My hunch was that the gold is coming down the apron, falling off to both sides and into both gulches. I say that because the gold we found previously has the same characteristics and color across the entire area.

I could see lots of quartz, both loose on the hillsides and in the numerous small prospect diggings. There was a small gold rush here more than a century ago.

We all continued over to another location at the top of a massive placer operation. Arriving at the draw, I showed everyone where gold had been found before and we all began detecting.

Many of the gold camps were violent places, but in this regard, the town of Auburn exhibited a different behavior. There were few of the duels or lynchings that characterized many of the other early settlements.

These are entry-level machines designed with gold prospecting in mind and with the ability to handle mineralized ground and see nuggets of a grain or so in size, perhaps smaller.

Just because we have snow doesn’t mean we’re not going to prospect, we just have to change our direction and head more down towards the flat lands.