…while we were packing up, my wife called for me to help her with something, so I set the pan containing the gold down, off to the side of the parking area.

The catch being was that it was about 60 miles from Anchorage near Hope, and a good four or five-mile hike uphill to the claims.

As I laid in my Jeep and tried to get some rest, I began to realize how tired I was. I felt like a little kid who walked around Disneyland for 12 hours with his parents.

Sure enough, after hiking a couple miles uphill and hacking through some brush, we found the place just as he had described it.

Making matters worse, we could feel the truck moving very slowly down the mountain along with the trees and mud. It was an uncomfortable sinking feeling, as you might guess.

The dredge and our gear, with us clinging on to the sides, bounced along until it got hung up on a large boulder in the middle of the river.

…I was looking down on what was a frightening 500-foot sheer drop-off. We were precariously close to the edge as the shoulder was practically non-existent.