After Gold in the Colorado Mountains

Tossing Rocks for an Hour or so at Cache Creek so we had enough dirt to move. (That's Larry and Sam) Everyone keeps throwing rocks out onto unrun dirt. The walls can be steep with a ton of rock above your head. We saw holes dug in farther than a shovel is long and about as round as a small man can hunch over to scrap the back. PEOPLE THIS IS DANGEROUS. YOU ARE RISKING HAVING THESE ROCKS FALL IN ON YOU AND KILLING OR MAIMING YOU FOR A FEW GRAMS OF GOLD! Gold price is around $24.00 a gram right now and not worth a trip to the hospital.



Our final week in the field is over, and we are headed home. By the time I post this, we will be unloaded and resting before gong to bed in our king size bed in Arvada.


Our last day at Cache Creek was warm, dry and beautiful with aspens looking a little crisp, hinting at the gold color to come and more of those azure blue nearly cloudless skies. The colder weather stayed far to the east along the Front Range, and gave is some wonderful days in the September sunshine. What a week. We found about 3.5 grams of Cache Creek gold in our firsts with a little left in the cons after five days of highbanking. The metal detectors brought us a few more pieces of specimen grade gold, although the pieces were smaller than previously found. Still, worth the days of walking and digging.

We are tired, but still not looking forward to going back to the daily grind. April seems a long way off, and yet it is a mere 7 months away. The Denver Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show starts tomorrow and the Arkansas River will close to motorized equipment at the end of September, only about 3 weeks from today. The holes at Cache Creek have advanced at an amazing rate, and anyone who was not there this year would be shocked at the amount of material moved this season. The BLM is planning on removing some of the trees on Sept. 25th, hopefully with help from GPOC. Thursday may be a difficult day for working stiffs to take a day off to move 50 or more trees, but they will try to have people there to help. We are out of days to take off, and so will not be joining in the work.

Thursday through Sunday will be work days for me at the Gem Show, and so this week’s newsletter will not be published. However, I will fill you in as I have time with blog postings and some pictures of Cache Creek and some of the holes dug there.

Gold spot price is DOWN today with the stronger dollar and lower price of oil. Its’ lowest point was at $748.70 and is now hovering around $750. Does this mean that gold prices will stay down or go lower? Well, in the short term they may fall some more, but in the long term, the dollar does not look like it will stay up, which will send gold prices back up. When? Who knows for sure. I DO know that bailing out Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae is a mistake that is going to cost you and me really BIG money, and that could help to make the dollar fall again. What do you suppose might happen if both of these giants go bankrupt even with the government bailout? Yeah, I know. Blame George Bush who has control of the Congress and the Federal Reserve. NOT!

Have a GREAT weekend. I’ll talk at you some more in a day or so….maybe four.

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

Cache Creek Gold in September

A Cache Creek Picker! Should have took the picture from the other side, 'cause that side was all yellow. Looks like some iron rock still attached, but still a nice gold nugget!

I see that gold is up a bit right now to $801, but still down from its' highs in July.

If any of you have thought that the fall might be a little less busy at Cache Creek, you would only be slightly correct. The parking lot has been full with gold seekers every day this week, although we have heard that there were fewer people there Labor Day weekend. Since the weekends have been so busy, a lot of folks have decided to come in to find their gold during the week instead. Us, too. Hmmm. We might need to change that.


I thought you might like to see this beauty that was found on Wednesday…….in our hole, but not by us. We invited a couple of new people to dig in our hole who had been sluicing for a day or two and hadn’t found much, so we told them to take some material from where we had been digging. We hate it when people don’t find gold! Not to worry. While the biggest piece of gold wasn’t in our ‘banker, we did come away with some real nice yellow colored metal.


The weather, by the way, has been some of the nicest we have had all summer, and the aspens and willows are being their annual seasonal change from green to golden yellow. It’s a little cool in the mornings, but sunny most of the time and pleasant. The only time it isn’t so nice is when old sol goes under and cloud and you are wet. If the wind is blowing some at the time, it can be down right bone chilling! However, pulling up a nice string in your pan helps to warm your heart and everyone around comes to see what you have found. I have to say, that there is STILL some very nice gold coming out of the area.


