Digging in the city means participating in recreational gold prospecting as a guest of a local government, parks & rec district or similar organization.
While the tools of prospecting are the same (shovel, pan and sluice, maybe an electric highbanker like the Gold Cube), the process of finding a spot to dig is vastly different. No worries about the BLM, National Forest Service or checking on prior mining claims at the county clerk office. Instead, once you find a spot you’d like to dig, go to the local county assessor website to find the parcel of land there. The assessor website will hopefully (usually) have an interactive map you can use to spot your spot and see who owns it. Then you contact the owner to ask permission, or just review their website to confirm rules of use.
Metro Denver:
– Most waterways in South metro Denver (north Douglas county, western Arapahoe county and Denver county itself) are owned by parks and rec districts or stormwater management districts who have chosen to allow, or ignore, casual recreational prospecting, treating it as rock hounding. As private ranches were converted over to housing developments in recent decades, the waterways went from being unaccessible private property to highly accessible public property. This is exciting since there’s been a dramatic increase in available placers for prospectors to explore. Many of these creeks are gold bearing and are virgin dirt due to being too small to have ever attracted commercial attention. Generally, the creeks feeding into the South Platte carry gold and are controlled by local authorities who DO allow manual prospecting. Waterways that feed into Cherry Creek also often carry gold but in Douglas County, many are managed by Douglas County Open Space which doesn’t allow any disturbance to the lands…you can’t even pick a blade of grass to chew as you hike along! For more about gold in South metro Denver check out this post:
https://findinggoldincolorado.com/so-where-did-all-this-gold-come-from-anyway/
Cherry Creek itself running through Denver has gold too, mostly carried downstream out of the Castle Rock formation zone I suppose. Read about it here:
– West metro Denver waterways don’t tend to carry gold with the exception of the South Platte River, Ralston Creek and Clear Creek. I’ve written about all of these waterways in other articles so here I’ll just say, “check the rules and go prospecting!”
– North metro Denver includes the downstream segments of the waterways listed in above in west metro Denver, namely Clear Creek and the South Platte River. In every case the gold continues to be present downstream. I’ve also written about some hot spots in this part of town such as here, but there are other spots out there such as the little Adams County Open Space Park on the south side of 70th Ave a bit east of Washington, really just downstream of the I-76 bridge. That one is a bit of a walk to get to since the county closed the parking lot at that site. Go for a walk, sample, prospect and dig!
– East metro Denver has virtually no areas of interest since the creeks are chock full of light quartz sand. Any gold is under many feet of sand in most cases.
A Key Resource: This map will show you every tiny little stream across metro Denver…go check out the ones near you! When you use this map, be sure to click the boxes on the right for ‘world transportation’ to show the roads. I also like to click ‘municipalities’ to orient myself to the towns.
It bears repeating that you need to know who owns the land and what their rules of use are before you dig! Or just read my articles and guidebooks of course, I’m here for ya!
Here’s a typical small but gold bearing suburban creek running full and murky after a rainstorm:
Although you can’t see it in the picture, this spot is quite close to a car repair shop on one side and a neighborhood on the other!
General Tips for prospecting in town:
– Land that is a tax assessor parcel displayed on the assessor website with no owner, or is “not a parcel,” is owned by the county. In that case the county laws apply. There are NO counties who ban casual, non-motorized prospecting. IF the land is administered by a parks and rec district, their rules are important to respect but often that’s not the case.
– Stay out of manicured park areas at all times. If the grass is mowed up to the edge of the creek, you aren’t welcome there.
– Access to these areas can be easily revoked by local authorities if damage is done or other recreational land users complain about prospector behavior or how we leave our dig sites. Please be very, very careful to follow the rules and be a good ambassador for all prospectors. Please leave things as you find them and pack out any trash you find.
– Gas powered equipment is not allowed anywhere in metro Denver. You’ll have to head into the foothills and mountains west of town to use gas powered gear.
Some of these creeks rise several feet (with records up to 8-10 feet) during sudden spring/summer storms so be careful out there. Drownings have occurred in the urban creeks of metro Denver in recent years!
– None of this land can be claimed as a federal mining claim; sharing is the approach here.
