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Wow! You know I didn't even know this was you. I remember seeing it on the forum and dubbed it the "foot" but this was before we met and I never realized. I think you need to tell the story of this find again on your journal. How did this find not make Banner?! Im sure people find stuff that's in another league but they don't post it on this forum. Should have been banner.....
Thank you Eric, Im lucky to have stumbled onto that piece for sure lol. It was just one of them places that everyone overlooks and for some reason I didn't, kind of like your recent find! I did recently un fold it though.. It was driving me mad every time I looked at it, wondering what it could possibly look like, or how it should look like .. I gave in and im glad I did its a very unique piece. I haven't seen many that resembled it, It looks to be like a crystalline formation of a leaf shape. Reminds me of coral you see in the ocean.. Its traveled on one side well but the other is in very pristine shape because of the way the fold protected it. I borrowed the wife's camera and took some better pics.
It does have a story, I don't want to divulge to much info on location but I will say it came from the middle fork American. One of the many trips with my dad this summer, took him somewhere deep in the canyon that took us most of the day to get to. This place was so deep in the canyon and we had bush whacked are way through there wasn't even a trail lol.. Once we were there we got split up, I saw him go up river last I saw of him, so I went looking..and looking.. I probably hiked 5 miles up and down the river about three times yelling for him, blowing my whistle but nothing.. My old man is tuff and still has the agility of a 30 year old but I was afraid possibly he slipped or fell, it didn't make sense for me to have not ran into him as much as I looked. It started getting late and I sat near the area the trail out was, and waited.. I remember looking up at the canyon and thinking how out there in the middle of nowhere I actually am, and If I didn't leave in an hour or so id be hiking mostly in the dark. We had left some gear near the trail and his was still there at this time, so he didnt leave.. It was then I caught a glimpse of him down stream, happy as ever panning and had no clue ive spent the whole day looking for him.. So, at this point I had hardly done any prospecting, and now I could hopefully get a few pans in before we hiked out. I did a couple of pans with color here and there, but then decided to hike to the top of the exposed bedrock and see if I could spot a nice crevice. Got to the top no joke about 65 feet vertical from the water I spied a nice jagged crack on smooth well traveled bedrock. I found what was though to be the best place to dig in the crack since it was about 20 feet long and only about 4 inched wide. I dug out mostly pine needles and sand, there was one large rounded rock wedged in there and when I moved it I found a perfect pocket underneath. I dug it all clean, was only a pans worth of material of mostly debris and sand, hiked down to the water where the old man was panning and started cleaning everything in the pan and garret 1/2 classifier. Im lifting the classifier out of the water and string though it with my hand all in one motion as I catch a huge flash of gold right before I tipped to dump it all out.. It was strange I was in shock or something I picked it out and held it in my hand and didn't even look at it, just spouting out curse word after holy curse word! My dad came over slowly not sure of what was going on, I still haven't even looked at it yet and I just hand it to him, he looks at it and says " that's gold?" " F@%$ yeah its gold!" I say as he hands it back and I get a better look.. I could understand why he said this though, it was very muddy and had the look of a dirt clod with gold foil mixed in. Well to say it made the trip was an understatement. and The pan of material under the classifier didn't even hold a spec of color go figure! I remember my dad being happy for me, he said "All the times you have gone out and came back empty handed, but thats what you were looking for and now ya found it".. It really felt good, And the ride home I wouldn't shut up about how much I though it would weigh must have drove the old man crazy lol. Im very lucky to have found it, it was in an area im sure was well worked in the past, makes me feel like I nabbed one the old times missed lol.
We all had so much excitement to get out and this particular weekend was the rare occasion all of our schedules allowed this so everyone was still game for the most part. I was a bit nervous this last week, there is a lot that can go wrong and especially given the weather we could possibly get trapped at this spot since you must cross the river multiple times to access it. I did have a backup plan and way out down river with no crossings but it would have been twice the hike. Towards the end it really added a level of excitement and challenge to it that truly made it an adventure. 
"ONLY got 1/2 gram ...oh well." 
Maybe you guys can come up and show me what I'm doing wrong!
