Has anyone ever prospected corrugated storm tubes?

[mr_larry]

I know a place that had two gold mines in the 1850's. They shut it down because it wasn't particularly profitable, especially since there was all of that gold in the Sierra Mountains.

Anyhow, I know this place holds some gold, and there are a lot of creeks that come down off the mountain. As you drive along the road, there are a bunch of these corrugated tubes that pass under the road to let the streams flow through. I was thinking that they are like a sluice box that has been operating for the last 150 years or so. I'm sure people clean out the tubes of branches and debris, but I really doubt they scrape out the deposits in the riffles.

All of this land is part of a State Park, but I was thinking of sticking my head in some of these tubes and pulling out the concentrates to refine at home.

I was thinking of taking samples from the first few upstream riffles from each tube and putting them into a one-gallon ziploc bag, each labeled individually. I'd label each and attempt to find the gold later from home using methods for separating fine gold.

Is this idea totally crazy or is it worth a shot?

I'm talking about tubes roughly 3-5 feet in diameter, much like the ones pictured below.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

DR.ÖTEK Metal Detector, Waterproof Gold Detector, Pinpoint & Terrain Modes, Professional Metal Detector - Grab it through Amazon!

[gld2mine]

Sounds like a good idea to me. I was thinking of doing the same thing here in Arizona. Found several drains in an area know to have some flower gold. Figure it's worth a try. nothing to loose but some time.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Treasure of Victoria Peak - Grab it through Amazon!

[Jeff95531]

The pipes look promising.
You know that old saying... Easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.

I say go for it.

If you were a kid you'd be crawling in there without a thought. Just cuz you're all grow'd up doesn't mean you gotta stop explorin'.

SS

Totally Agree! I did my first culvert yesterday and found very little material to work with and no gold. I believe the culvert got blasted (cleaned out) during the heavy rain storms that we have here. Doesn't mean I'm gonna quit looking tho...the two hours we were out, we saw no other people. My little shovel and a plastic coffee container? Really? I'm bad how?

 

[TheNewCatfish]

They're called "Storm" Tubes for a reason. When water does run through'em, it's blasts through'em like a fire hose. Can you say "Flash Flood"? If anything, gold is gonna drop out of the water just before it enters the pipe, (because that's where turbulence and backflow would be created)... not inside the tube. Just make sure you wear ear plugs and bring a gun if you go crawlin into those pipes because you're pretty much guaranteed to run into a pissed off rattlesnake long before you find a gold nugget. IMHO.

 

[Jeff95531]

Hmmmm. Makes me think I should sample above and below the culvert. Thanks!

 

[Goodyguy]

Hmmmm. Makes me think I should sample above and below the culvert. Thanks!

Good thinking,

A lot of times there is no gold inside the culvert, but dig in front of the culvert entrance where gold doesn't make it up into the culvert or else at the other end where it would drop into the washed out area just after the culvert.

GG~

 

[goldenIrishman]

This thread got me and Robi Thinking ( something on my part that can be dangerous at the best of times) so we hit the drain pipe at the end of our driveway. This pipe is about 4' diameter and easy for even me to get into. The road department was kind enough to make it so there's a hard 90 degree turn for the water to get into it and it even turns again about halfway to the other side of the road. We were just checking it out so I didn't get a real big sample but I did find some flour gold in it. The material in the pipe was about a foot deep so I dug down to about an inch above the corrugations and then sampled it from that point. I only did two pans of the stuff when we got home and found some flour as well as several nice garnets and some other crystals of unknown (so far) type. Next weekend we'll pull the truck down there and really clean it out good. I'll also pay special attention to the area where it turns under the road as well as the 90 degree turn into the pipe itself. I'll let ya'll know what else we find. Since we had just walked down there I only got a gallon sized sample so there's no telling what we'll find when we clean everything out.

Jeff

 

[releventchair]

There's the old place a piece of carpet a while...

 

[wa-au-nut]

Around this area they have been replaceing bigger culverts with one that are more flat on the bottom. If you are the first to hit em after a storm they can be quite good useing a hand sucker dredge. Tom Masey did a couple of shows on Gold Fever doing it. He found gold too. Maybe the same gold he's be finding over and over and over

 

[Oldyoungtimer]

Around this area they have been replaceing bigger culverts with one that are more flat on the bottom. If you are the first to hit em after a storm they can be quite good useing a hand sucker dredge. Tom Masey did a couple of shows on Gold Fever doing it. He found gold too. Maybe the same gold he's be finding over and over and over

I saw that show to where he almost passed out dredging that culvert in Alaska lol. I never had any luck with or around culverts on gold bearing steams. Maybe they are they first thing looked at by everyone or I'm just unlucky. A technique i came up with I'm sure other people have done is i place a pan or bucket at downstream side of culvert. Then start at up stream side and just kind of work the material out of the rivets and move downstream. Kind of like a quick clean out on a running sluice. All the material then falls out to the bucket/pan. You might lose some material but I'm betting if there is gold it will go into it. The key factor its you need running water going through it. I'm not sure if you are or not. Just my thoughts hope you get some chunkers! Good luck!

