A Summer's Worth of Finding Gold in Colorado

Summer is winding down, and with it gold prospecting season here in Colorado. While many will continue to search for gold, most of us will be settling in for the coming of the holidays and winter.


The price of gold has been on a wild ride this summer, sitting at around $1860 now, and pricing it for sale has been tricky.  If anyone has been on the store site, you will notice that it is disappearing and I am not sure I will continue to offer it, as the high price is pricing me out of the market, requiring a substantial investment in it to continue to offer smaller gold.


We have had a busy, busy summer, and, yes, I continue to get comments on the lack of blog posts.  But to tell the truth, there is so much to report, it is hard for me to decide what to tell you.  That, and the lack of time, has kept me from sharing more information.


I hear that Cache Creek is a complete zoo this year with over a hundred workers there on some days.  We have had camp hosts who have been charging for lessons and help, selling their contraptions in the parking lot, cutting down trees, digging huge holes, people who continue to abuse the site, and threats from BLM to close it down.  We have avoided it like the plague and have still been pulled into the drama.  

GPOC needs to be more careful who they put in there, and the lack of real concern over who the hosts are or how long they are there has been a real concern for all members.  Board members have not been kept up to date with what is going on there, not allowed to see the regulations for the area unless they go to Cache Creek and get their own copies.  If GPOC is to continue this relationship with BLM, the quality of hosts needs to be addressed.  If it is too hard to find volunteers for this, then we need to sever this relationship instead of putting people in there who have already shown themselves to be unreliable in their conduct, or to have them push the envelope until they are removed from the site and/or lose their club membership.  It seems our camp hosts are no longer there to help the public, but for personal gain.


I am also hearing that the Forest Service may be overstepping their bounds in regard to the Arkansas River area around BV.  We have heard they are riding herd over BLM area as well as Forest Service, and have heard that they are issuing tickets, but I don't know that for sure.  They were not supposed to be doing that until all the signs were in place, and then only on Forest Service land.  BLM should be taking care of the land they manage.  The drama there continues as well.


Meanwhile, we have been happily looking for gold in other places, here in Colorado, and enjoying the peace and tranquility of South Park near Trout Creek Pass.  Hopefully, your gold prospecting season has been as pleasant as ours, and that you have found gold to put in your bottle.  We have found enough to make it worth our time finding gold in Colorado.  Until next time...


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

                       Recirculating systems we used in South Dakota on a friend's claim

Summer is here and with it, Gold Prospecting season! 

The blog has had to take a back seat this winter and spring as we have had a lot of things going on in our personal lives that has had to take up a lot of time and energy, and has left little time to think about what to blog about.  I have heard your cries and pleas to start it up again, and hopefully, things will settle down some so I will have more time to devote to it.

We have spent the past two weeks in South Dakota with friends who have a new gold prospecting claim there and were wanting some help with proving it.  This type of work will usually cost you big time, but since they have been friends for a while, we decided to take some time to visit the Black Hills again and run the roads, see the monuments, and spend some time in the beautiful out of doors.  

They have had an unusual amount of rain this year, and the wild grass is lush and being mowed everywhere.  The white tails are abundant, and we have had fun watching a group of turkey hens and their chicks several days while they looked for bugs in our vicinity on our friends’ claim.  We got a couple of pictures of the buffalo that roam the area of Custer State Park, too, and enjoyed driving through the one way tunnels and over the pigtail bridges on highway 16A.  Of course, we took an afternoon to visit Mt Rushmore and had ice cream for lunch.  :>D 

I have not posted any new information on the Arkansas River changes for this year, as I cannot find anyone who will give me the information.  I have been informed by the BLM that some of my information is incorrect, but have yet to get a call back from them to let me know what needs changing.  I also have not heard back from GPOC’s president on the information, either, and there is a lot of information out there that is in conflict. 

I also, have not heard that there have been any changes at Cache Creek for this year.  Until I hear otherwise, I assume that everything there is the same as it was last year. 

For those of you who have decided that I do not research my information, I most certainly do, and any information that I put out is the best I can get at the time.  If I could get the powers that be to assist me better, I could report better.  If you have an issue with any item on a page, it would be more helpful for you to reference the URL or the page rather than to assume I know what you are talking about.  My site has over 70 pages, many with similar information on them and I cannot know what you are talking about if you don’t give me the page you were reading when you decided my information was incorrect.  Nasty emails sent to me about it won’t help with getting the information corrected, assuming it is incorrect, since I have no idea what information you are questioning.

On a more pleasant note, we are headed home tomorrow and will be back in the Colorado Mountains some time next week.  Looking for gold and finding gold in Colorado will be a top priority.  Hopefully, we will have more gold in our bottles this year than we did last year.  In the Mean Time:

Good Prospecting To You,

Shirley Weilnau

www.hookedongold.com

hookedongold@gmail.com

Gold Close Friday June 24, 2011 $1502.60

The Gold Prospecting Bog That Almost Isn't. LOL!

Have you had a busy winter?  I certainly have!  It has been tough finding time to blog, even though there is a LOT to tell you.

We went to Tucson and visited friends in Arizona while we were there.  We traveld around the Superstitions, Wickenburg and the Vulture Mine, but missed the Bradshaws and Links Creek this time.

