quest-for-new-equipment-prospecting-the-east-fork-of-the-san-gabriel-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1149","title":{"rendered":"Quest For New Equipment – Prospecting The East Fork Of The San Gabriel River"},"content":{"rendered":"

With lobster season now officially over, I can now take some time and try and make some money to buy new diving equipment.<\/p>\n

Every single glove, wetsuit and boot that I have has holes in it.<\/p>\n

So, it’s back up to the East Fork to become wealthy – and with Gold now around $1,000 a Troy ounce, all I would need is a teaspoonful of flakes to make my trip worthwhile.<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/p>\n

I arrived in the parking lot at the end of the road at 7 AM.<\/p>\n

\"Me<\/p>\n

I figured out how to pack my sluice, shovels, pick, pans, classifiers, cigars, lunch, beer and cleaning kit into one backpack.<\/p>\n

I tried to recruit another person to come along, but nobody could make it – or didn’t want to come; I didn’t even consider “Mr. Know It All” from previous trips for today’s run – he’s totally out of shape and needs to rest every 100 yards for a “smoke and beer break.”<\/p>\n

So, just like solo SCUBA diving, I went solo prospecting today.<\/p>\n

I was fully prepared to use my martial arts abilities should anybody try and take my Gold.<\/p>\n

I hiked for about 40 minutes up river and started to sample pan areas where the water slowed.<\/p>\n

\"Sample<\/p>\n

From what I have heard, the Gold here is very spotty; you can be working an area five feet away from someone who’s pulling out color, but end up with nothing.<\/p>\n

I came across a huge rock in the middle of the ice cold river that looked like it had virgin gravel deposits on the down stream side.<\/p>\n

I crossed the river in almost waist high water to get a sample.<\/p>\n

I panned – and there were Gold flakes.<\/p>\n

I went back and crossed with my equipment.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/p>\n

I packed my sandwiches a little too far below the water line – the turkey was still good, but the bread was soggy and ruined; I would have to get my lunch time carbs from my beer.<\/p>\n

\"Setting<\/p>\n

I set up my sluice box and unpacked the rest of my equipment.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/p>\n

Behind the big boulder is where I started to dig.<\/p>\n

People wonder why prospectors dig behind the rock – on the opposite side of the water flow – but Gold is so heavy is collects where water slows.<\/p>\n

\"Looking<\/p>\n

The sun started to peak into the canyon.<\/p>\n

\"Digging<\/p>\n

This place is sort of desolate, so I didn’t have to worry about any chicks being offended by potential “plumber’s crack,” but I did look over my shoulder when I had to get rid of some used beer.<\/p>\n

There was an abundance of river deposits behind that rock; I moved many buckets of heavy gravel in the four hours I was there.<\/p>\n

\"Feeding<\/p>\n

\"My<\/p>\n

It would have taken me hours to pan what my sluice box can do in a matter of minutes.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

It’s cool to drink a beer, smoke a cigar and watch the heavier gravel (and hopefully Gold) get caught in the rifles as the lighter stuff flies out the end.<\/p>\n

\"Panning<\/p>\n

I ended up collecting three loads of sluice concentrate before panning it.<\/p>\n

The most anyone can ever hope to collect here, from what I had heard, is flake and flour Gold; nuggets are very rare…<\/p>\n

…and that’s what I got – a few flakes of Gold for four hours of digging.<\/p>\n

Sort of sucks, but as I was hiking back I met two prospectors who had been working this area as a hobby for several years.<\/p>\n

The best advice that both of them gave me was, “go to Sheep Mountain – it’s a six hour hike way past the Bridge To Nowhere.<\/p>\n

“That place hasn’t been over worked like around here and they’re still finding nuggets.<\/p>\n

“Plan on spending at least one night – and it gets cold up here at night.”<\/p>\n

They gave me a few more really good pointers on how and where to find Gold here, but I’m getting tired of writing.<\/p>\n

As the answer to the question, “Where do you find Gold?”<\/p>\n

“Gold is where you find it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With lobster season now officially over, I can now take some time and try and make some money to buy new diving equipment. Every single glove, wetsuit and boot that I have has holes in it. So, it’s back up to the East Fork to become wealthy – and with Gold now around $1,000 a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,64,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5339,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions\/5339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}