Snow in the Gold Country of Colorado

Mt. Antero on Tuesday. Doesn't look any better today.
Temps in the upper 40's. BRRRR!


More Panning Gold From Tin Pan Prospecting

Took a couple of friends to Tin Pan for a day of just gold panning and this is what we got. Thought you'd like to see it. There's about half a gram, there, in the pan.

For those of you on my case about blog posts, This blog's for you. :>D Denver Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show was a bit slow for wholesalers, but retailers saw a lot of traffic all days. Gold Prospectors of Colorado had their gold panning troughs out all three days, and of course they were very busy. The display cases had some awesome items in them, including one that had some very nice blue colored aquamarine from the Mt. Antero area. Most of you know I spent my time with T.L.E. International selling Emeralds.

After the show, we took up where we left off with the BLM and Cache Creek. GPOC will have volunteers up there this Saturday to do some cleanup and tree removal. The trees are already down and ready to be moved, and they will be knocking down coyote holes and general cleanup. The Beaver pond will get mucked out next Tuesday and an additional pond put in above the exsisting beaver pond to try and catch sediment before it enters the beaver pond. The sediment removed from the pond will NOT be available for prospecting and an effort will be made to spread it out to begin our long term reseeding effort.

We are also engaged in talks with BLM to modify the area's use regulations for next year, and there will be many changes. Everyone needs to remember that this area was developed originally as a wildlife refuge, and mining a small part of this area is a secondary concern.

To protect the wildlife aspect of the area, mining usage will need to be restricted further to prevent destruction of the downstream areas. Sluicing and panning will be restricted next year to a reasonable time limit, as there were many with sluice boxes who came into the area and stayed all season. Some are still there. This amount of use was never intended for this area. It was intended for casual, recreational, vacation time use and not to be mined as one would mine their own claim.

Should an individual or group want to do this level of work, they should be filing their own claim and dealing with the bonding issues connected with that claim, and not be doing this level of work on public land. Altercations with individuals concerning water usage and regulations was a big problem for hosts this year, and the new regulations will insure that these problems are kept to a minimum next year.

You will be required to fill out a short form to be placed in a collection box, like is used for fee for use parking areas, but there will be no fee. Collection of this information is to ensure that individuals are not in the area past their bonding permits or their number of allowed usage days.

Information on the area will be consolidated and all forms, website and kiosk will be in sync to minimize confusion. Highbanking permits will remain as they were this season, but without the extension. There were very few extensions asked for, and there were many highbankers who stayed in the area far past their permits plus any extensions they would have had. The elimination of the extension will help in tracking how many days a highbanker has been set up. (Leaving your highbanker set up is counted as a days work, whether you work or not).

Weather is too cold here today to get out much, and so, those of you who are blog starved get a treat. The fourteeners are covered in snow and the sky is cloudy. This weekend promises to be much better, and our last week in B.V. this season should end on a pleasant note. Hopefully, all of you had a successful prospecting season.

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

Gold Panning at Cache Creek

The high country is really starting to put on a wonderful show. We got some very nice pictures of the turning leaves this past Friday while we walked around Cache Creek with Gayle Gresham and her husband John.

Gayle is writing a piece about one of her relatives and 'rustling' which should be interesting, and we certainly will be looking forward to reading it when it is finished. She has several generations of miners in her 'tree', and her G.G.Granddad happened to be working at Cache Creek while they were mining the area early on. She has been to the area several times, but never up around where they had stopped the mining, so we offered to give her a tour and teach her how to pan for gold like her ancestors did.

She was a quick study and proved that gold mining is in her blood. She picked up the swishing motion to separate the black sand from the gold at the end of the process really well, and with a little practice, we are sure she will be using that gold pan as well as the rest of us.

That was what she found in her very first spade full of dirt from Cache Creek. 4 small pieces of gold, and not bad if we do say so ourselves! We panned the day away along with a home schooled group from Colorado Springs who were on a field trip with their kids. Gayle spent a few minutes with them to give them some of the history of the area and to share a couple of stories about her grandfathers. (More on them later) :>D

We spent a very pleasant day with everyone on Friday...that is until we all decided the smoke from the "camp fire" wasn't a "campfire" but had become something much bigger. We have since heard from the Chafee County Fire Dept. that it did look like it began as a camp fire, so everyone needs to be very aware of the danger of fire out there concerning your camp fires.

Gayle runs a blog on the history of her family, which includes mining, that you can see here at http://www.coloradoreflections.blogspot.com/ , and I must say it has some very interesting information on it.

I have two more posts to get in before next week. As most of you know, this weekend is the Denver Gem, Mineral and Fossil show at the Merchandise Mart along with several other hotels and, we hear, some goings on at the Coliseum. That means I will be spending 10 hour days in the emerald booth with my friend Pedro from Colombia. Come out and see some of the most amazing rocks, gems, and fossils this side of the Tucson Show. Stop by the panning troughs set up each year by the Gold Prospectors of Colorado in the N.E. corner of the Merchandise Mart.

Lots more mining to do yet this year, so get out there and find some gold!

Good Prospecting to You,

Shirley Weilnau

Gold Prospecting in the Mountains of Colorado

Yup, that's a forest fire starting up. at Cache Creek Sept. 11th, '09

Are you looking for mining equipment at good prices on hand tools and accessories? How about some gold concentrates to have on hand for indoor panning? Find what you are looking for and monthly specials on mining equipment, too.

A great big "HOWDY" to all of you today. My posts seem to get farther and farther apart, but rest assured, I haven't forgotten you. Every time I log in I cannot believe how long it has been since the last post. We ARE having FUN, however, and time is flying by. :>D

Since my last post, we have visited Tin Pan several times with friends, dredged a bit on the river, collected Apache Tears and Garnets on Ruby Mt., met people at Cache Ck for gold panning lessons and walk throughs, met with BLM twice on site, and had a forest fire crop up above the work area on the Cache Ck. open area. Yes, it has been a busy couple of weeks!

Aspen trees have started to turn yellow, gold and red, and each day, now, we find many more have followed suit. If we don't get too much early snow higher, we could be in for some really nice viewing this year. Beetle kill continues to advance at an alarming rate, though, and you will find many more forests with grey, needle less pine trees next year.

Denver Gem, Fossil and Mineral Show will be Sept. 18th through 20th, so put that on your calendar and go spend a day there if you are in the area. GPOC will have their gold panning troughs out for the public to pan from, too.

I came across an interesting piece this past week by miningweekly on the rise in gold prices I thought you might like to read. There was also an article on Gold Rush Days in Sacramento, Ca. that was a lot of fun.

Well, that's about it for today. I have a lot of information to get onsite and will begin to work on that next month. In the mean time....

Good Prospecting to You,
Shirley
http://www.hookedongold.com/
hookedongold@gmail.com
http://www.hookedongoldprospecting.ning.com/ a prospecting community/forum