How Much Gold Did We Discover?
If you read our Eureka! We Found Gold! post, you already have an idea that we found some gold along the American River. The question remains, how much gold did we find? Well, you are about to find out, but first some additional information about how we found the gold.
The crack I chose to call my own had some features that looked promising to this novice prospector. It ran along the top of the boulders that were on the outside edge of a sharp turn in the river. The gold tries to move in a straight line as it rolls along the bottom of the river, so when the water was in flood stage it would try to flow over these rocks. As it bounced along the rocks, some would fall into my crack and make its way to the bottom after many years of floods and settling. Some of the cracks in these rocks had obviously been cleaned out by other prospectors, but this one had many signs that led me to believe it had never been touched.
Laini and Emmie the wonder dog helped me in my tough job of digging small bits of material out of the crack using very primitive tools. Many of the adults walking by my crack had odd looks on their faces when they saw a grown man lying on a boulder using a bent spoon (sorry Chas) from the Scholl Bus kitchen, along with a small blue sandbox shovel, to remove minuscule amounts of dirt from a narrow crevice. We were so dedicated in our endeavors that we chose to ignore the Rattlesnake warning signs that were well posted all along our digging route.
Slowly I dug deeper in the crack, and reached the end of my tools useful length. Sadly there turned out to be more dirt in the bottom of the crack than I could get out before we had to pack up and head out toward San Francisco. I plan to continue to work on that crack if we are able to visit this area of California again. Believe it or not, I was inspired by my crack to write a short poem, so here goes:
Today I work, digging in my crack,
The American River rumbling at my back.
Removing the sediment, millennia old,
Deposited by floods, dropped deep in Earth’s fold.
Missed by the miners of days long gone by,
This gold sat waiting back in 1849.
Each shake of the ground dropped it deeper still,
Until it sat in the bedrock at the base of this hill.
Passers by smiled and laughed at the sight,
But I paid no attention and continued my fight.
I dug in my crack, with a smile on my face,
This chance of a lifetime may never be replaced.
Now I see my hard work as it shines in my hand,
For the American River has left gold in my pan.
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- My Very Own Crack to Dig In…
We had a lot of fun in this part of California, but more adventure awaited us in San Francisco. We had new friends to meet up with, and exciting things to explore on the California coast. Our gold adventures will not be forgotten, hopefully I will be able to add to our gold stash this summer as we explore other areas of the country.
Eureka ! We Found Gold !
While hanging with our pal Greg Mulac in Quartzsite for 2 months, we (okay, mostly me) were hit with the Gold Bug. I had always been interested in gold prospecting, so having Greg provide some professional advice on how to do so, I began to purchase a few tools of the trade. We found the perfect campground, the Ponderosa Resort, near the original 1849 California Gold Rush site. While camped by the river, we dug out our equipment and went to work in some of the coldest river water we have ever encountered. We set up our Gold Magic Spiral Wheel, and tried to get used to feeding material into it. The girls didn’t want to stand in the cold water, so I set it up in a tub on the bank of the river. We didn’t get any gold out of that first run, but we discovered how to get the angle set to extract black sand, which told us we were doing it correctly. The girls had fun looking through the larger rocks for exciting crystals and others things that caught their eye.
After running the Gold Magic wheel for a while, I decided to get serious and find a place to do some real prospecting. Anywhere along the river, it is possible to find a few flakes here and there. I wanted to try a technique I learned through several different avenues, one of which being the GPAA (Gold Prospectors Association of America), which we became members of during the Gold Show at Quartzsite. Using a few small tools, you dig the material that settles in cracks along boulders and bedrock. I began telling everyone I was digging in my crack, and the phrase stuck like glue. Laini decided to help me dig in my crack, but slowly became interested in digging in one of her own. We removed the material from the cracks, and then we panned it down to reveal the gold that had fallen in during floods. Gold, being 19 times heavier than water, immediately falls to the bottom of the crack and works its way through any other debris trapped there. The cracks concentrate gold in one area, so I chose to dig there and see what happened.
