Gold Etiquette 101

Of course just about everyone knows that you should never walk directly upstream of someone else's sluice box but...

What is it about gold prospectors that makes them pass up a quarter mile of good digging spots where no one is digging that day to come down and set-up right on top of the first prospectors they come across?

It reminds me of the novice or casual fishermen that move in right on top of you to the point of throwing their line right across yours ending up in a tangled mess.

I don't know about you, but when we go out to the river or creek, it's as much to enjoy the beauty of being somewhere on a creek semi-alone without feeling like you might as well be at the mall, elbow to elbow with shoppers fighting for a sale item.

We were at the Arapahoe bar today conducting one of our guided gold adventures and letting our customers enjoy the beautiful day on the creek and had intentionally picked a spot away from our usual locations... with a quarter mile of river in either direction open and available and with good gold, two different prospectors came down and set up within a few feet of our setup.... in fact their sluice was in between our sluice and where we were digging so now we have to go around them to get to the hole we were working.

So please, as we teach prospectors on our guided adventures... give other people some space and pick a place far enough from others so as not to impact their day and in the process it will make your day a little better too.

-don

Goldstrike Adventures

www.goldstrikepaydirt.com

Goldstrike/Vic's First To Offer "Dry-Dredging" Adventures

While filming one of our Goldstrike Adventures To GO from Vic's Gold Panning on N Fork of Clear Creek today, Ryan and I were treated to seeing owner Jesse's cutting-edge technology Hydro-Jet "Dry Dredge" system in action. (photo not from today! lol)

It is awesome to put it mildly.

Below is a YouTube video of the Dry Dredge, check it out.

We subsequently worked out an exclusive arrangement as part of our existing exclusive paydirt agreement with Jesse to offer our Goldstrike Adventure guests the opportunity to have a day Dry Dredging for themselves at Vic's Gold Panning.

Goldstrike Adventures and Vic's Gold Panning are the first gold adventure companies to offer this newest technology to recreational or casual prospectors, tourists and those new to gold mining.

Contact us at sandawaygrs@gmail.com or call us at 405-464-3782 for questions or to book your personal gold adventure!

Colorado GPAA Gold Prospecting Show & Swap Meet!

January 14th Colorado Denver Chapter GPAA Gold Prospecting Show and Swap Meet!

You are invited, bring the entire family!

January-14-2012, 10:00 am

The Denver Metro chapter of the Gold Prospectors Association of America will be having a Gold Prospecting show and demonstrations of all types of prospecting and gem collecting techniques, lots of opportunities to learn and share as well as pick up a golden deal on some gold panning equipment!

Help support responsible prospecting!

Come show/swap/sell your stuff , it’s FREE to vend and FREE to attend!

FREE demonstrations of prospecting equipment and a FREE Prospecting Equipment swap meet at the Bennett VFW Post 8449 the 14th of January 2012. Come take a look at new prospecting gear and bring your old Sluice boxes, Metal detectors, High Bankers, Dredges and Dry washers to barter or sell.

Goldstrike Adventures will be on hand to offer specials on our guided gold adventures and will also have our popular Goldstrike historic paydirt 3lb bags available along with demonstrating the new GOLD CUBE and Gold N Sand Hand Dredging systems.

P.O.C. is Joe Wolter at Gywolter@comcast.net or 303-644-4025

No Admission fee.

Tri Valley VFW Post 8449 is located at 115 Palmer Ave, Bennett, Co. 80102

Snow/Alternate date: 1-21-12

Two New Products From Goldstrike Adventures

The Goldstrike BAG 'O THE MONTH Club starts at just $17.99.mo. You'll receive a 3lb bag of Goldstrike Paydirt each month from a different location and other surprizes along the way!

The new GOLDSTRIKE cap from Panther has multiple led lighting built into the bill of this great looking adjustable cap, perfect for seeing all the gold in your pan no matter the lighting conditions!

Visit http://www.goldstrikepaydirt.com/ for details!

Montana City: Ghost Town Gold or Bust?

I received an email from one of our Goldstrike Adventure customers (thank you Kevin) asking about the ghost town of Montana City as a possible location to include for our gold adventures. I had heard of Montana City and I had also researched the gold strikes at the confluence of Little Dry Creek and the South Platte River with some success, but had never put the two together... till now.

From Wiki-
"Montana City was the first settlement in what was later to become Denver, Colorado. It was established during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush on the east bank of the South Platte River, just north of the confluence with Little Dry Creek, in 1858. At the time, the site was in the Kansas Territory.

The site selected because it was adjacent to placer gold diggings along the South Platte River. However, the gold diggings at Montana City proved disappointing, and the site was soon abandoned in favor of the settlement of Auraria, a few miles downstream.

The Montana City site is now Grant-Frontier Park and includes mining equipment and a log cabin replica."

Two main groups of gold-seekers came to Colorado in the summer of 1858. The "Russell" group from Georgia founded Auraria while the "Lawrence" group from Lawrence, Kansas laid out Montana City near where present West Evans Avenue crosses the Platte River in Denver.

