Time for an update! I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and holiday and hopefully time off, I know I did! Lucky for me I was able to squeeze in 3 trips, two different rivers, 3 different locations withing the 5 days I had off.. On Wednesday I hit up the NFA with Erik the prospector, Friday was Daddy Daughter prospecting day on SFY, then Saturday Cody and I hit a new location on SFY. It was the coldest prospecting ive ever done, each trip seemed to get colder but it was still a blast and a welcomed change of scenery and experience.
First trip was with Erik the Prospector to a new area on NFA, we had a early start from the valley into the hills and were on the water by 9am. As we made our way towards an area Erik had wanted to check out I couldn't help but notice that only 500 feet above us on the peaks of the canyon walls it was solid white and currently snowing. This soon turned to rain for us but luckily we both were wearing waders and rain coats and not affected much buy it though it was almost impossible to crevice as everything was filling with water fast.. The rain only lasted for about 30 minutes and then it actually became very nice out, sunny and in the mid 50s. At this point I worked mostly in one area while Erik went searching somewhere down river from me. I only had a few cracks to work with, they looked very promising but proved to be otherwise. I did see a pair of young deer swimming down the river literally going down some rapid areas with only their heads poked out of the water, then they would swim over to the bank, walk back up to the head of the rapids and do it again over and over.. I think I watched them do this three times and id swear that they were playing the whole time and this was fun to them. They could have easily crossed if they wanted to but you could tell from the frolicking this was all fun and games. Though that was kind of neat and new to me, other than that is wasn't too eventful, we worked hard and left late but with little to show for it, but was still a great day of prospecting. I made it home with .3 grams this day, so at least I came home with some gold
Second trip was one Id have to say I was looking forward to the most, my daughter has been wanting to get out with me and I finally found a area I could get her to safely and where she could possibly find something as well. She's a trooper and a good prospector I learned! Ive panned with here a few times camping at SFA and NFA but only found a few specs but these were locations more ideal for camping and not prospecting. I wanted to take her on a real prospecting trip so we left home early and worked in a area ive done decent at. It was cold when we arrived only 34 degrees outside but were dressed accordingly and easily made the mile hike to the spot and got to work. I showed her a few examples of what to dig and why and she ran with it, soon she was finding cracks that ive overlooked and showing me a thing or two! We were limited to a small area to work given the terrain but we stayed there all day and dug like crazy and she was getting gold in every pan! We didn't hit anything good and this area has been hit pretty hard but she did get her very first gold of her own that she found herself. Should make a good show and tell at school.. She sure impressed her old man, only 7 and out there all day I kept saying this is the last pan and she wasn't having it! She slept good that night lol.. She is bugging me now for a pair of waders, look what I started!
The third trip out was to a new location on SFY with Cody and it was quite the adventure, Im thinking most wouldn't have stuck around there long let alone be out there at all. We hiked a good couple miles to an area that looked like a winter wonderland! everything was frozen, any standing water was froze over, when you walked on the bedrock ice instantly formed under your wet foot after a few seconds of standing which made it very hard to get around. Gold pans would freeze over in minutes, if we didn't have Codys neoprene dive gloves we couldn't have panned it was just too cold, we dubbed them the panning gloves and shared them to get by. Given the cold and harsh diggings I only panned probably a third of the material I would normally do in a day but did get a few chunkie monkeys that helped warm me and keep me going. It was the coldest ive been doing any prospecting or anything I can think of, it had to be in the 20's where we were working..We drank a lil whiskey to help ram us and worked through it staying all day. I had fun playing on the ice ponds and wish I had some photos of that it was pretty amazing how thick the ice is already. We had a good adventure and both walked away with some gold, Its defiantly a neat to be out there and see the extreme cold side as im sure most dont bother.