A cold front slid into Colorado last night, and so we are taking a day for rest and book shopping. Lucky you. You get a blog put up to read. Aren’t you special!? YES, you are to me. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t bother to think about taking these pictures to post and to talk to you today. Have a great one….I know I will.


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

P.S. The e-mail IS working again. I have had many requests coming in and even some dreaded “Spam”, too. Thanks for your requests and thanks for your questions, too.

Hooked on Gold Gazette, Nov. 30th

Yes, Mt. Elbert is once again covered with snow.


The HookedonGold Gazette icons have disappeared from computers for some reason, and so, until I can figure out what happened, the Gazette will appear here for all to read, and those of you who have never subscribed will get a look at what we talk about in it. We always start with the spot gold closing on Friday.

Gold Spot Closing Price for Friday Nov. 30th: $783.10

Spot price Nov. 17: $785.40

Looks flat to me even though there have been ups and downs in the last two weeks.

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Calendar of Events

December

12th GPOC Christmas Party 7:00 p.m. Bring unwrapped gifts for children for the Marines toy drive
19th GPR Members Christmas Party
24th CHRISTMAS EVE
25th CHRISTMAS DAY
31st New Year's Eve
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NEWS

We had a few great days up at Cache Creek earlier in the month, before this cold snap rolled in. BRRRR! It has been chilly this week here. There continues to be work done up at Cache Creek, and most of it is orderly without many problems. The undercutting of trees continues to be a concern. Too many trees have withered and died this season in the pursuit of gold.

How is your Christmas shopping going? Wish I could help, but getting my store back up continues to plague me. I have tried, yet, another builder only to find that it will not show pictures even on the pages I build. There must be some silly thing I am not doing correctly to cause all of these programs to react in a similar way. Oh, well. THE NEW Prospectors Calendars, Mousepad and Gold Panner Ornament are all up on Cafe Press. Yeah, that's why I'm late getting this out. I finally got all the right pictures in the right sizes, and got the items put together this morning and afternoon, so you have some gifts for prospectors for this Christmas season. Check them out at my new store at cafe press. You can find a couple of links on the website as well.

Off to do some Christmas Shopping. I still have several geode and fluorite pendants, as well as prospector figures and Orocal jewelry left. If you are interested, email me at info@hookedongold.com and I can send them to you and bill you by PayPal e-mail billing. I've done it a couple of times now, and it sure works slick! If only I could get the durn store to work, we'd all be happy. LOL! Merry Christmas!

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If you find a broken link, please let us know

THE ARKANSAS RIVER is now closed TO MOTORIZED EQUIPMENT FOR THE WINTER UNTIL APRIL 1, 2008.

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Until Next week.

Good Prospecting to You,

Larry and Shirley Weilnau

www.hookedongold.com

http://www.thevideosense.com/user/MQS/ Prospecting Videos
www.hookedongold2.com Looking for metal detectors on e-Bay? Click here

