Midsummer's panning

I spent midsummer down in the middle of Sweden and brought my sluice, pan, etc. with me. I had spent a few hours pondering over maps of the area and selected two promising streams.

The very first evening just after arriving at our summer house I went out to test the first stream. The mountain slope looked promising with a "good" long slope but the stream itself seemed too small - just about 30 cm (one feet) wide. But where it started to flare out I built a small damm for my sluice to get the needed water flow. I then ran about three bucket's full of classified sand/gravel through it and brought the concentrate back to the cabin. The day after I carefully panned it with a drop or two of tenside fluid - but nothing...


But when I drove back home I noticed a slightly bigger stream that looked promising so I tried that the day after. Here I did not have to do much to achive a good water flow through my sluice so I quickly ran six buckets of classified sand/gravel through the sluice and brought the concentrate back to the cabin. And maaaayyyybeee it could be some really small gold particles here(!). I am not certain but it looked like that, I will have to look more carefully at the samples.


For the third excursion I headed out for the second creek I had looked at on the maps. This also was on a promising slope but again the creek proved to be somewhat small... And man was it mosquito infested(!). But I endured a few hours running through a few buckets - but nothing showed up in the fine panning afterwards.


So for my last trip I headed back to the somewhat bigger creek and ventured upstream a bit to a really sweet place - man it was beatiful. And hardly no mosquitos :-) I worked quite hard for a few hours running nine more buckets through my sluice and the fine panning back "home" showed some traces of what could be some really fine gold particles - but soooo small... But I had a great time, the place was absolutely beatiful:

I am back home in the North of Sweden now and I will make more trips up here in the coming weeks. I read the other day that 200 metric ton's gold has been mined here in Sweden and there are an estmated 4000 ton's still out there only taking into consideration the top soil layer(!). So I hope I will find some gold ;-)

A picture from my last prospecting trip

Here's a picture of my sluice setup in the small stream I was examining last weekend. You can see how the small stream widened a bit and how much sand/gravel that had been set to rest here.

In the lower left corner you can see the hole I was digging, one can bareley make out the old buried log that had made all this sand/gravel come to rest at this spot. I might try again here but dig deeper and further up stream a few feet/a meter or so. This spot looked so nice and I was really disapointed that I did not find any gold.

I will try to pan the black sand again with a few drops of tenside and see if I can make out any flour gold... Hopefully I can make another trip this weekend to another spot also.

Panned all the concentrate

OK, I have panned all the concentrate I brought back home yesterday evening - and did not find anything... Well, there might be some really fine flour gold. I have tried running the black sand through a mini sluice but I cannot say if there is any gold in there or not.

Two of the pan's I added a few flakes of gold to and those I did find! So I must be doing something right :-)

So I can't wait to get out there again, I am going to try the stream I did not try yesterday - or I will head up North to a completely new location where there are three streams that look interesting on the maps and areal photographs.

Out prospecting

Awright, I went inland today and headed for a spot that looked really promising on the maps. But upstream it proved more or less impossible to get down to the stream, at least without getting killed falling 150 meters (450') :-)

So I headed to a spot where the stream entered the river and then walked a bit upstream. But again I found only large rubbles and no sand/gravel... But there were mosquitoes(!) - millions of 'em ;-) Maybe even further upstream but that is a loong hike...

So I went for the second alternative for the day and that looked promising, plenty of water in the stream, a long rapid down the hill and there seemed to be some spots of sand and gravel. But the first two hikes and made me tired so I didn't feel like venturing out down that stream to the most promising part that was a bit downstream.

So I headed a bit East to a spot that looked promising and wasn't too far from the road.

So off I went and got to the spot after a long drive on a gravel road. And this also looked rather promising but mostly larger rubble and rocks - no gravel/sand. So I ventured downstream hauling all my gear with me. And after about 250 meter (750') downstream the creek widened a bit and the water slowed down and there were lot's and lot's of sand and gravel and also a suitable spot for my sluice. Lovely!

So I started digging up gravel with a shovel and ran that through a screen. After each full bucket of screened material I ran that material through the sluice. Three buckets later I could not wait any more so I started panning the concentrate and....

... nothing(!) Well nothing I could find out in the woods. So I ran another seven buckets through the sluice and then brought the concentrate back with me home. It took me 2.5 hours to run all ten buckets. Man I was tired ;-)