“What has it got in its pocketses?”
Though not among my most interesting pre-wash pocket purges (it’s mostly just river gravel!) there are a few pieces I’m fond of. Rose quartz, tiny bits of jade, and the one I most like — a little piece of citrine with gold inclusions that you can just detect the glint of in the center of the pan. In fact most of these stones I kept for the little tricklings of gold in ‘em.
Gold Panning—Out on My Own: Day 2
After a really fun and rewarding gold-panning lesson at a private claim on Friday, I collected some minimal gear and ventured out on my own.
As you can imagine, gold prospecting is tough. First you scout a good location by taking your pan to likely spots* on the river, then sifting a few pans to see if anything turns up. If you pan some yellow, you’ll grab your shovel and spend the day filtering down buckets of sand, then panning the concentrate.
But it takes some experience and familiarity with an area to guess the hot spots. I never even got to the second part, because I couldn’t pan out any more than dust and flakes too small to collect.
I definitely had hella fun wading in the river all weekend, though, and my panning skills are pretty well-practiced now.
The photo is from today on the San Gabriel River near L.A. (Totally a weekender from San Diego!) After my brief explanation, the Mexican kids in the background are now running all over the river looking for ‘oro’.
- Since one of you nerds will want to know how to identify a good spot: Gold drops to the low side of high-to-low pressure discontinuities. Find one with shallow bedrock, and dig for highly-mineralized “black sand.”
Shiny Things Are Shiny!
Gold-Panning Lesson
(Jamestown, CA.) Mr. Miner Forty-Niner took an awful long siesta, but I’m finally booked and headed for the motherlode.
Don’t wait up.