I will be adding several videos to the final post about the Ponderosa Prospecting, I don’t have good enough internet at our summer campground to add them here. Stay tuned for the final chapter, and to see just how much gold we found…
Welcome to Coloma, California
Heading North on Hwy 99 through central California was a nice drive. We left the Sequoia trees behind and made a few stops on our way to the Ponderosa Resort, a Thousand Trails park. We were excited to learn about the local history, and try to make some history of our own in the area. The views from the resort of the American River are spectacular, we were even greeted by a rainbow the morning after we arrived. The sunlight peaking through the clouds seemed to make the green mountains glow with color.
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- A rainbow to welcome us to Coloma
The resort is just a couple miles down river from the 1848 Gold Discovery Site of Sutters Mill, and home of the Marshall Gold Discovery Park. The park is full of information about the famous gold discovery that marked the start of the 1849 California Gold Rush. We arrived at the park later in the day on a Saturday, so most of the exhibits and Docent’s (actors that are dressed in period clothing and filled with period information) were being packed away for the day. We walked around through the park and read the signs on the equipment, and learned a little about the events that led to the gold rush. They offer gold panning classes, but we had our own equipment to use at the campground.
I did manage to catch one of the Docents in action, so here is a brief video of him entertaining and educating the kids. He was very informative, and kept the kids on their toes the whole time.
We spent two weeks at this resort, I had to get in some gold prospecting under my belt while we were here. We ate well when I happened to be in the mood to fire up the grill too, the weather was great the whole time we were here, reaching close to 85 degrees a couple days. Since we were in an area with a long history of gold and treasure, I decided to get out with the metal detector for a little while. I didn’t find much, but had fun getting more familiar with my detector.
The next post will be about our gold prospecting adventures on the American River. You will have to come check it out to see if we struck it rich…
Edwards Air Force Base
While at the Saxon Air Force Museum in Boron, California, we met an awesome couple whose names escape me since it was over a month ago. We began talking, and I mentioned I would love a tour of Edwards Air Force Base. We were told that public tours were no longer offered since 9/11, and the on-base museum was closed and collecting dust. I must have given a disappointed look, because he offered to give us a private tour of the base. My eyes lit up like a Christmas Tree, and Lydia decided she would go with me early the next morning.
We arrived the next morning looking forward to seeing some history making aircraft, and facilities that are very important to our National Defense system. We were filled with information on the ride from Boron to the entrance of the base, we drove for miles along the border of the base and Lydia wondered if we would ever get there. We made it through the security checkpoint without a hitch (not that I was expecting a problem) and drove over to some of the first aircraft we were able to see on display outside the NASA buildings.
We walked around these planes, Lydia was surprised how large they were in person, she would be in for a big surprise when we got closer to some a few minutes later. We drove from the NASA buildings over to the Chuck Yeager Memorial, and Lydia posed for a picture. He might have made a good grouchy Hobbit based on his size and a description of his personality. We drove from the memorial to the Machine Shop, where I had to take a picture of Lydia with a Hyster Forklift since I spent 7 years designing special options for these exact pieces of machinery. I wish I could have taken pictures in the repair hanger where a row of B-52′s were lined up along with several other aircraft. We were able to walk through the tire supply area and see tires up close for all types of aircraft. When we left the machine shop, we drove to the other end of the base where we were able to see the remains of the Extended High Speed Test Tracks.
We drove around the base to see the X-1 Loading Pit, this is where the X-1 plane was loaded onto the belly of the larger plane that dropped it. The X-1, piloted by Chuck Yeager, was the first plane to break the sound barrier. There are plans to fill this pit in so there will be a little more concrete in the parking lot, it is a shame pieces of history like this are not thought of as important anymore. We drove around to another facility where I couldn’t take pictures and walked around several large planes and saw where they did fire training on the base. Then we made it to the outside of the museum on the base where there were several other planes on display outside. My favorite has always been the SR-71 blackbird, it never gets old walking up to one of the amazing machines. Once our guide told me what the ICBM was (I had no idea what one looked like up close), it made chills run down my spine. It is hard to believe that these devices could cause so much destruction.. In the background of the shots that show the dry lake bed runway and a large portion of the base, you can see a large black structure. This was the MDD (Mate De-Mate Device) that allowed the Space Shuttles to be mounted on the back of a jumbo jet so it could be flown back to Florida. This, literally HUGE, piece of history is probably going to be scrapped in the near future since they don’t want to donate it to a museum.
