Thursday, November 25, 2010

Cache Creek Prospecting and Thanksgiving Greeting

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU!
The Labor Day Weekend Cache Creek Gang

We are pleasantly visting at our oldest son's house this Thanksgiving, with family and friends gathered around.  The turkey is nearly done, and we are getting ready to sit down. 

I thought I would take a moment to share a picture from one of last summer's gold prospecting outings with friends from Missouri.  We had our two highbankers running, and the gang cleaned out a tree that had died and recently been cut down at Cache Creek.  It produced some nice gold, which, unfortunately, we did not get a picture of.  I'll do that later and show it to you in another post.

Gold is at $1373 now.  Hope your Thanksgiving is a wonderful day filled with all the good things that you expect.  As we begin our Holiday Season, may we all be thankful for what we have, family, friends and each other.

Good Prospecting to You,
Shirley

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Hooked on Gold Gazette 11/20/2010

                                          Summer Camp in CORA at the end of the year

HOOKED ON GOLD GAZETTE


• Gold Spot Closing Price for Friday: $1354.50

• Spot price last Gazette : Somewhere around $1230.00

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Gold ‘N’ Store

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NEWS

Well, well. So, I am wondering this last week how I am ever going to get everyone caught up with all the news and info, and I remember the Gazette was one of the vehicles I use to do that. Funny, when you don’t use your tools for a while, how rusty they can become.

As usual, the price of gold is up more than it has been down. The last Gazette published in May shows it was over $1200 and now we see lots of days with the price over $1400.

As I have reported, the claims and open areas north of Buena Vista are closed to gold prospecting until the BLM has put into place a new plan for the area. In addition to this, the BLM is looking to require claim owners on all of the Arkansas River to self police their claims and leave BLM out of the enforcement of those areas. This isn’t a final on this issue, but they are strongly leaning to that side and GPOC is grappling now with how that would impact them and their liability on their Arkansas River claims.

In South Park, mine and claim owners are also having an ongoing issue with the U.S. Forest Service head. It seems that the attitude there is that if you don’t get the reports done, no one will fight you on it and you can shut down mining in the area very effectively. That department may find it a more difficult to do than they anticipated. There is word around that not just the small claim owners are unhappy.

The next order of business concerns the dredge piles on open space property in Breckenridge. We were finally able to meet with the open space people, and their decision on this matter was not to allow prospecting for gold,digging, panning, sluicing, or removal of material in the area. We have advised that they add signs to their already existing signs that address this issue so there is no confusion in the future.

With the Thanksgiving Holiday just around the corner, I’m going to keep this Gazette short. Getting back into the habit of sending this out each weekend is what was most important right now. We do hope you enjoy a wonderful Holiday Season and that you don’t fall asleep at the wheel driving home after all that pie and turkey. For those of you who do not celebrate Thanksgiving, we also wish you Happy Holidays and that this season finds you and yours happy and well.
As a last note, yesterday was our 39th wedding anniversary. Yes, friends, that means that Larry has put up with me for more than 40 years. I must have SOME redeeming qualities after all.

Have a great weekend. That’s it for me.

Until Next Week…..

Good Prospecting to You,

Shirley (MQS)

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World Open Panning website has this year’s world wide panning competitions listed and they add more all the time. A great site to visit: www.worldopenpanning.homestead.com . If the links do not work, copy and paste them into your browser.

If you find a broken link, please let us know

THE ARKANSAS RIVER is now CLOSED TO MOTORIZED EQUIPMENT until MARCH 1st.

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Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Local and National Governments take stand on Gold Prospecting in Colorado


Golden Aspen's changing near Fairplay, Colorado


October has come and gone, and there were so many things to catch up on before the Holidays begin, I have not taken time to chat with you.  There is so much information to share, I am having trouble knowing where to begin!  LOL!

With the mid term elections over with, perhaps we can, once again, learn how not to use the mute button on the remote while trying to watch the part of the news or any other program without it.  Many things we had decided simply not to watch so that we didn't have to constantly have a finger on the mute button.  I'm sure a lot of you feel the same way.

Have you been watching gold rise most of the Fall?  It sits at $1333.40 as I write.  Will it make $1500 before the end of the year?  My crystal ball isn't sure, but it is highly likely that it will.

November 3rd, and here in Denver we are still waiting for our first snow fall.  We did finally get a killing freeze a little before Halloween, and so, are now enjoying Indian Summer, and what a post season summer it has been!  Highs are in the 70's at least two days a week, and we should be looking at mid 50's and low 60's.  You know how much I LOVE summer, so I am happy that the good weather in holding.

News on gold prospecting in Colorado was not good at the end of the season.  The BLM, Washington Department of the Interior, has given orders to the Canyon City office to close all mining claims on the Arkansas in the Buena Vista area that are tied to the old dam project.  In fact, ALL prospecting in that area is forbidden until a new plan for the area can be worked out.  This will probably take most of the winter to accomplish, so we are looking at Spring before we will know any word on even the public areas. 

They will be confiscating equipment and no motorized vehicles will be allowed down the road.  It is strictly for hiking, biking and walking.  No camping is allowed in that area, either, until further notice.  Residents in the area have been up in arms over the claims and camping going on there for some time.  Apparently Washington's head of the Interior Department, has decided to uphold the old dam site claim from the 1890's and keep everyone out, thus ensuring the residents that they will continue to have their private hiking trails and river walks.  Funny thing, though.....that dam site area apparently was originally for hydraulic mining, and not water storage or hydroelectric power. 

We had an opportunity to meet with the Breckenridge Open Space people in October to open discussion about getting limited prospecting allowed on the dredge piles in the open space owned by both Breckenridge and Summit County.  The meeting was short and there was some discussion and questions about commercial mining or selling the gold found back to open space, but the committee decided to talk about their ability to monitor the activities if they were permitted.  A couple of weeks later we were contacted and informed that they would not be allowing this activity on the old dredge piles within the open space area.  We suggested that they put up signage letting people know that the activity is not being allowed and that they risk confiscation or ticketing if they come into the area for prospecting of any kind.  That also means rocks, people.  No rock hounding is ever allowed on open space anywhere unless specified by the group in control. 

Ok, that's enough for now.  New camp is closed for the winter and everything was put to bed about 4 weeks ago.  There have been three pesky bears breaking into campers on the upper mesa, but everything else has been pretty quiet.  We are settling into the holiday/winter routines and waiting for Spring and time to dig again.   Hope your Fall has been as nice as ours.  I'll have to be back to tell you about the last trip to Mt. Antero and our fossil dig at a friend's place east of Trinidad. 

Good Prospecting to You,
Shirley Weilnau
http://www.hookedongold.com/
hookedongold@gmail.com