Fraser River Unexpected Rock Climbing

PlacerGold Trip Reports May 21, 2015baofeng, gold, gold mining, gold mining equipment, gold pan, gold panning, Lillooet, placer claim, radio, rock climbing 3 Comments

In April I went to check out two claims in the area North of Lillooet, BC. These two claims are close to the one that I wrote about in my Southern Cariboo Prospecting Trip. On the way up the Fraser Canyon I stopped at the old Alexandra bridge to get a peep at a claim that I have on the other side of the river. The old bridge is part of the original Cariboo wagon road that serviced the gold rushes of the Fraser and Cariboo. The Alexandra bridge that stands today was built in the exact same spot of the original bridge from in 1861. The current bridge was completed in 1926. There’s a lot of history here.

In the second photo you can see the latest bridge in the distance that replaced the old suspension bridge in the 1960s. The old bridge has an open grate for a bridge deck. I’m not afraid of heights but it is a little hard to trust a bridge that has been decommissioned. There has to be a reason right?

Once again I travelled up the West Pavillion forest service road to do some gold panning. This time though the road frequency had been changed, and the new one wasn’t posted yet.

There were some phone numbers and a website posted but this area is outside of cell range so that is not really helpful. I had a my trusty Baofeng but it wasn’t any good without the proper channel. Here’s a link to the new posted channels for the area, FYI. According to that site the new channel is 150.11 MHz. Fortunately it was a quiet day on the road and I didn’t see anybody.

I got to the first claim later that day. I found a nice camp site near the dirt road and eagerly began hiking down to the river to take my first samples. It looked pretty steep on the topo maps and with my prior experience in the area I was expecting it to be. The maps were accurate and it was at least as ugly as I had imagined. Loose gravel and significant slope on the way in. I was hoping to find a more civilized route up once I got down to the river.

I managed to get a couple samples before the light started to fade. The samples that I take consist of two full pails each, and partially processed on site. I use the pyramid pan to concentrate that down to about 1L and store the samples in a waterproof zip lock bag for the hike out. It takes at least an hour to excavate each test hole in this area due to the abundance of large rocks making up the beach.

My hope of finding a “civilized” route was not fulfilled, I marked the climbing route in the above photo. I was faced with either hiking up the super steep talus slope or rock climbing up some exposed rock. I chose the rock climbing. I must mention that I am experienced with rock climbing and don’t recommend this course of action if you aren’t comfortable. Its not exactly safe, especially with a backpack loaded with a pick axe, shovel, 5 gallon pail, samples, gold pans and all the other prospecting gear. Not to mention no rope.

I made it up OK, with a little bit of a gut check at the top, then hiked the rest of the steep slope up to the camp for some well deserved beer and food. Little did I know that was just the beginning of the unexpected climbing on this trip. On the previous trip to this area we thought that climbing ropes and gear might be needed for these claims but it was impossible to tell until you come over the edge towards the river.

The second claim was just down river from a small canyon. This is a good thing for trapping gold but it does not make for easy access. It all looked good on the way down but it dropped off steeply as I descended towards the river. Pretty soon I found my self perched on top of what was a near vertical drop. I spotted a line down but I couldn’t see the whole path. At this point I was committed. The further I descended the worse it got and next thing I knew I was reverse rock climbing down to the beach.

Once again I hoped that I would find a better route up. This time around I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I had a whole day of sampling to do so I’d worry about climbing out when the time comes. I managed to get three good samples from the beach and inevitably the time came to climb out. I knew the way in was very dangerous and didn’t know if I even could climb back up. The photos below show the route to the beach.

I spotted a route to rock climb out but it was nasty too. It looked like solid rock with good holds so I went for it. It turned out not to be solid and almost every hold I grabbed broke loose and slid down the slope. I got to a point about 3/4 the way up the rock climb section where I was certain that I was screwed. No way up and no way down. Not a good feeling. After several minutes of gathering my courage I decided I had no choice and went for it. Once I was on top and able to walk on my feet I was relieved and more than happy to hike up the rest of the steep slope to my camp. I didn’t get a great picture of the route up from the beach. The photo below shows the approximate route.

