A Golden Vacation

July 2019 by Joe Chmiel

Each day for the first part of the week my boys and I picked and chipped away at that wall, stockpiling dirt in 5-gallon buckets and cement mixing tubs.

The Historic Gold Rush Town of Quincy

June 2021

…we focused on various layers of hard-packed flood material out of the creek, and we also obtained some material up quite a ways from the creek itself on bedrock.

A Gold Mine on a Washington Beach?

February 2012
Bela and Barbara Kovacs began prospecting for gold about seven years ago as a family orientated outdoors activity. A welder by trade and lured by the simple fact that beach sands can contain small bits of precious metals, Bela decided a few years ago to build a sand sucking contraption that can sift the shoreline for anything worth keeping.

A High Country Patch

September 2019

As he was working near the extreme low end of the ground sluicing, I heard a yell through my headphones. Making my way down to him I could see the smile from a long distance.

Finding Gold with a VLF Detector—Part II

May 2014
It is this ability to hear and respond to the faintest of audio signals that I believe separates the best nugget hunters from everyone else.

Gemstones to Die For

November 2014
Some gems can potentially poison you, make you sterile and even make you forget who you are.

California State Panning Championships—Foresthill, CA Heritage Celebration

October 2013
Here's the kicker—for every lost flake there was a five minute penalty added to the time. Lost gold generally meant you didn't make it past the preliminaries.

Highbanking at the 144

October 2013
My third sample location proved to be my last and most interesting. I needed to look no further.

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