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Gold in Sacramento?

That was some good reading 419.
I am now very interested in Smarts crossing, sounds like a really cool spot and kids would like it also.
Don't suppose you know how to get there(saving me time and gas with guessing and wild goose chases) I mean to the pg&e road mentioned in the story? anyone?
 

I will research and update.

So it looks like the pg&e road in thw story is Drum Powerhouse rd.

Looked at google maps:
Exit I-80 at alta sierra left onto ridge road, follow it around for a few miles, make a left onto main street. Then make a right onto either Drum Powerhouse road or Nary Red road, I cant tell from the map. This road runs by and over the bear river in several spots. I couldnt find smarts crossing on my map, so I would stop at any gas stations after exiting the freeway and asking some locals.

Good luck, if you go take pics and post here so we can all live vicariously through you. :-)
 

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Bud, watch out for them "toe tappers" that live in mens rooms!

They just might have a video cam trained on ya!
 

I tt my best bud about the dredge piles. Its OLD info, so may not be accurate anymore.

The gulches near White Rock Rd are Aerojet land. A man took a 35 oz. nugget out of there and over 200 oz. using MD's. He got into a court fight about it, and the nugget was called the "hate" nugget, by the media.
He would work the piles in layers, one at a time. He only worked during winter when it was raining.
In summer, the grass is loaded with rattlers.

I have been told the North bluff of the river is ancient river channel, and more productive.
 

419 thanx I'm going to try casa loma first, (to get down to the river)but I'm pretty shure its the same exit off 80 but more of a southwest route to get to the lovers leap/smarts crossing area
 

Yes it is very productive in there, my recently departed buddy found a ten pound quartz specimen , with two and a half pounds of gold in it,near the Latrobe road industrial complex and said that from there it all ran downhill. He also said to work the dredge piles if you can stand finding a lot of bucket bolts.
 

check Goete park at the end of arden way. i was born and raised in that area. there are good gravel bars and bedrock just up the short trail after you park. work the area under the bridge on the arden way side. i have heard of gold there. not sure how good though. i used to chip away at the old gold vein trenches in folsom but i think they may be filled in now.
 

I tried that spot also. No luck for me - but I was sniping the bedrock under the bridge and mostly just fooling around. I'll give it another try and actually put some work into it. Never can tell. I know that whole waterway was dredged, so not really expecting to find any loose stuff - but maybe cracking open some of those crevices may show some color. On the hot days I like to take my snorkel, mask and pocket dredge with me and get some water time almost anywhere along that stretch of river. Close enough to ride the bike and make a day of it.
 

I heard when they put in Folsom auto mall in the 70's I believe one of the dozer drivers found nuggets went back with metal detector and found lots of large nuggets. Till it was all paved. That was all tailing piles.
 

Yeah, all these tailing made me curios too, just wanted to see if where i live was dredged or not, there are tailings all around here Folsom to Rancho. Anyways i dug a hole in my back yard recently( had to remove tree stomp anyway), but 7 feet of overburden dirt( made me happy as i realized that dredges didn't go that extra 1/4 mile in my direction ), after 7' feet of digging i hit gravel and river rock, im about a foot and half or two deep in to gravel, ran 12 buckets last Sunday, only got 10-12 micro speks, waved my detector over every quartz rock i pulled out . Thinking about giving up on this idea, very dificult to get dirt out of the hole and dont want to ruin my back yard with piles of dirt and rock,plus dont want to freak my neighbors out , as i live in saburbs .
Sorry for typos, using my phone.
 

You actually ran into gravel and cobbles? Nice. I thought about my backyard the same - but figured during the building phase of this neighborhood that everything was brought in or processed. Didn't believe there would be anything to find. And the backyard full of holes thing also stopped me. I do want to try those tailing piles though - shame you're not supposed to MD there.
 

If you look at minerals map of sacramento, it shows that everything south of American river all the way to i-5 is gravel, its just the farther away from the river the dipper you have to dig and gold gets smaller.I've talked to someone that said he found nugget by Lodi on deer creek . Im just surprised my property hasn't been dredged in 1950's. i think i will dig another foot or two down to see if gold will get bigger before i bury my hole.
 

Look for tertairy gravels, the quaternary hold little gold except on bedrock. I found 1 nice flake in a cubic yard.
 

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Quickpan Dan said:
Hey guys I live in orangevale and a little known creek (called gold creek lol) runs through the neighborhood. I have seen very few people down there (except truant high school kids and the occasional bum) but it has very interesting geology and I have found and do find gold every time I go down there. The only drawbacks are difficult terrain and not so clean water. Just park about a hundred feet before gold creek bridge (west side) and go down the steep hill directly south. The bedrock on this creek is sandstone or something like it. And there are some man-made cave like diggings into it. It is a historical bridge and the creek is on a greenbelt so its public land. It heads through a culvert and dumps into lake natomas at negro bar. I haven't found any nuggets or pickers but plenty of fine gold if you find a good spot. The overburden is packed river rock and tough to break up but follow the top of the sandstone layer and find decent gold. I got almost a gram (.8) in about two and a half hours last time. Anyway its a lot closer to home than the auburn rec area
Click to expand...

Was just down there yesterday. Pulled one 5 gallon bucket full of likely looking material from the creek bed to take home and pan. Showed color in every pan. Very very small flour gold. Not in good quantities but maybe 7-10 colors per pan.
 

Was just at the Gold Creek bridge in Orangevale yesterday. Pulled one 5 gallon bucket of likely looking material of the top of the sandstone layer in the creek bed to take home and pan. Very very small pieces of flour gold showed in every pan. Nothing in great quantities, Maybe 7-10 small small pieces per pan. Better then nothing for being less then 5 minutes from home.
 

Congratulations! Pretty fun to grub around in that grubby creek!
 

I know a guy who used to mine in Secret Ravine...I have panned at Gold Creek and there is gold there...Some people do well out in the rock piles over by back gate of Mather.....Art
 

Nightfall .. Just curious, what did you use to collect the 5 gallons of material ?

Most important two letter word sentence.. "If it is to be, it is up to me"
 

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