Where and how to dig year-round in Colorado. Includes links to specific prospecting sites recommended for each season of the year.
free gold panning
25 posts
Ben Parker is justifiably one of the heroes of the Colorado gold prospecting community. He was a student at Colorado School of Mines over 60 years ago. For his dissertation, he chose to create a compilation of ALL the information he could find about gold placer deposits across the state. […]
Announcing the latest book in the FInding Gold in Colorado series: The Wandering Prospector. Available now!
Hi all, the following article is from Paul Schiffer. Paul is a relatively new prospector who has taken a very intense approach to the initial learning process so I thought he would be a good person to write a guide for other new prospectors. Now here’s Paul:At some time, everyone […]
Gold prospecting in Puerto Rico dates back to at least the Spanish in the early to mid-1600’s, so it’s no surprise there’s still gold to be found today!! On a recent visit, my wife and I were able to spend some time gold panning the Mameyes River in the USFS […]
To help those of you planning trips, this simple map shows you which areas of the state are covered in each chapter of the book Finding Gold in Colorado – Prospectors Edition. This image should print fairly well at 8×10 but be sure to set your printer to “best” print […]
My book on gold prospecting across Colorado is now available here and ‘in stores everywhere’. It has even been updated for 2024. Awarded recognition as the “#1 New Release” in its category on Amazon in June 2018 and an “Amazon Bestseller” in May 2021 and frequently since! Over 10,000 sold […]
The Museum of Northwest Colorado (http://www.museumnwco.org) recently added a permanent exhibit on the gold prospecting and mining history of that part of our state. This area is not well known for gold since there was no significant gold rush around these parts. The historical prospectors found gold but the lack […]
Your author doing some off season digging in Colorado. The trees are brown, but the gold is still yellow!
The BLM reacquired the land and river south of Norwood Bridge after it had been in private ownership. This unclaimable land along the San Miguel River is now available for your non-motorized prospecting. The gold here is pretty good! You get to this area by taking highway 145 easterly and […]
Point Barr is unclaimable land on the Arkansas River where you can drive right to the riverside and get to digging! The gold here is the typical fine Arkansas River material. This means fairly consistent in size – small! This means it would be the ideal place to run a […]
I’m sitting at my computer, looking out the window at yet another winter storm (we’ve had almost 6 feet of snow this month (12/2016) here in Summit County!) and satisfying my gold fever with a little winter reading. I thought you might like to see some of the best of […]
A must-visit for any casual prospector spending time in the Colorado mountains, Cache Creek was a commercial operation that was shut down in the midst of productive operations. Of all the places open to casual prospecting in Colorado, this is the one to hit if you dream of finding a […]
The chunk of Clear Creek in north-central Denver from Broadway to Washington St. has some really good gold. This stretch of river also has quite a few bridges over it which does two good things: provides some shade for summer digging Means there’s bigger gold in the top gravels that […]
Dudley’s bar is upstream from Big Bend (see my other post on Big Bend) a bit. This part of the South Platte is just down stream of the confluence with Clear Creek and due to some quirks of river flows during high water events, there’s GOOD gold on the west […]
For a couple years, the Jefferson County Open Space website had a page on their rules for prospecting in the park and guess who they picked as a model for doing it right? In the pic, I’m dressed for cold weather because it was December! That’s a Gold Cube with […]
Goldstrike Park is an Arvada City park at the confluence of Ralston Creek and Clear Creek…both of which are gold bearing and open to non-motorized prospecting. On Ralston Creek, you can find fine gold just about anywhere in the stream bed. A large cobble bar has developed under the 56th […]
The gold in metro Denver is in almost every waterway big enough to have a name. In the early days of the gold rush this was confusing and frustrating for the first American prospectors. They found gold way out southeast in Elbert County, due south of what’s now Denver in […]
A friend of mine has done his own blogging about places to go digging in metro Denver and he has some great spots to tell you about. Red Wilcox is the co-inventor/owner of the Gold Cube, Banjo Pan and the inventor of the Gold-n-Sand hand pump/dredge. (Note: I have an […]
Exit 210C off of northbound I-25 in downtown Denver drops you right into Crescent Park on the east side of the highway. Driving a few yards south, you’ll see parking next to the South Platte River. Walk straight to the river and you’ll find yourself on the cobble bar. From […]
This is a bad news, good news story. But first, a little background. Grant-Frontier Park is on the South Platte River just South of Evans Ave (and west of Santa Fe) in central Denver. This has been a popular gold prospecting location since the very beginning of US citizens coming […]
This is a spot you have to see to believe! Big Bend has good gold and lots of it! It’s officially called Steele Street Open Space Park and is part of the Adams County Open Space parks. You arrive at a parking lot on the east side of Steele Street […]
People have been “finding gold in Colorado” since well before there was a place called Colorado and are still actively doing it today. From American Indian residents of this area and early Spanish and French explorers finding gold in the streams and using it in trade, to modern residents digging in […]