Gold was selling high in Tucson, so we did not indulge in a buying spree as we have in past years.  Many of the old gold dealers have gotten out of the business as the face of selling gold to the public is changing.  We did visit the big show downtown one day and took a few pictures of the gold that was there.  You did get to see the one big Aussie nugget.

What brought me to the blog today is the spot price of gold hoovering just under $1500.00 right now.  I saw it was $1496 a few mintes ago and silver is at $43.  Silver has really been jumping in the past couple of weeks!

What has kept me so busy the past few months has been health issues with my Mother.  She has decided to quit her wandering ways and will share a permanent address with Larry and myself where she will be closer to family and can get the help she needs with the small things like getting to the hospital if she needs to.  She is 81, so it's about time.  She can fly out a visit whomever she wants to for as long as she wants to, but mov ing her every 6 months to 2 years is becoming hard on her, and I'm getting too old to want to do it anymore.

I spent some time this last weekend doing some information updates on the site.  There are a LOT of new regulations for the Arkansa River in 2011 coming out of the BLM this spring and I will have some time to tell you some of it in May before we take off for prospecting season.

I have many questions coming at me about the GPAA claim on the Arkansas above Elephant Rock, so I will address that now.  The BLM is requiring a plan of operation and a bond for any claim that wishes to allow motorized equipment on the Arkansas River.  The GPAA has elected NOT to file the required plan nor to put up the bond necessary for reclamation of the area, so be aware that those claims will be restricted to panning and sluice boxes.  Recirculation equipment can be used as well as metal detectors and dry washers, but anything that requires water being pumped from the river will not be allowed in those areas.  You will have two agencies watching, so if you are out there with your dredging equipment they WILL find you.

Along with this restriction on the GPAA claims, be aware that all claims in the dam site area south of there have been dissallowed and there will be no public prospecting at Elephant Rock, the last I heard.  If that changes I will let you know.  Propsecting for gold in Colorado is a challenge every year.  This one is no different.

Gotta run! May is coming up fast and I have a million things to do before Memorial Day weekend.  I think of all of you often.  I just do not have the time right now to talk to you very often.  I'm sure you all understand.  I WILL be writing to you as often as I can, and if you have any questions you know where to find me.  hookedongold@gmail.com.  As always,

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

Gold at the Tucson Show

    What does 52 POUNDS of Australian gold look like?  Came with it's own guard, too.

So how do you like that really big piece of gold in the picture?  Gold spot price is sitting at $1423.30 this morning and silver at $34.37.  They have both been holding at pretty high levels most of February.

How has your winter been going? Ours seems to be going by at a faster pace than usual, and we attribute that to a winter get away to Tucson and Arizona in general. The above nugget recently found in Australia, was one of the highlights of the Convention Show in Tucson the last weekend of the two week show there, where you can find almost anything you want in the way of fossils, gemstones, and rocks.

This is where you can have your pick of giant sized specimens from around the world, and it takes most of the two weeks to see it all.  We were there for 4 days and saw most of 5 shows.  We passed up gemstone shows this year in favor of more rocks and gold.  :>D

Much has been going on this past month and friends on FB have heard a lot of it, but I will share more details with you here than on the wall.  Thanks to all who have an interest in this site.  Updates will be forthcoming and I would appreciate anyone who finds a broken link to let me know where they find them so I can fix the problem.

The site is large enough that I often do not find all my interlinks, so please do let me know if you find one and what page it was on.  hookedongold@gmail is the way to tell me about those, and thank you for letting me know.

No word yet on Arkansas River BLM  gold prospecting changes in Colorado.  GeoCommunicator is on again and off again.  Seems like they are trying to get it back online, but occasionally it isn't there.  Gald to see it is making a comeback.  LOL!

Back at cha in a few days. Spring is definetely in the air and we are looking forward to the Summer gold prospecting season.  Get that equipment in shape now so you are ready to get out when the weather permits.  That could be any time now for those who are hardier than I am.  That wind off the snow to the west of Denver is C*O*L*D!

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

A Happy and Golden New Year!

                                                            From the Souk in Dubai
Happy New Year to All! We have had an extremely busy holiday season, and the whole family was sick through half of it.  Flu shots are a good thing, but they only work partially when the bug has mutated away from the original. Still, the lesser version was WAY better than the full blown version the youngest son is battling now.

The New Year brought in plenty of blackeyed peas, beautiful sunrises, a clean house, snow the week after Christmas (so we didn't have to play the slip and slide while traveling), and a new job contract.  It is starting out pretty darned good for us!  We hope the same is true for you. 

All of this bodes well for a long and productive gold prospecting season this summer.  We plan to visit Arizona this winter, too, and do a little gold prospecting with friends while we are there.  Wish us luck at finding that yellow metal!

The mountains in Colorado have 130% of their winter snow pack already.  This could make for a very interesting year prospecting for gold in Colorado.  No new news yet on what the BLM and Forest Service is doing for the Arkansas River or the South Park area. 

Gold spot price closed on Friday at a resounding $1422.30, and silver was at $30.94.  Gold didn't quite make its' predicted $1500 for 2010, but the silver spot price surpassed most expectations. 

Off to a 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration this afternoon.  Glad to see you all here.  Hope the New Year sends you good things, including lots of YELLER GOLD!  (Sorry Ben, I couldn't resist). LOL!

Good Prospecting to You,
Shirley