Signs of Gold Mining

Our favorite spot to dig for gold is on some BLM land close to Laguna Dam.  There are holes where people have done some extensive digging.  They dug so far into the hillside in the bottom picture that the "cave" they dug collapsed and all you see is the piles of dirt that cover the area.  We do not go into the caves for two reasons -- they could collapse without warning or there could be some poisonous creature inside enjoying the shade. 

We have learned from an old gold miner that you really only need to run the top couple of feet of the dirt in this area because its flood gold left behind from when the Colorado River flooded over before all of the dams were built.    So if he is correct than these people digging deep into the hillside probably aren't finding very much.  We would love to talk to someone who has worked these holes to find out if they really have been finding anything.   We hope to be out there this week -- we had one little bit of rain a week and a half ago and the ground was too wet to drywash.  Its amazing how little rain it takes for the ground to soak it in and retain the moisture.