info@hookedongold.com contact us

Gold and Mercury

WOW! Gold is up to $788.40 this morning and has been advancing since the spot market opened yesterday afternoon! Has anyone been finding gold recently? We have seen some nice gold still coming out of the Cache Creek area and the Leadville area. Speaking of Cache Creek, there has been mercury found in a couple of areas there, so be aware that it is there. Mercury is known to exist in the area naturally, as it was used heavily in the past. You will find it in abundance at the end of the old sluices, so if you get into some lose sand that shouldn't be where it is, you may find mercury in your cons. Gather it all together and put into it's own bottle. Keep water on it, too, as it gasses off at a low temperature. If you put into your bottle with clean gold it will foul the clean gold when it comes into contact with the mercury. We keep ours separate until we have enough to take to someone who knows how to properly handle mercury to have the gold recovered. If you are thinking of processing it yourself, be advised that one WHIFF of nitric acid will make you deathly ill for 2 weeks, OR WORSE, from nitric acid poisoning! You CAN DIE from inhaling the stuff, so be very careful!!!!!! We prefer to take our small amount to a professional. It simply is not worth your life or health. Could we do it ourselves? Sure, but why risk it. It might be more interesting to just keep it in a bottle to talk about. We have had ours for about 5 years, now, and add to it most years. When will we take it to process it? Oh, maybe when we fill the bottle. It is about half full now, so maybe in another 5 years. Maybe not. If mercury covered a BIG nugget, we would probably consider it then. The other thing is that once gold has had mercury on it, it never seems to come back to it's original color after it is processed. The silver gets extracted along with the mercury and leaves it a duller color, if there is copper in with it. Copper is the most frequently found metal combined with gold, so it is highly possible your gold will have the brownish color of a gold-copper combination after it has gone through the mercury cleaning process.

Rockies got swept last night. Bummer, but they DID come a long way to even BE in the World Series. The 8 days off didn't help, either. However, we won't make excuses. The Sox pitchers and hitters were spot on all four games, and ours were not. Hitters seemed to finally get back in the groove by the end, but the pitching was less than stellar. Watch out NEXT year!!!

Gold 'n' Fall

Fall colors on the power line road at Cache Creek, Colorado


Rockies Win and advance to the playoffs with a 13 inning win against the Padres Monday night! Exciting for Coloradoans! They have been stalked this morning from the air in Philadelphia taking their bus from the airport to their hotel.

Snow today is flying at Georgetown, with wet and slushy roads in the northern mountains. Fall is in full swing, and it is getting hard to find golden aspens as they drop their leaves and colder temps move south. The Arkansas River is now closed to motorized equipment until April 1st, but still open to dry washing, panning, and sluicing.

Did I mention the azure blue skies we are enjoying now that the air has dried out? Our last few days in the mountains late in September was magnificent with color. The pictures that were taken do not do it justice, as the camera adjusts too much for the brightness of the light coming from a sun lower in the sky, but still shows skies bluer than blue. The gold taken out of Cache Creek this year was substantial, and everyone had a terrific time finding it. We heard of only one problem all year, and that involved lack of water. Other than that, everyone got along pretty well, and everyone found gold, even witha pan. I, myself, took out several grams just using a pan while testing various layers and levels. The gold is nice and chunky with depth. Larger flakes were found and some round nuggets as well. Nothing really big, but larger than is found on the Arkansas. Two rock sources were identified, too. One is coming out of a black hematite type rock and the other quartz. We have several small pieces that are wrapped around quartz, and several wrapped around a black rock that is non magnetic. Metal detectorists have taken a few pieces out in either black rock or iron stained bull quartz as well.

Have you been watching gold this week? It is down to $732.20 right now after topping above $745.00 yesterday. Gold producers are now saying that if gold does not break out soon, they will be having a harder time producing it as their expenses rise faster than the price of gold. The dollar is up this morning causing the fall in the price of gold today.

Gold Season in the High Country Winds Down

ASPENS at TWIN LAKES just north of Cache Creek



Oh my gosh! Where do I begin? Our last five days in high country gold placers has been GREAT! The Aspens cooperated by turning that lovely buttery color that gold is, and matched the yellow stripes down the middle of the highways. Most of the color above 10,000 feet is gone. Frost was abundant at the 9,000 foot level, and those camping this past weekend at Cache Creek broke ice from their equipment before they could begin highbanking.

Groups from GPOC and GPR joined others out for a great weekend, with several people coming in for just a Saturday or Sunday's fun in the creek. The weather was cool, cloudy, and spit drizzle both days, but all in all it was a great weekend with friends, and making new friends. Gold was found by all, and some more than others. The "glory hole" is not showing any color like it was a couple of weeks ago, but still much small gold is coming out of all of the holes. Oh, one word about Cache Creek....when you get to the white/greyish sand, don't go on. Several have dug 3 feet of it and still not run out of it.

