A Weekend on the Platte

One day's worth of work. Note the piece of dull gray platinum.

 After taking advantage of the good weather and heading down to my new favorite placer deposit by Commerce City, I found myself digging in the sun, and finding some gold too. I had located this spot off of a website by a guy who lives in Denver and sells prospecting equipment. He was testing out his products at this placer and made quite the discovery.
     Turns out though, its not that new of news. These deposits are the same as the ones that the first pioneer dipped their shovels into on their way to California. Most prospectors didn't think much of it, and headed west. When they didn't find their fortunes in California, they thought back to the Platte that they found that fine gold in. From these same placers, they worked west into the mountains and found all of the lode deposits. They were again mined during the depression, which in my opinion strikes a bell will all of the digging has ocurred at this spot.

The second day's work. This is just what I picked up from
pans and the sluice, even more is in the concentrates!

        Fine gold is in abundance at this spot, and found about 6 inches below the surface. Gold is found in all areas of the placer, but the larger pieces are concentrated in a straight line. Test pans revealed on average 2-3 decent pieces and about 15-20 very fine colors to the pan. One day I was out I only classified my material to 1/4", and the other 1/8". When I classified smaller, I found my sluice worked much better, and my overall gold recovery was better, but this could also be because I dug along the "gold line".
 It was fun to finally get some gold! I estimate about 1.5 grams from the weekend, but I still have to run all the sluice cons through the desert fox, and then clean and dry all of the gold. Lots of work, but it is worth it!