I’ve gotten myself into these sort of situations more times than I’d like to admit. Honestly though the unexpected situations are one of the most exciting parts of prospecting. At the time you are terrified and wonder how you ended up in this situation but afterwards those are some of your best memories. Without a sense of adventure who would go out to these places looking for gold? As luck would have it, these claims actually had some decent gold. The trouble is how am I going to get in there next time?

Where Does Placer Gold Come From? – Part 2 Deposits

PlacerGold Science May 14, 2015carlin trend, epithermal, gold, gold mining, greenstone, lode gold, mother lode, placer, porphyry, quartz vein 3 Comments

In part 1 of “Where Does Placer Gold Come From?” we discussed the origins of gold and how it appeared on earth. Now we’ll discuss how it moves into mineable deposits.

Gold is spread relatively evenly throughout the crust of the earth at approximate concentrations of 1 part per billion. To put that into contrast, low grade mineable gold deposits need to be concentrated to at least 1 part per million which is about 1000 times more concentrated than the background. High grade gold deposits are in the order of 20-100 ppm. Gold concentrations are usually expressed in grams per ton, which is interchangeable to ppm.

So if gold is evenly spread through the crust how does it become concentrated? There are several natural processes that allow this to happen and they are all driven by the same force, plate tectonics. Plate tectonics is the force that moves continents, creates mountains and most volcanoes, and of course earthquakes. The image below shows the current tectonic plates and their names.

The plates are constantly moving, crashing into each other and subducting, they are pushed by convection currents in the mantle. In the distant past there have been several supercontinents where all the continents had come together to from one. Past supercontinents have names like Rodinia, Godwana and Pangea, it is predicted that a new supercontinent will occur in the next 250 million years.

At the boundaries of these plates is where the excitement happens. It is at these areas such as the West coast of North America where volcanic processes squeeze gold into veins. There are two main ways that this happens. Orogenesis (mountain building) takes place as the force of two plates hitting each other forms mountains as the edges of the plate buckle and slide. In the mountain forming process rock is squeezed to the point of breaking and creates fissures and faults that extend deep into the crust. These cracks allow heated and pressurized water to come up the cracks.

The other way is driven by volcanoes forming from the subducted plate. When the edge of the plate is far enough below the surface it re-melts and the newly molten rock builds up pressure. This pressurized molten rock is what forms the volcanic chains inland from the subduction zone. As volcanoes form they crack and fissure the surrounding rock and contribute to the same epithermal process.

Imagine the rock as a sponge and when it is squeezed the water is expelled through the cracks. It is actually the same way that hotsprings work but with more squeezing. This kind of gold mineralization often takes place near volcanic or geothermal activity such as hot springs or geysers. When the mineralized water cools it leaves behind the minerals in solid form which we then call a vein. Typically we are looking for quartz veins. Vein deposits are often called lode deposits in artisanal miner vocabulary. Placer miners will often refer to the “mother lode” that is the quartz vein or veins that broke down into rich placers.

There are other hard rock gold deposits other than epithermal lodes. There are Greenstone, volcanic massive sulphides, porphyry and Calrin trend deposits. All of these depend on volcanism as well and occur in similar ways as described above. Areas high in volcanoes and seismic activity are good places to look for gold. The Pacific ring of fire is an area surrounding the boundary of the Pacific tectonic plate. This area contains 3/4 of the worlds volcanoes and is responsible for 90% of the world’s seismic activity. In the gold rushes of the 1800’s prospectors envisioned a world wide gold belt. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that plate tectonics became an accepted scientific theory and decades later we mapped out that gold belt.Of course not all gold is found in the ring of fire. The largest known gold deposit on earth is in Witwatersrand, South Africa. It is estimated that 50% of the gold mined on earth has come from this mine. Witwatersrand is actually a huge placer deposit from 3 billion years ago. In my next post we’ll finally get to the formation of placer gold deposits. Stay tuned.