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- Inter Continental Ballistic Missile
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- The black structure that looks like a rough arch is the MDD
We are very thankful for the opportunity to go on this tour, and will remember it for sure. I just wish I could remember the name of the gentleman that gave us the tour, maybe someone will fill me in. Please let me know if I made any mistakes with the information included in this post so I can make corrections.
Sequoia National Park
After we left Boron, California, we zipped (as if you can call it that in the bus) North on Hwy 99 to a campground in Tulare. We decided to take a day trip into Sequoia National Park, the weather was beautiful and we were excited about getting to see some giant trees. We left our campground a little later than we had hoped, so we knew it would be basically a drive through experience with only a little while to actually explore on foot. We stopped at the ranger station after we entered the park and set out with a game plan to walk around the General Sherman and General Grant trees for sure. We started climbing in elevation through the park and had to stop for about 20 minutes at a road construction site. Chas and the girls worked on their Jr. Ranger workbooks, the view from where we were stopped was amazing so it made for a nice stop.
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- Welcome to Sequoia National Park
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- Construction Stop
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- If you are going to be stuck for a little while at a road construction stop, why now have a view like this.
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- Working on Jr. Ranger books while stopped for road construction.
We drove to the upper parking lot for the General Sherman Tree Trail, which turned out to be a much longer hike than I expected. The trail is excellent, but you will be winded after you make it back to your car. This trail takes you by several of the giants on your way to see the Sherman tree, my favorite was the twin trees where we were able to touch a giant for the first time. Many of the trees are fenced off so you can’t get close enough to touch them, but a portion of the trail goes right between these trees. I was surprised to discover the bark is very soft and spongy, not hard like almost all trees I have encountered. It is so soft, I could see it being very easy to take a nap with a Sequoia as a backrest and pillow. The General Sherman Tree is the largest tree, by wood volume in the trunk, in the world.
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- General Sherman Tree trunk outline in the bricks of the trail, the girls would be standing at the middle of the tree and Chas at the far edge.
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- Our first experience being able to touch the giants
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- Scientists think these were probably joined as one tree many years ago, but the weight of the trees slowly pulls them apart.
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- A small car sized burl
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- General Sherman Tree
After leaving the General Sherman Tree, we drove into Kings Canyon Park and went to the General Grant Tree. On our way up the trail, we found the Tunnel Log that you can walk through and explore. I am 6’5″ tall, and did not have to lower my head all the way through the log. We hiked around the General Grant tree, I was amazed by the size of the fire scar on the upper side of the tree. There is a photograph of soldiers in the 1800′s standing at the fire scar, and it looks the same as it did over a hundred years ago. The General Grant Tree is the 3rd largest tree by wood volume in the world.
Some fun facts about the tree:
- 1.700 years old
- 268 feet tall
- Weighs 1,254 tons
- Largest Branch is 4.5 feet in diameter
- First Branch is 120 feet from the ground
- At 40′ in diameter, it is the widest known sequoia
- If you hollowed out the trunk, it would hold 159,000 basketballs or 37 million pingpong balls
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- The Tunnel Log on the General Grant Tree Trail
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- General Grant Tree
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- General Grant Tree
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- General Grant Tree
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- General Grant Tree
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- General Grant Tree
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- General Grant Tree
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- General Grant Tree Firescar
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- General Grant Tree Firescar
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- General Grant Tree
We enjoyed our drive through the giant trees, seeing trees that large is a very awe inspiring experience. I could not imagine how the early explorers felt when they experienced these trees for the first time. The video and pictures we took while in the park do not really express how large these trees are, you just have to see them in person to really appreciate them.
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