My California - East Fork with my cousin
For this weeks Show Us Your California contest by @socalsteemit I'm going to share some photos from a short gold prospecting trip to the
East Fork!!
My cousin came to visit me from Northern California and he wanted to go backpacking so I decided to take him up to the East Fork of the San Gabriel river! I showed him around the first 5 miles of the trail, showed him a bit about prospecting and running a sluice box, and introduced him to some of the other prospectors in the canyon.
Pup getting a drink at first crossing
Running the sluice box
The East Fork San Gabriel river
Digging into a high bank
We spent our first night by the "whore house ruins". Which is one of the few remaining remnants of all the old timer miners that once occupied the canyon. We did a little digging there, but didn't find much. So the next day we moved up to around 3.5 mile and we spent our second night hanging out with a few of the regular prospectors Jay, Savage, and Thomas. We only found a little bit of gold, but it was a lot of fun. And honestly it was really great just to get out in the mountains and spend some quality time with my cuz!!
Some of the whore house ruins
Running the sluice box at 3.5 mile
Camping at 3.5 mile
Our camp
Views from camp
The hole
Looking at that last photo you might be wondering "why did you pick that spot?". There are many reasons... but mostly just because it's close to where we were camping. It is a pretty good spot for many reasons though. First is that it's an area on the river widely known for a good layer of flood gold in the alluvial deposits which means better gold without the need to hit bedrock. It's also on the inside of a big wide bend on the river. Gold drops out on inside bends. And look at those big boulders. A wise prospector once told me "you don't find big gold under small rocks". Bigger rocks means the river was seriously raging when it deposited this material which means it was really moving the gold. And even more specifically look at that huge white boulder that is sitting on the upstream side. When the flood is happening that big boulder will create a low pressure area just below it that will cause the gold to drop out. The upstream side of a boulder can also create a low pressure area, but it's usually much smaller than the downstream side. And the white boulders like that often seem to not get smoothed out as much as other boulders which gives them lots of nice ridges and crevices that can catch the gold better then the smoother rounded boulders.
So even though I only ended up running a couple dozen buckets of material we did still get some gold!!
I hope you have enjoyed this weeks glimpse into
My California!
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Beautiful mountains. It's amazing that one can still run a sluice-box and collect a little gold from it.
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Most people think all the gold is gone, but probably less that 10% of the gold has actually been dug up. There's still a ton of gold out there just waiting to be found!! Thanks for your support.
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Gold!
You know it! I'll be writing a post tomorrow about hosting a meetup up there possibly June 1st or 2nd.
https://steemit.com/socalsteemit/@socalsteemit/socal-steemit-meetup-prospecting-and-a-picnic-in-the-east-fork
I saw! I think we’ll try to make that.
Sweet!
You got gold!!! That is awesome!
I always find at least a little bit of gold at the East Fork. Some trips are better than others. But it's always a lot of fun.
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Can't wait for summer to start
Me too, It's gonna be a great summer up on the river!
Exciting to think you still prospecting for gold like the forefathers did before, nice clean spot to work out in the open.
Spending a night under the stars always leaves one with a feeling of satisfaction, lovely big dog to accompany you to keep you company, thanks for sharing Derek.
Yep! The equipment is better quality now, but it's still basically the same. Pick, shovel, sluice-box, and a gold pan. There aren't a lot of us prospectors these days, but with us the Gold Rush spirit of 1849 still lives on!
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