Check out Part 3 on how gold placers form:

Where Does Placer Gold Come From? – Part 3 Placer

Southern Cariboo Prospecting Trip

PlacerGold Trip Reports May 7, 2015ghost town, gold mining, gold pan, gold panning, Lillooet, placer claim 4 Comments

Here is another trip report from March. This trip was to a claim in the Cariboo region.

The claim is located approximately 30km to the North of the town of Lillooet on the Fraser River. Access to the claim was gained via Highway 1 from the lower mainland to Lillooet, then 4×4 roads to the claim. We took the West Pavillion FSR and turned onto an un-named dirt road towards the claim. The driving distance from Abbotsford is approximately 316km and took about 5.5 hours to drive. The map below shows the route taken.

Upon arrival to the claim we spotted some old buildings and decided to check them out. It turned out to be a really cool ghost town. There were several shacks that are still standing and a very well preserved church. I haven’t been able to find out any information on the ghost town. It is really one of the best preserved ghost towns that I have seen.

The trip was off to a great start. After checking out the ghost town we tried to find a suitable route down to the river. The sides of the river in this part of the valley are very steep. We tried out a route and it ended up being a little too steep, we were able to make it but it wasn’t easy.

The next morning after looking over the topo maps and weighing our experience from the previous day we decided to take an old creek bed down to the river. The creek bed was not a direct route but it is much easier walking and a fairly consistent grade. We arrived at the beach and began scouting sample locations and started digging.

We managed to get four samples this time. As usual we used a measured volume of material, screened on site and hand panned down to a manageable amount. The gold values were not super exciting from this round but there was gold in each sample. I saw some small flakes in the gold pan in a couple spots.

Across the river on a different claim we spotted some old mining equipment. It looks like an old trommel with a hopper and possibly some jigs. That property was a past producer but it looks like it hasn’t been worked in some time. After three days the trip was over and we headed back to civilization. To top off the trip we spotted some mountain sheep on the side of the highway.

Propsecting Tools: The Gold Pan

PlacerGold Equipment May 6, 2015gold mining, gold mining equipment, gold pan, gold panning, pyramid pan, vancouver 2 Comments

There is a whole world of tools to assist in gold prospecting out there. Every day you hear of a new innovative product that will do all the work for you and leave you with clean gold while you sit in your lawn chair and drink beer. Some of these claims are true, most are partially true or only work under ideal conditions.

There are concentrator jigs, highbanker sluices, magnetic machines, trommels of all shapes and sizes, rockers, dredges, blue bowls, miller tables and anything else you can imagine.

The quintessential tool for any prospector is and always has been the gold pan. It is the go to tool in the prospector’s tool kit. The concept is quite simple, you shovel gold bearing gravel into the pan, agitate it and allow the more dense material to reach the bottom. You then remove the lighter material from the upper layer and re-agitate. After repeating the motion several times you are left with only the dense material including gold. Everyone has their own little tricks for panning, including myself, but it all boils down to the same thing.

Gold pans have not changed dramatically over time, historically they used a metal, shallow smooth pan. Much like the one in the photo below. That’s me in the photo, I was on an exploration trip in the Yukon and found that pan in an old cabin. It was old and rusty but still worked.

Today there are many styles of pans available with different kinds of riffles and shapes. There are square pans, pyramid pans (which I’ll cover in a future post), and round pans. Also they come in different sizes from 6″ to 30″. Essentially the larger the pan, the more material you can run.

Realistically a pan is not a production gold separator by today’s standards. You will really use a pan to test areas to see if and how much gold is present. So a gigantic one doesn’t make a lot of sense. I use 14″ pans in the field for testing, they allow a reasonable amount of material to get an idea of the potential grade. I also have some smaller pans around 8″ diameter. They are great for the concentrating process after you have collected your samples.

