Second prospecting of 2008

All rightie then, I managed one more trip this season. Now I went back to the same stream as last time but now the water level had risen quite a lot since last time as it had been raining a lot.

I headed upstream a bit and found a suitable spot on the "inside" of a small curve of the stream and started digging behind a large rock hoping that some gold would have been caught behind the boulder.


I realized after a couple of minutes that someone else had been digging for gold in the same location before me as there was a small hole right next to mine(!) - this is the first time I see some evidence that someone else had been in the same location, and this after several years of prospecting. Looot's of wilderness up here, usually you do not see a single sole during trips like these!

Look carefully in this picture and you will see the old hole further in from the stream from "my" hole where I am digging now. Also note how conveniently close I managed to place my sluice today - some times you have to haul/carry the buckets some distance to the sluice...



Also note the hassock of grass in the classifying mesh, sometime you can find quite a lot of gold among the grass roots as they acts as natural gold traps - so carefully go through these!

I brought all of the concentrates back home and will go through them on a cold and dark winter evening when the snow is falling outside :-)

Hopefully I can manage a few more trips than this next summer, maybe the nuggets will lay there in the pan one day - but at least I get to soothe my soul and relax a long way away from the hectic city life...

Prospecting with Siv

The first prospecting of the year didn't happen until mid-September, painting on our newly built house took more time than I had anticipated.

But finally I loaded up all the fun gear in the 4x4 and took off an early morning when the sun was shining - this time with my wife Siv and maybe she will make the first really good gold find - at least she handles the Goldspear and GPS like a pro and with a smile on her face :-)


We went North as usual and one of the streams I had scouted on maps during the winter looked really promising - at least it was a beautiful and serene spot of wilderness! We even found a sunny forest clearing to have a nice lunch, the normal "prospecting herring sandwiches" I usually bring :-)


I spent a few hours going through the usual 10 buckets of gravel - digging gravel and classifing it into a bucket and then running it through the sluice a small amount at the time.

This interesting image shows the tailings from the sluice clearly - hopefully the gold stays in my Eldorado sluice. A good workout but mostly a fantastic day out from the busy & hectic city life with jobs, computers, TV's, shops, etc.


This time I fine panned the concentrates out in the woods since it was such a sunny and warm late summer day (remember that we are further North than Anchorage Alaska up here in the North of Sweden so the autumn arrives early). There seemed to be some gold in this location so I brought the concentrates back home to pan them more throughly.

A superb day in the woods!

Finally some bedrock

Ahhh, I managed to get out into the wilderness today! A bit cold maybe, around -2 C when I left my house this morning but it went up to around +3 C around noon in the sunshine. A bit chilly but a wonderful day!



First I tried a small creek that I had visited a while back but a bit more downstream this time. Really cool ( ;-) ) with all the ice forming from tree branches, etc. I saw some bear poo but it was covered in small ice crystals so it was not day fresh :-) At this very creek I saw a bear last summer so this seems to be a good spot for bears.

I used my sluice for a couple of hours and brought some concentrates back home to investigate further.



I found a nice clearing in the forest where I had some lunch in the sunshine. Just plain lovely to sit there in the forest and listen to the silence :-) No birds, etc. this late in the season.

I then tried a new creek and look and behold, I managed to find some bedrock!! I have only managed that once before and that was down in Dalarna. I worked hard in the cold water for a couple of hours and managed to get some more concentrates to bring home.



All in all a truly wonderful day although a bit cold. Siv was working this Saturday and she had our 4DW SUV so I was driving the Mercedes-Benz S-class coupé - maybe not the ideal car for bad gravel roads but it has a big spacious boot and is a wonderful road car!




I went through the concentrates back home and maaaaybe there were some small gold particles from the "new" creek so I will go there again in the future. Have a look at these fantastic ice sculptures forming from this tree trunk lying across the stream!

Report from last summers long expedition

I just noticed that I never wrote anything regarding the longer expedition I made last summer. I spent a few days and although I had a great time I did not find any gold.



