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The Fat Blob Incident
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Gold Diggers Home 2009 Entries: Getting Excited Trommel Time Little Smoky Creek Gold
Little Smoky Creek Gold
I love Little Smoky Creek, and sometimes I think it even loves me. We have a great camping spot up there, off the main road, alongside a small tributary, tucked away in the trees and willows, just big enough for us, and small enough that neighbors can't move in. (Sorry, I don't mean to sound anti-social, but I don't go to the mountains to start a community. I like to have some space to myself.)
We made several trips up there last year with one specific question in mind. Can the trommel I built be used to recover more gold than classifying and sluicing by hand?
The answer? Yes, but no it didn't.
Let me explain. The trommel definitely helped me move a lot more material than I did last year. However, in the end, I ended up with about the same amount of gold.
As it turns out, I simply dug in a better spot last year. The reason I didn't dig in the same place this year is because the water was higher. Last year, my trips to Little Smoky were all in the fall. This year I went earlier in the summer and so I chose another location where I wouldn't be digging underwater. I planned on moving back to the other location later in the year as the water level dropped, but by then I had shifted my efforts to the Boise Gold claim so I never did.
However, I did like the new spot. It was up on the high bank of an inside corner, and there was a nice, easy to see, red layer where all the gold was contained. Of course, I didn't know that to start with. I dug all over the place before I realized I needed to simply "stay in the red".
After I figured that out, however, it was great. There was anywhere from 6-18 inches of overburden (dirt with no gold) that had to be removed to get to the red layer, but like I said, it was easy to see.
Naturally, we found the most gold when that red layer lay right on top of the bedrock, especially in pockets just downstream and over the top edge of the bedrock. And, just as naturally, the best gold we found was on the last day we were there, in the last buckets we dug. In other words, if you want to go up there and take over where we left off, I think you'll do well.
As well, we scraped the bedrock off as good as we could, but I'd bet if somebody had one of the vacuums that can be used to suck dirt and really clean the last bits of material up off the bedrock, there's probably some good stuff still there that we missed.
This is a picture of the biggest piece we found, in the last buckets on the last day. Now, I know it's nothing huge, but it's way bigger than anything else I've ever found. Unfortunately, Idaho isn't known for big nuggets like California and Alaska are. Still, it's also a cool piece because it has a bit of quartz embedded in it. That's a .22 bullet placed next to it for size comparison.
One thing I didn't expect that happened was the claim jumper attack I had to fight off. Just like in the old days, lazy thieves who don't want to do their own work are always hanging around trying to steal from those who do.
These are the pictures taken of me fighting off the claim jumper attack. They came at me from both sides in the initial wave. My son, Lance, distracted them by providing an easy target with a goofy smile, while I drew two pistols and prepared to do battle.
I took careful aim, firing first to the left, then to my right, alternating with each pistol so as to give neither side a break from fire.
Then, having wiped out the smaller force on my left, I turned both pistols toward the main group attacking from the right.
Lance's confidence in my warrior abilities is evident by the fact he remained standing proud during the entire attack. Although, it was probably a stupid thing to do, it did motivate me to continue fighting hard until all my enemies were vanquished.
Oh all right so there weren't really any claim jumpers. It was still fun to take the pictures.
Here's some more cool pictures and stories from Little Smoky Creek.
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