This next week I should have time to add to calendars. We have taken a ton of prospecting pictures that I will have up on the site later this week. Also, many very nice fall pictures will get added. During this summer season we have come across several nice prospecting ideas for Christmas, and Cafe Press will give us an opportunity to get t-shirts, calendars, mousepads, and what not to you for the holidays. I have been thinking about the calendar for some time now, and hopefully have enough pictures to fill one for you. I could go on, but let's save it for another day.

Gold Prospecting cont.

Caught walking through camp!


WOW! Tomorrow for the report on our metal detecting trip ended up being over a week! Needless to say, things got a bit hairy just before the Denver Gem and Mineral Show last Thursday.

We spent two days metal detecting in a new area and found a piece each day in the same area. The pyrite here is just beautiful, as it is colored with copper from the area. Larry came across a chunk of azurite that popped out of a hole. It is about 2 1/2 inches by 1 1/2. Deep blue with some greenish turquoise and chrysicolla in it. Both days were warm with a crisp breeze that told us fall was just around the corner. Leaves were turning quickly as well.

GPOC had their panning troughs up at the Denver Gem and Mineral show in their usual place, the north east corner of the Merchandise Mart exhibit hall. Larry was busy in the troughs for the three days, and I was kept busy in the T.L.E. International booth showing some of the most fantastic Colombian emeralds you ever saw. We also had a house full of guests staying to do the show from GPOC, and we all enjoyed the weekend with friends, except Eric who had to drive back to Pueblo and ride back up with Woody so that someone was available to get the truck back to Colorado Springs. Seriously, GPOC, was there no one who would inconvenience themselves less than this to get the truck back? SOMEONE who lives in the Springs should have had this duty!

This week has been "crash" week. The rest has been good so that we can hit the hills again this weekend. We had a group going to Cache Creek on Saturday when we attended the GPR meeting Wednesday and found out the Hawleys were also headed up there. Several others from that group decided to join everyone, so it looks like the creek will be very busy this weekend. We will be running the metal detector over the rocks already thrown out to see if we can run across any gold still in the rock. The next week we will be highbanking some of the area as well as metal detecting. Looks like a good weather week, too, to end our mountain prospecting days for another year. October will give me time to work on pages and get a new template started. Get out and see the fall colors...they are promising to be fantastic. But, don't wait. The gold color won't last long.

Gold Prospecting Labor Day Week with Hooked on Gold

Twin Lakes, Colorado




Wow! What a golden week! We have been back about a day and a half, and you can imagine all that needs to be done with the Denver Gem and Mineral Show starting tomorrow. Where to begin! What to tell you! Since it has been almost two weeks since my last blog, I will need to put on my thinking cap to remember everything you will want to know.

Our first weekend was a BLAST with a total of 10 participants gathering to do some panning and sluicing on the Arkansas to teach the newest member of the group the basics. Everyone found gold who looked for it, and those who came from lower altitudes got a day to acclimated to the altitude. Our "Chuck Wagon Cook", Elkhorn Jack, put on a feed for us that night of a wonderful chili, cowboy bread, and peach cobbler. You can watch for him next year on Cable T.V. putting on his Chuck Wagon cooking show. YEEEEHAAA!

Sunday found us up Flume Creek, west of Cache Creek and south of Twin Lakes, checking out a possible placer claim. Fabulous views were in store for the group, along with a placer mining site worked as late as the depression. The area is overgrown with willows and dificult to navigate, so we will pass on the claim. Access is by foot trail up about 500 feet above the parking area at about 11,000 feet. The old cabin is caved in, but has a marker nearby with an explaination of its' use and last rebuild. After the hike a look about, we headed back down to the BLM Cache Creek open area for an afternoon of finding gold, talking with those mining there, and deciding where to dig. We set up sluices and panned the pleasant afternoon away and decided where to set up the highbanking equipment when we got back. We all pulled out some nice course gold from the area, along with somne nice flakes. All for now. I'll tell you about the metal detecting we did the next day, tomorrow. Good prospecting? You bet cha! Pictures coming, too.

