Mining In The El Paso Range of Southern California

December 2020 by Alan J. Chenworth

While none of the historical mining camps are active, the area is still a hub of activity for the modern prospector, and claims still blanket the hills and gulches.

The Pothole Patch

January 2015
"Suh-wheet!" I exclaimed as I sprang to my feet and quickly pumped my detector coil high overhead to alert Smokey that I had just found a nugget.

Feather River Gold

February 2017
I didn’t think too much of our dredge hole and we were both considering a move when we hit bedrock. There was a good quantity of flakes and fines, but no nuggets.

Big Rock Gold

August 2012
Fran, and I had made a practice of turning big boulders in gold producing areas to find some great rewards. Sometimes it was slow and frustrating, but in the end “We got the gold!”

Going Over Old Ground With Newer Technology

May 2020

When we got set up and I started to swing the coil over a small mound, I got a good signal, faint but repeatable.

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.

An Alaskan in the Lower 48

July 2013
Our destination was some old hydraulic workings where the old miners had washed literally mountains of material away to expose gold in ancient river channels.

Gold in the Slate Creek Basin

September 2011
In some areas these channels were thousands of feet wide, and just figuring out where you are in some of these diggings is a challenge.

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