Gold Prospecting: For Better or Worse

I saw a big brown hind end of what at first I thought was an elk, about 75 yards away. I was standing behind a large tree and stopped and peeked around the tree to see what it was.

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.

We started off excited and enthusiastic as we began hiking up the river, daydreaming about finding big gold.

…I was looking down on what was a frightening 500-foot sheer drop-off. We were precariously close to the edge as the shoulder was practically non-existent.

If you have done any hiking in rough terrain you are well aware that going down a slope is much more difficult and dangerous than climbing it.

My brother Darryl and I had not had a prospecting adventure since January and we wanted to try out our new drywasher, so we decided to go for the weekend and check out some claims near Barstow…

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.

My right rib cage took the brunt of the blow from the fall, which left me feeling partially paralyzed and in immense pain.

Because waiting for spring seemed to be taking forever, my 15-year-old granddaughter Grace and I decided to pan for gold sooner. The thought was…even if we did not find any gold, we would set a new record for absurdity—gold panning in the coldest weather!

My next strategy was to walk anywhere and everywhere that I had been inside this home and garage. I looked on the floor, in the bathroom, I checked the bathroom trash can, and I even pulled the shower curtain back and looked in the bathtub.

Saturday came and it looked to have the makings of a dreary, misty day. Undaunted, I loaded my truck with my sluice, buckets and gear, and headed for the claim.

Making matters worse, we could feel the truck moving very slowly down the mountain along with the trees and mud. It was an uncomfortable sinking feeling, as you might guess.

The temptation to enter the dark interiors beckoned to me before the day was finished but I resisted.

I have a slight mental disorder. It causes frequent lapses in common sense, good judgment and bouts of high fever—gold fever.

The dredge and our gear, with us clinging on to the sides, bounced along until it got hung up on a large boulder in the middle of the river.

With one outstretched hand grasping the bottle and the other waving at air, I moved forward feeling for the tent. No tent. No tree.

We all love to see that first glimmer of gold when it peeks out from under the black sand in our pan, or feel the weight of a nugget in our scoop when we dig a good target. But sometimes things don’t go quite so smoothly.