I prefer the green plastic pans made by Garrett. The plastic gets roughed up over time and works to keep gold in the pan. Also they have very effective riffles and a smooth side for finer panning. The green color shows the gold really well. Black works OK but in my opinion green is the best for spotting small gold.

I don’t like metal pans for a couple reasons, they are heavier which matters to me because I go to a lot of rugged areas that require hiking in. They have less aggressive riffles. Metal pans are also susceptible to rust and they require that the oils left over from manufacturing be burned off prior to use.

As a beginner or experienced gold panner I recommend plastic pans. Check out the links below to get some for yourself.

Garrett 14″ Gold Pan ($10.60)

I have three of these pans and they work great. The big riffles make it easy to move lots of material. The gravity trap in the bottom holds fine gold very well. They are tough! I have fallen on them and dropped them down rock faces and they do not crack. Also the green color makes gold extra visible.

VAS 8″ Gold Pan ($5.79)

I have a couple of these smaller pans that I use for cleaning up samples and panning small amounts of material. This is a versatile pan, the large riffles work well when you have the pan full. I use the smaller riffles most of the time for fine panning. This pan also has a trap in the bottom like the Garrett and a similar green color.

Lytton Prospecting Trip

PlacerGold Trip Reports May 6, 2015gold mining, gold panning, Lytton, placer claim, pyramid pan 1 Comment

In March I took a trip to my new placer claim near Lytton, BC.

The claim is located approximately 30km to the North of the town of Lytton on the Fraser River.
Access to the claim was gained via Highway 1 from the lower mainland to Lytton, the ferry is taken to the West side of the river and then 4×4 roads to the claim. We took Spencer Road North which is a dirt road. The driving distance from Abbotsford is approximately 230km and took about 4 hours to drive. The map below shows the route taken.

This was my first time taking the ferry across the Fraser river. It is the weirdest ferry I’ve ever been on. The ferry is connected to large cables that are anchored on each side of the river. It travels along the cable as it goes across. Ther ferry is held up by what looks like two canoes. Once it starts moving it immediately drifts in line with the current, it is a bit of an unnerving feeling being such a small ferry.

Once past the ferry you are on to Spencer Road West which eventually become the Texas Creek FSR. The claim is about 30km up this road. The road is in decent shape but you don’t want to slide off. Check out these photos.

Once at the claim I was excited to find a way down to the beach to take some samples. First I had to set up my camp, I chose a location near the road for easy packing of gear.

While finding a way down I came across what looked like an ancient river channel. There is evidence that a creek may run through here seasonally but not this year since it was such a dry winter. The hike wasn’t too bad getting down there. Once at the beach I found a spot to start digging for my first sample.

I managed to get four samples over the two days that I was at the claim. Each sample consisted of a measured volume of material concentrated on site by gold panning by hand. I use a special pyramid pan to concentrate on site, more on that in a future post. I then concentrate the sample individually at home.

It was a good trip. There was gold in all my samples and I’ll definitely be going back to this claim. I’d like to investigate that possible channel as well.

New Blog

PlacerGold Uncategorized May 1, 2015aerial imagrey, Claims For Sale, drone, gold mining, gold mining equipment, gold panning, Vancouver drone 0 Comment

Hi this is my new blog. All about gold panning and exploration. I am an explorationist, that means that I explore for valuable minerals. I have worked in remote areas of North America, ranging from the Canadian Arctic, to Coastal British Columbia to the Central United States. I have worked for mineral and oil companies and searching for large deposits and for myself and others in search of smaller pay streaks.

This blog will be filed with exploration trip reports, information on gold mining equipment, and discussion about exploration topics and events.

There will also be a section for gold claims for sale. I have several gold claims throughout BC. A zoomable map will also be available on the Claims Page.

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