On about the fifth time across one of these slopes, and down near the little wash...bam! I found a nice chunk of rock, laced through with gold. Wow! How had I missed this?

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.

It all occurred when Gus and I returned to a remote placer gold area where we had previously found really good gold. The problem was that it would take about an hour to walk through the desert to get to it.

I learned the next day that I was not the only one that had crossed paths with a bear. Dick told us about his harrowing experience from the previous night.

Luckily, at about that time, I buddied up with a somewhat cantankerous, but very helpful, guy named Rod. He had become a local legend for his ability to consistently find gold.

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

I noticed an area which I could crawl through to keep going in a straight line. I got about three feet into the pile and Bob yelled for me to stop…