 

[maniacheels]

good idea. theres one where ive been going so ill try to check it out when I head back. Checking on both sides of it sounds more promising.

 

[Gene Slater]

Saw a Gold Fever show shot in Alaska on this. Looks like carbon monoxide poisoning could be a consideration as well in this case, frost bite.

 

[tvanwho]

They should act like sluice boxes but I have yet to find any gold in one even in gold country. Heck, I almost bought the farm a few years back while in a culvert like this. Nope, not a snake that almost got me. It was in the late spring and I was in farming country. I panned in the culvert, walked out the one end and suddenly could not breathe !!! Like I had the wind knocked out of me? And there was an awful odor present ,like the overly strong smell of sweaty socks? Thank God, I decided to run back the way I came. Same thing happened when I explored the creek bed outside the other end of the culvert. I suddenly could NOT breathe. My friend was panning inside the culvert and seemed to be ok. The creekbed was narrow with 5 foot vertical banks. I forced myself up to the top of the bank and I could breathe again. On the way back, there was a low spot in the road, surrounded by hills, and I lost my breath a 3rd time. The only thing I could see was tanks of Ammonia in the farm fields close by. My friend said he had no breathing issues, dunno why I was overcome, maybe my asthma troubles? I am guessing the ammonia gas got in the creek bed and displaced the air? Anybody ever have this happen? I dunno if I would have just passed out or croaked if I hadn't run quick?

-Tom V.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Well since we found some flour gold in the culvert at the end of the driveway we're going to hit it with a vengeance this weekend. Planning on cleaning out the 90 degree turn on the upstream side and starting to work our way through the culvert until we run out of buckets to haul materials with. That will give us about 50 gallons worth of materials to work with. LOL I'm sure glad I got the sluice system up and running! That would be a lot to have to pan down by hand!

 

[kazcoro]

Wow, that is a lot of material. Post up some pics of this culvert you got.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Sorry Kaz but I didn't see your reply here till this morning. We went out yesterday and got 65 gallons worth of materials from the culvert. I pretty much cleaned out the 90 degree turn leading into the pipe as well as the entrance to the pipe itself. I'll get some pics of it next time I'm down there.

One thing I noticed is that the pipe doesn't seem to be level. On the end where the water comes into it the materials are almost a foot deep. When you get to the other end they trail off to next to nothing right before the exit. We grabbed a 5 gallon sample from the exit end and I had to crawl close to 20 feet into the tube to get that much. The materials at the bottom of the "Riffles" was highly compacted with a lot of garnets and gravel. I ran that through the sluice box yesterday afternoon and it went from a full 5 gallon bucket down to about an inch worth in the rinse out bucket. I'm planning on panning that down today before I start running the rest of the materials we brought back. I want to see the difference between the entrance materials and those I got from the exit end. Amount of gold, garnets, black sand etc. There are a LOT of these storm tubes in our area but if it's really worth cleaning them out is yet to be determined.

 

[Jeff95531]

Looking forward to the results and patiently waiting for pics of your sluice.
GrassHopper

 

[goldenIrishman]

I'm still running the materials at this time. I managed to get the 5 gal sample from the down stream end done and there's a LOT of flour gold in it as well as some nice big garnets.. I also did 5 gals from the entrance sluiced down but there doesn't seem to be nearly the amount of black sands in it. I still have to do the final cleanup on that but there's a high wind warning in our area today so I may not get around to it. (Ever try panning in a high wind? It's a pain!) I also want to run some of the materials from the corner and see how they look.

 

[stevenh]

I ran across a video of this a couple years ago. If I find it I'll post the link.

It took a little digging, but I think this is the video you were looking for.



The last 30 secs he talks about storm drains.

 

[stevenh]

I'm still running the materials at this time. I managed to get the 5 gal sample from the down stream end done and there's a LOT of flour gold in it as well as some nice big garnets.. I also did 5 gals from the entrance sluiced down but there doesn't seem to be nearly the amount of black sands in it. I still have to do the final cleanup on that but there's a high wind warning in our area today so I may not get around to it. (Ever try panning in a high wind? It's a pain!) I also want to run some of the materials from the corner and see how they look.

You aren't kidding!!! It's blowing big time today, as I watch a trash can roll down the street at 25MPH.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Well when the wind is blowing heard enough to stop the water flowing in the sluice in its tracks.... It's time to go in the house and do research! Even so I managed to get some samples tested and sluiced a sample of the material from the corner before the entrance to the culvert. I'll pan down the cons today and see what's there.

Edit: We have one of those home weather stations with an anemometer (wind speed indicator) that recorded a highest speed of 57MPH for one gust. Avg speed for the day was just under 40 MPH here.