But especially one location right next to a river was wonderful, there was a large trout showing itself now and then just outside my camp site. I had brought a camping chair and sitting in that just admiring the large river floating by after my dinner was wonderful. Although that trout was really making me regret I did not bring any fishing gear :-)



I had to drive off-road to get down to the river but it was easy with my 4x4 Toyota, this place I will definitely return to some other time and bring some fishing gear - a truly lovely place!

I tried a number of places to look for gold but no interesting signals from my Goldspear, tried to pan a few locations as well but no luck... And no bedrock, this is hard to find up here, the gravel/rock layers seems to be really think up here...



One location was really interesting, I had spotted that when pondering upon my maps last winter and it seemed really interesting with a deep canyon - maybe I could get down to some bed rock down there. The road leading up to the canyon was not suitable not even for a 4x4 so I loaded up all the "needed" gear (Goldspear, shovel, pan, classifier, sluice, food & drink and started the long walk.



It started raining but the canyon itself was really cool, deeeep with steep sides and it was a bit of an adventure getting all the way down to the creek at the bottom some 100 meters down. Unfortunately I could not find any suitable spots for panning/sluicing down there...

The creek just ran through a field of really large boulders and I could not find any gravel/sand anywhere... And it was really mosquito infested so I climbed up on the other side after a couple of hours.



I also found a small tiny creek with lot's of sand close to my camp for that night (just 100 meter from the tent) but no interesting signals from my Goldspear, not even any significant levels of black sand...

I followed this quite a stretch upstream. But at least I used this creek to refill my water tank - crystal clear and really cold and good tasting!



A few hundred meters from that was another creek that was dry from water - probably fills up when it rains. It looked interesting as well but nothing was found after digging there for a day...



I also stumbled upon a spring where a small creek started it's flow - a beautiful spot to say the least but no gold. Right next to that I found a couple of fresh moose legs and I guess some poacher had been there since this was a month before the moose hunt is supposed to start...



Anyway, a really nice trip anyway - saw lot's of wilderness and camped in some really beatiful places. Saw some wildlife of course among that some forest birds, moose and reindeer.

I have not made any trips so far this summer (2007) but I might make an attempt this Saturday if the weather continues as it is now. But it is getting late in the season and quite cold in the water (frost most every night now).

Five day prospecting coming up

Tomorrow morning I head out into the woods with tent and all my prospecting gear. This will be my first "real prospecting expedition" besides the day trips I have been doing the last summers.

I will of course report what ever findings I do :-)

Back from Dalarna

Well, I spent midsummer in Dalarna and went away two evenings poking around with the Goldspear. But not one single "interesting" signal...

Interestingly enought, one of the creeks I panned last year was now inside a rather large gold claim(!)

I also for the very first time saw a creek where the actual bed rock was exposed in some spots - up here where I live most creeks seem to be gravel only (meaning that the bed rock is waaay down). Cool stuff to see that :-)

A full day out prospecting

I took a day off today and headed out in the woods looking for gold - I had planned this trip in advance and got to sample about 5 or 6 creeks as planned. But I did try a few smaller creeks also and one a bit bigger.

I got one single gold signal using the Goldspear in the very first creek I visited - but I disregarded that and thought I would find something better but that was the only spot I got a gold signal from during the whole day...

I must say I am not doing much digging/sluicing/panning this season - running around poking the creeks with the Goldspear, hopefully I am doing this right :-)

I managed to slip today and hurt my knee rather badly, I also hurt my lower back and bumped my head also but the knee is rather bad right now - landed on a sharp rock and got a 2 inch wound, *ouch*

I had to lay down for a while as I could not get up and I was feeling a bit naucious (spelling?) so I guess I got a small concussion. After that I had to sit down for almost an hour as I could not use my leg, spent the time "washing" my trousers from all the blood - got to think "what if a bear smells the blood" and wanders upstream in search for the source LOL

It doesn't hurt as much now but the knee is very stiff/soar. Guess I was a bit lucky, all alone out there in the wilderness and no cell phone coverage, etc...

A few pictures from today, a small creek first of all:



One other creek, this is a creek with only larger boulders... Almost no gravel...:



And a larger creek, maybe something for my newly aquired dredge as one cannot use the sluice in such a location:



And a beatiful flower I saw today, amazing:



No gold today, better luck next time maybe...