In Search of Gold California Gold Country

A Promise of Gold...
Article by Dave Antonucci

Coloma

Back in my prospecting days, sounds cool doesn’t it, like I was an old timer, but back then my buddy and I, or maybe just by myself, we’d take off in my 4x4 pick up without so much as a plan of exploration. Rather we would just charge across the San Joaquin Valley and drive up into an area we wanted to head back to. The previous trip held some yet to be discovered promise of gold. We would start a new journey into some far-flung county in our ever-grandfatherly Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was like a really thick history book that you just loved to check out of the library but had to return much too soon. Sometimes you didn’t even know if it would be on the shelf the next time you went in, always hoping to see it waiting for your hungry mind. Yep, that’s the gold country for the average Californian who had contracted the fever. You thought it was the history that kept you dreaming of fragrant pine forests but really it was the underlying thoughts of gold hidden in the rocks that kept you looking at the calendar. It was always weekend trips or maybe a lucky three-day getaway but it was never long enough. Still isn’t. You know back then, fresh out of college, plans weren’t necessary. We always had the camping kit ready to go. Just add the basic staples, lots of cold ones and throw the latest clump of old maps you discovered at a garage sale into the cab and you’re off.

"Boys need places to run and hide in,
places to explore, places to just be boys in.”

Coloma Anyone who grew up in California had a keen sense of private property. There are more fences and signs than open land . Don’t get me wrong, we have a tremendous amount of national forest land but much of the gold country is in private hands. Where I grew up in the Bay Area just about any kid who tried to ride a dirt bike or maybe just hike into the local reservoir realized his days were numbered. You could only get away with stuff like that so many times. It was always under the watchful eye of some irritable wretch who wanted nothing better than to chase you off his oh-so-selfishly guarded private land. Man, we got sick and tired of that stuff! Boys need places to run and hide in, places to explore, places to just be boys in. The San Francisco Bay Area had very little of that. We were well versed on the routine. Give a 19 year old a 4x4 and he is going to know most of the local sheriffs shortly. So by the time we were prospecting, my buddy and I were pretty cagey about working in and around those private property signs. What we eventually found was that if you just asked, the folks in the gold country were a little bit more romantic about what property they owned, giving you permission to climb around the old tailing piles abandoned on their back 40. We made quite a few friends while prospecting. One sympathetic couple even let us spend a night in a vintage miner’s cabin on their property.

“They picked a bunch of wild black berries near the river and cooked them down into a wonderful thick, sweet preserve.”

Coloma That was a blast! There was an honest-to-goodness miner’s cabin complete with a converted 30-gallon drum, homemade wood stove. They were concerned that the oft drunken property owner next door would shoot us if he found us camped out in the tailing piles. That was if the scorpions and rattlesnakes didn’t get us first. That, by the way, was my first prospecting trip. Another trip where I was mining alone, I camped near two brothers who had been traveling across the U.S. prospecting any place that had a gold rush in its history. They had a bit of the old timers in them. They picked a bunch of wild black berries near the river and cooked them down into a wonderful thick, sweet preserve. I was invited to a number of inventive meals and had the pleasure of watching the two of them wrestle an entire cooked chicken, whole, out of a one-gallon can. Plop! It tasted about as good as it looked - odd. They had purchased closeout, restaurant size, canned everything to save money on their 7,000-mile odyssey. They pitched a separate, stand up size tent, just for their food. Organized it like a store - meat on this isle, fruit over there. It was kind of amazing considering where we were. I miss those early prospecting trips. I recall one time having nothing left to eat but canned chili and a box of ice cream cones. Bet you never thought of putting those two together? Tastes great but you only have about 45 seconds before the hot chili blows out the bottom of the ice cream cone. Once you own a claim, the “holey grail” of amateur mining, you think you’re a made man but then you remember all the precipitous backwoods ambling that got you to this pinnacle of gold hunting. Having all your equipment cached on your claim, and knowing you will be the only human for 30 miles is a satisfying feeling. But it just means from here on out, all your trips will be to the same place. It lacks the spirit of the original 49ers; the best strike will always be over the next hill. Pick up, pack up and look for the next roaring stream to test your skills in. Of course while you’re doing that you’re thinking how great it would be to have your own claim with bucket loads of gold nuggets just waiting for your super duper suction dredge. Geez, miners are all the same! What started this recent restlessness in my head was a book my dad gave me titled “The Hell Roarin’ Forty Niners” published back in 1927 by Robert Welles Ritchie. Ritchie went packing into the gold country and wrote about what was still visible back in the ‘20s, which was a lot compared to today’s offerings. It brought back all those weekend prospecting trips with my buddy. Ritchie had interviewed probably the last of the original old timers, the real 49ers. The book is filled with colorful first person impressions of the gold rush. Not the homogenized stories of ghost towns that Sunset Magazine has written about over and over. Man, did it stoke the fire within me. It just plain swept the winter cobwebs clear out of my head. I had been to about half the places mentioned in the book. Lots and lots of memories are acquired from about 18 years of prospecting.

“Most of the mineral bearing land is claimed by people who never mine it.”

Coloma Currently my buddy and I are trying to purchase the claim down stream from us. It would lock us into enough streambed to keep us mining for the rest of our years. Purchasing claims in the Mother Load is an unfortunate game. Over the years entrepreneurial types have found that selling claims is easier work than working the streambeds looking for gold. Most of the mineral-bearing land is claimed by people who never mine it. Forget about the fact that all claims need to be actively mined to stay “claimed”. There is no agency to enforce the miner’s code. Back in the 49er days, if you left your claim for more than 14 days it was up for grabs. Today’s claims are much larger than in 1849.Now each claim can be up to 20 acres per person listed on that claim. End on end that equals about 1⁄4 mile of streambed you control. It does not take many claims to lock up a complete waterway. On paper you’d think the gold rush has continued since everything in the region has a name and active claim number attached to it. The reality is there may be only one actively mined claim about every couple three miles of creek. And if those miners are like most, they will put in about two to three weeks a summer dredging. So in the big picture, it’s pretty quiet in the old mines. Certain places like the North Fork of the Yuba or on club claims you will see five or six dredges clumped together here and there and the old mining camaraderie will start to surface. Although there is always one old geezer who will appoint him self “mine monitor” and will go around reading the riot act to anyway who will pay him some attention. So instead, we continue do the research at the BLM office and keep looking for little forgotten pieces of creek with names like Missouri Bar, Poverty Hill and Poker Flat. All of them had gold and will still provide nuggets if you’re persistent. Finding the claim is the hard part unless you are willing to shell out $3,500 for the wayward “pack in only” claim like ours and just buy the rights. Twenty-acre claims on the North Fork Yuba with nice highway access sell for around $20,000. I think people believe they are “buying” vacation property and not mineral rights. God love ‘em. I’ll stick to my 800-foot deep canyon. So what was this rambling all about? Go prospecting! It’s your right and heritage to pursue the things that made the world turn on its ear back in 1849. Take your kids or best buddy and head for the gold country. There is so much to be enjoyed wandering about in the Sierras. Love this place and protect what we have been given. A few of you will be like me. The fever will take hold and burn forever. Maybe I’ll pass you on a mountain trail someday and we can swap stories. Anyone wanting to know where to start and what to bring just drop me an e-mail and I would be more than happy to suggest a few basics for easy gold prospecting.

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Free Gold!
Article by Dave Antonucci.