HookedonGold additions

It is amazing how much you can get done in three days! The first attempt to rework the home page resulted in a home page that had to be deleted.....again! you will find HOME2 is the home page, now, and if I can figure out how to rename it without redoing it again, I will change it back. Three new pages have been added today that I have been working on the last couple of days, so you should have some new copy to read. At least one of the pages is a copy and paste from the old site. (Yes, I saved it all before I could no longer get in to change anything). Starting the catalog again is now at the top of the list, so stay tuned for that new page as well. PayPal will be my method of payment this time, and you should, hopefully,find the new catalog pages easier to navigate. The old one gave me no options for making it easier to use, and I am sure there were more problems with it than were reported. Hopefully, not 10 times as many. This is a long process, but we are here to stay, so time is on our side!

Still hearing of good gold coming out of Cache Creek, even though there is no water to work it with. Seems many are taking as many buckets as they can out of there and down to where there is public water to use.

How is blogger working for you as the blog page. I am finding it easy to use and don't seem to forget to log in and blog every few days. It has a nicer format, I think, than just blogging on a template page. Later this fall I will try to change website templates as the one I am using does not allow for many of the things I use to help with the expenses of the website. I love its' format, though, and it will be hard to be able to make it better, but there just is too much information that Adsense provides you to let that go.

The gold spot price right now is $656.50. Not bad for how low it went late last week.

End of the 2007 Colorado State Gold Panning Championships

August 6, 2007.

2007 Colorado State Gold Panning Championships are in the record books and posted on the GPOC Temp Pages, so go and have a look at this year’s winners. Pictures will be up as soon as we can get them transferred to the laptop. If we can do it with the equipment we have with us this week, it won’t be too long. If not, it will be next week. We are out in the wilds again this week looking for gold between the Championships and Gold Rush Days in Buena Vista. Man, holding the championships at 9,500 feet elevation takes its toll on everyone who works the championships and the troughs. We are lucky as we take the next week off and sleep all morning on Monday. Most of the group will to go to work on Monday after the long weekend. Kudos to all the volunteers who showed up, competed, and work the one to three days they were there. Thanks to the city of Breckenridge for helping us bring the championships to everyone each year. Without their generous donations of condos and gold for the public troughs it would be a lot more difficult to put on. We are gearing up to go out and challenge the gold gods to give up some more of their yellow treasure this week. With a day’s semi-rest, we should be up to hiking around for the search. We will keep you posted as to chat we find. Oh, in case I did not tell you the weight of the Cache Creek gold, it was 2.06 Grams out of the top carpet. We have not processed the bottom carpet yet; have to be home to do that, and we haven’t spent too much time there lately. Breckenridge has a lot of “open space” on the upper Swan and upper French Creek that we would like to find out if it is open to prospecting with small hand equipment. We haven’t found the right person to ask, yet, but we will continue to try to find out.

Cache Creek, Panning Championships, and Gold Rush Days

Pack burro statue in Breckenridge, Co. by Robin Laws titled "Friends"


Wow! The Colorado Gold Panning championships in Breckenridge are coming up FAST! I am drying the Cache Creek gold so I can weigh it and tell you how much we found, along with a picture. Are you finding gold this summer? We have been finding gold with every piece of equipment we have used, and taught a thing or two as well. Next week will be another week in B.V. with new friends and old ones, too. We'll finally get to do some gem hunting in between the gold hunting. After the championships we will be with GPOC in Buena Vista for Gold Rush Days burro races and the Cotin Tail Gem show at the Fairgrounds. Summer is going by faster than usual, but the water levels are a little less. However, with all the rain we have had this year, they are still higher than normal. 4 days between weeks in the mountains has us hopping to get everything done and ready for the next week off. See you in Beckenridge this weekend!