The "City" was abandoned by the winter and the group laid out the St. Charles townsite on the East bank of Cherry Creek. This letter was sent by a member of the Lawrence group.

"Here I am in the Gold Mines (so called) & I guess it is properly named, for I have seen the gold...There is quite a rush here to the mines, as there are within a few miles of this place over 500 persons. There were only about 30 or 40 when we arrived."

So, Kevin and I are going out on Friday to do some "testing" at Montana City together... hopefully you will see it added to our growing list of locations to choose your next gold adventure from.

UPDATE: Friday Oct 14th 10:30pm - Montana City is no bust!

Met with fellow Goldstriker Kevin and also a guy named Ron who has been coming down to the Montana City site for a few years now, emailed me about today and I now know why Montana City is his favorite place to pan.

First, what a beautiful place, once you get down into the river itself you are completely unable to see any sign whatsoever of a building or city... even though you are in the middle of one of the oldest industrial and business parks in Denver, the trees and riverbank shield the view. Simply beautiful I must say.

Oh yeah, about the gold. The clay false bedrock is down only a few feet at the most and in some cases is exposed. We found good amounts of fairly decent sized (12-20mesh) gold with lots of 100-400 mesh stuff underneath lots of dense black sands.

We have immediately added Montana City to our list of Goldstrike Adventure Locations. Call us if you'd like to try your luck at Montana City with our state of the art equipment.

As Kevin said today.... "Wow, you have all the toys".

"At your service", I added!

Goldstrike Launches Panning Kits, Paydirt and "Adventures To Go"

Goldstrike Colorado Gold Experience is now offering Historic Gold Adventures for you to enjoy in the comfort of your home.

Included are historic home panning kits, historic paydirt and even full Colorado Goldstrike historic full-on "Adventure To Go" packages.

Goldstrike Home Adventure Panning kits come complete with a 2lb bag of Goldstrike Historic raw paydirt classified to 1/8th inch from your selected location, a printed history about that location, a 10" gold pan, snuffer bottle and glass vial to display your gold.

Goldstrike Historic raw Paydirt is classified to 1/8th inch and comes in 2lb or 3lb sealed plastic bags packaged inside a rustic burlap bag with a classic drawstring at the top and a complete printed history of your Goldstrike Paydirt location.

The Goldstrike "Adventure To Go" Package is available in either half-day or full-day packages just like the real Goldstrike historic gold adventures. The 'half day Adventure to Go' includes 8- 5gal buckets of raw material run through our state of the art equipment then bagged "as-is" straight out of the Keene A52 sluice. The full Day Adventure to Go includes all of the concentrated material from up to 16- 5gal buckets of raw gravel!

Every speck, spot, flake, picker and nugget that is collected during your 4hr or 8 hr adventure goes in your "Adventure To Go" bag with the concentrates from the entire adventure for you to pan out at home.

Also included in the Goldstrike "Adventure To Go" Package is a photo dvd accounting of the entire process of digging, classifying, sluicing and bagging your specific Goldstrike material, a printed history of your Goldstrike location, a 10" gold pan, snuffer bottle and pennyweight glass vial to display your gold.

Now available for your panning pleasure at Goldstrike Colorado Gold Experience or save money on ebay.

Clear Creek Upstream Testing

We sampled and tested 7 new locations yesterday for the Goldstrike Colorado Gold Experience. I forget sometimes how slow and how much work and hassle panning for gold is compared to running the sluice or a highbanker.

At any rate, we started at 8am upstream from Idaho springs near Georgetown and worked our down stream to Trail Creek, sampled Trail Creek near the Phoenix Mine and then on downstream to Chicago Creek where we went up Chicago Creek and took a couple of samples, then stopped at the confluence of Chicago Creek and Clear Creek in Idaho Springs.

It is very tough going with the water as high as it is now, but our tests revealed quite a bit of information for the Goldstrike gold adventures operation.

We then made a couple of quick stops along HWY 6 on Clear Creek between tunnel #1 and the HWY119 split before stopping by one of our favorite places, Arapahoe City and the Arapahoe bar (even though it is very close to Coors, it's not that kind of bar) before heading home at 8pm.

Long day, sore hands and fingers and back and feet... well worth it.

Goldstrike Colorado Gold Experience

If you are planning a trip to the Denver area or live in the area and want to create a wonderful lasting memory, go on one of the Goldstrike Colorado Gold Experience adventures.

RD and son RJ provide guests with a half-day or full-day guided creekside gold mining experience which includes snacks, drinks and even a creekside lunch and YOU keep all the gold from the day in a free glass vial. Using Goldstrike's latest technology equipment and training you will recover beautiful placer gold at historic locations within minutes of downtown Denver and take home a free gold pan too!

Visit their website Goldstrike Colorado Gold Experience and schedule your own Goldstrike Colorado gold experience... it's an experience you will never forget!

Gold Strike Colorado Prospecting Blog

A blog dedicated to Colorado gold prospecting sites, history, methods, equipment, results and the people we meet.
We will be posting about locations to go gold prospecting, new equipment to recover gold and anything else we think is interesting in the world of placer gold mining.

Stay tuned, we promise NOT to be like every other gold prospecting site.
RD