Because tungsten minerals are heavy, exploration can be done using stream sediment samples. Prospectors looking for gold have found scheelite or wolframite in their placer concentrates, and in some cases this has led them to make important tungsten finds.

The large buckets were favorable for the type of ground worked. The gravel was tenacious and compact, due to the existence of irregular pockets of clay.

While a large number of locations have yielded some placer gold, most of the state’s placer production has come from a few productive districts.

On our last trip, we brought ropes and went down the first waterfall forty vertical feet, only to be confronted by a second, sixty-foot-high, overhanging waterfall that emptied into a slot canyon.