– Places where all prospecting is banned include:
- Douglas County Open Space
- Boulder County Open Space
- Wheatridge east of the designated prospecting area at Arapahoe Bar
- Cherry Creek State Park and Chatfield State Park
- Jefferson County Open Space except Clear Creek and the South Platte River (but that’s OK since the other relevant creeks don’t have gold)
Here’s what 2 hours of digging in a metro hot spot looks like:
(Dug July 9-10, 2016)
Just west of town the rules are much more wide open. Learn more in my article here.
For a page full of all my articles on places to dig, click here.
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11 thoughts on “Finding spots to dig in town (metro Denver)”
Where bouts did you find that color in 2 hrs if u dont mind sharing? I’ve never had that good of a pan ever. Nice page by the way!
Good question! Sadly I cleaned out that little honey hole so it wouldn’t help any to tell you. However, if you follow the instructions in my blog post you’ll be able to find your own honey hole just like it I think. Good luck!
Another spot for urban prospectors to try: Big Dry Creek upstream from it’s confluence with the S. Platte in Englewood. From Federal Blvd, go east on Union Ave over the Platte river bridge, then turn south on Wyandot. There’s a parking area where you can access the creek and bike trail. 39.630512 -105.014459 on google maps. Bike trail follows the creek, easy access and cart-friendly.
You can also access it taking Windermere ST. south from Belleview. There’s a parking area for a bark park. Check out the inside bends downstream from there to the Platte. I do better here than at the actual confluence with the Platte.
The gold comes from in it’s headwaters in Daniels Park, the same ridge that runs down into Castle Rock.
I’ve run into the local sheriff there and she doesn’t mind. It’s an industrial area.
The gold I’ve found so far is decent size, compared to typical color you’ll find in the Platte. I encourage others to give it a try and let us know how you do. It flash flooded this summer (July 2016) and went way out of it’s banks. I haven’t tried it yet since then but it blew out a lot of the sand clogging the creek and left the bigger, cleaner (and heavier) stuff behind. Good winter project.
The nice thing about it, the water flow is pretty constant and warm, doesn’t freeze in the winter. It’s pretty brushy and overgrown in the summer. Something to file away for a nice winter day. Good flow rate and slope for sluicing, I can run a Bazooka there year-round.
That’s super info to share, thanks! I’ve dug Big Dry Creek several places upstream of there and seen a little gold but always been annoyed by all the light sand and low water flows…together that means slow, unproductive digging. It didn’t occur to me that further downstream would be better. Thanks for sharing!
Tried Big Dry Creek today while I was in the area. Not a great place to find gold in my opinion. One color in many sample pans.
Those south Denver metro creeks are like that. Hot spots exist but not every spot will be good. Better luck next time 🙂
An excerpt from ‘http://www.englewoodco.gov/our-community/englewood-history’
“Englewood’s beginnings are traced to gold. In the mid-1800s, prospectors on their way to California stopped in Colorado to pan its streams. One of these prospectors was a man from Georgia named William Green Russell. He and 12 other miners found gold in the South Platte River, and established a Placer Camp near the confluence of Little Dry Creek and the South Platte River in an area that would eventually become Englewood. This Placer Camp washed out more gold than they had found in all their previous prospecting, and triggered the beginning of the “Pikes Peak or Bust” gold rush of 1859.”
I thought this was interesting to share concerning to the topic of urban prospecting in and around the south Platte.
Good share, thanks!!Even better, you can still go to that spot and find gold today. It won’t be rich like it was for them but still…I love finding gold in historically significant spots like that!
Absolutely! I was always under the false impression that you had to go up into the mountains to find gold – I’m sure that’s the case if you’re wanting to “strike it rich”. But, for newcomers such as myself, it’s nice knowing that we can start out around town and still have some luck even as little as it may be. I’m gonna work my way up and down the Platte in that area and see if I’ll have any luck *fingers crossed*
HI! Im new in Denver with Metal Detector in hand, where do I go?
In most parts of Colorado the gold is not big enough to detect. I’m not a detectorist myself. However someone who visits this site may have a tip for you.
You could try the tailings piles at Fairplay Beach. The dredge there spat out all the rocks bigger than about an inch. There’s an article about that spot on here on my website.