Prospectors often ask each other when they got ‘the fever’. For me it came when I was a six-year-old kid. My dad used to read National Geographic magazine to my little brother and I after dinner. We had fun with the stories about gold prospecting in Australia, Africa, etc. In August of 1969 the magazine included a story about gold in Colorado. I was fascinated and at the age of 6 was soon digging pretend mines in our front yard (before my parents planted grass of course!).
Things got a little more serious when I moved to Colorado in May of 1989 and went to “Digger’s Old-Timer” run by “Digger” and Diana Cummings. This, now long gone, place in North Clear Creek Canyon just west of Denver welcomed about 5,000 tourists and locals each summer who wanted to learn to pan. You could buy a bucket of pay dirt dug out of a hillside gravel deposit (a “bench placer”) to pan out. By the time my (very) patient wife and I left that day, I had a few flakes of wild gold caught in my vial and a couple gold pans of my own. Of course back then it was pretty tough to find information on where else you could dig. As you’ll learn here in many of my articles, it’s much easier now!
Many years later my wife said something like “With the kids out of the house a lot these days, you need to find some hobbies!”. My response was that I already had hobbies, I just wasn’t doing them. And so, I ramped back up on gold prospecting and also on brewing my own beer. Since Father’s Day 2011, I’ve been out prospecting multiple times every month around the calendar. I’ve only missed two months since then! Matching that with a desire to see the whole state of Colorado, I got sucked into doing extensive research on places to dig and gold tourism sites around the state. All of that led to this site and my plans to write a book…which really happened! My main guide book is over 460 pages and has over 180 public access dig sites in it!! Want to learn more about our books? Click HERE
By the way, today if you drive up Clear Creek Canyon toward Central City & Blackhawk, you’ll drive past the wastewater treatment plant for those towns. Sadly, that’s what sits where The Oldtimer’s place used to be. However, there’s good news: a bit further along you’ll come to a similar place where you can learn to pan and even dig in the creek yourself. If you stop at Vic’s Gold Panning, be sure to say hi from me! Give Jesse a ring at 303-582-0710 to make plans to stop by 🙂 Learn more about his place here: https://findinggoldincolorado.com/vics-gold-panning/
On the way up the canyon from metro Denver, as you enjoy the amazing scenery and cool little road tunnels, you are also driving right past some good spots to dig! Learn more about that here: https://findinggoldincolorado.com/clear-creek-canyon-tips/
Meanwhile, how did you catch the fever?
Photo note: My gold production from an hour or so in a honey hole in metro Denver. Follow this blog to learn (almost) all my secrets 😉
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9 thoughts on “My journey here…”
I must say on your photo note, that is a lot of gold for an hours worth of work, I would call that good for a days worth of work. That is a nice honey hole.
To answer your question about how I caught the fever, my grandmother was a prospector and rock hound, my grandfather was an all around outdoorsman. In the summer of 1969, I was 4 years old, my grandparents brought me and my family on a gold prospecting trip to Maine, they knew a lot of cool rustic places to stay usually a rustic cabin, some time with electric. They knew this old prospector/ miner who lived up in the woods by the river at the time he was in his 80’s and had been there since his 40’s. We went to visit him, although I was only 4 years old it was a lasting impression. As a kid we would go on prospecting trips with my grandparents. When I was 10 we moved away from New England so as a teen I didn’t do any prospecting any more. Just talked with my grandmother about it. Before my grandmother passed away she gave me her rock collection and here prospecting equipment. It would be some years before I put it to use. Lets just say I went down to Georgia on a prospecting trip, started getting gold and that was it I had the fever.
Wow great story…you sure have me beat on starting early! Neat to have it run in the family. I bet your grandparents got great joy from that time together. I hope you find the same opportunities in your turn!
On the photo, yes that was definitely a thrilling result. We all wish every day was like that. The cool part is, that honey hole is (I should was WAS since I cleaned it out!) in metro-Denver a few miles from my home in the south suburbs!
…thanks for sharing your story in a comment!
I miss my grandparents, my grandmother would be very pleased to see that I have put to use the things that she taught me and that I still use her notes and old metal gold pan and shovel.
I started with a western trip with my family back about 1965. We stopped at Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. You could pan for gold at Knott’s Berry Farm (salted). I got a vial with gold and a small gold pan. Ever since then I wanted to pan for gold. My first real chance was when I moved to Colorado in 1982. Within a year, I was in creeks and rivers looking for gold. I knew there was no gold in Monument Creek, but we were close, so I used my new gold pans to get black sand from the creek (no gold, though I was hopeful). Later I went to Cache Creek and other spots along the Arkansas River. Since then, if in gold country, I have been trying to get out and find some gold.
Great site! What an excellent resource especially for newbies like me! Thank you for taking the time in putting it together for all of us!
As a teenager, I used to work for Digger for two summers in I think ’81 or ’82. I was the one on the back hill early in the morning digging out the material and bringing it to the box for the tourists to pan from. I’d get up there early and then when it started to get busy, he would wave my off the hill to come teach people to pan. My final test first was that I had to pan down a HUGE pan piled high down to black sand in less than two minutes…lol His lungs were failing him even as I was working with him but he loved what he did. It was a perfect retirement for him after being in academics for most of his life. I am trying to remember his good friends’ name that would drink beer with him when the day was done…. it was like bob or chuck or something. long grey beard, longtime prospector as well. I too was saddened when I saw the sewer plant on the claim when I went back several years ago. 🙁
Awesome story, thanks for sharing it here!
How come there’s not much here on the steamboat lake hauns peak area? There was a gold rush that happened up there. It’d be cool to learn about some info good spots for that area.
HI Keith, There is some info on the Hahn’s Peak area in my book Finding Gold in Colorado: Prospector’s Edition. Unfortunately what you will learn is that there is gold in the area but the land is all either private or claimable. As such only a fairly sophisticated prospector can go prospecting up there. You have to know how to do the research to avoid unmarked private land and unmarked claims BEFORE you go digging. As a result, I don’t cover that area as a place for casual prospectors.