Looking for a (Labor) Paid Guide Near Breckenridge 7/12 to 7/15, Gold/Fossils...Geology. Stratification. Love it all. Options

[OkieCoyote]

First off, I'm a petroleum engineering student at TU (I'd go to CSM but I can't afford the cost of living!) that really appreciates the geologic aspect. But I'm from Oklahoma...only thing anybody ever rushed for here was free land! I tried finding a nice deep eddy in a deep canyon creek in NE OK and got heavy black sands but nothing shiny, but the geologic surveys didn't indicate much. I'm as amazed as the cashier at the tool outlet that they carried mining pans!

This time I want to come home with some flakes. Not expecting to find a nugget, I just want to find some. I'm open to panning, sluicing, whatever, and I'm a big guy, I can carry equipment. But a "guided tour" would be appreciated and compensated. Please reply or message me.

Thanks

[CP]

Hi OkieCoyote and welcome to the forum!

There are no legally run "guided tours" to recommend, but we do have a great club membership that helps you learn to successfully guide yourself in the field to find some nice gold! Also, many of our club members meet up out in the field quite frequently through the season. Many are more than happy to have new comers along on the adventures they share too!
Make yourself right at home browsing around and best of luck on your prospecting this season. Hope you find lots of pretty yella" stuff!

For details about the club memberships should you be interested just click on our club membership page here
Colorado Prospector club membership details We'd all be happy to have your future participation in the club too!

[OkieCoyote]

Hi OkieCoyote and welcome to the forum!

There are no legally run "guided tours" to recommend, but we do have a great club membership that helps you learn to successfully guide yourself in the field to find some nice gold! Also, many of our club members meet up out in the field quite frequently through the season. Many are more than happy to have new comers along on the adventures they share too!
Make yourself right at home browsing around and best of luck on your prospecting this season. Hope you find lots of pretty yella" stuff!

For details about the club memberships should you be interested just click on our club membership page here
Colorado Prospector club membership details We'd all be happy to have your future participation in the club too!

Hey CP, thanks for the reply! I've been looking around at some info on various public spots in the area. I do have a couple of pans from my attempt to pan gold here I was hoping to partner up with someone who has a portable sluice and get the "full experience" (I'm a college student, but I'm a returning older student. . .I am used to shovel-duty, carrying the heavy stuff, and doing the hardest work). I'd love to go with someone who has the equipment and the experience to help me learn what all I'm doing. I refined my panning technique a little (it's kind of difficult when the proof you're doing it right isn't present in the sediment!) but I'd like to learn more about the process, and in return I'm basically offering a free day's labor (and I'd buy lunch, fuel, etc). I'm 6'2" and 200lbs, I can get after it when there is someone in charge who knows what they're doing!

Ideally I'd like to take out an oldtimer, someone who started prospecting decades before I was born, and I would like to enable them to have a full outing with their equipment put to use to their directions, and let them "supervise" as much as they'd like. This is an opportunity for me, and I'm thankful to still be an able-bodied young man, so if I can help out an old time prospector get back to panning by being the pack mule and the shovel operator, that would be great.

[OkieCoyote]

Hi OkieCoyote and welcome to the forum!

There are no legally run "guided tours" to recommend, but we do have a great club membership that helps you learn to successfully guide yourself in the field to find some nice gold! Also, many of our club members meet up out in the field quite frequently through the season. Many are more than happy to have new comers along on the adventures they share too!
Make yourself right at home browsing around and best of luck on your prospecting this season. Hope you find lots of pretty yella" stuff!

For details about the club memberships should you be interested just click on our club membership page here
Colorado Prospector club membership details We'd all be happy to have your future participation in the club too!

If I joined "the club", do you think I'd better my chances of finding a willing partner? I've searched for diamonds at the worlds only public diamond mine, I want to mine for gold now. I'd love to bring home a nugget, but a few flakes would work. I just doubt that I even have shovels available for my use when I'm there. . .I could pack my pan in a carry on, get a bucket from a hardware store, and be pretty close. . .but I'd rather not have to get down to the point that I'm buying "disposable" shovels to do any panning!

[Crusty]

I'd be glad to take you out somewhere, but I'll be out of state during that time.

If you're hoping for a "nugget," Colorado isn't a likely destination to deliver for you lol We've got lots of fine gold and a fair amount of pickers, but not a lot of "nuggets." For most of us stream sluicing, a good day is getting a gram or two.

[OkieCoyote]

I'd be glad to take you out somewhere, but I'll be out of state during that time.

If you're hoping for a "nugget," Colorado isn't a likely destination to deliver for you lol We've got lots of fine gold and a fair amount of pickers, but not a lot of "nuggets." For most of us stream sluicing, a good day is getting a gram or two.

Aw, well I appreciate it but too bad that timing won't work out!

Honestly I just want a few flakes that I can say I found myself, I wouldn't expect to find a nugget even if they were known to be found in the area regularly! I don't go to casinos or play the lottery either. . .my luck isn't that good lol, so I've learned to rely on persistence.

[OkieCoyote]

I was land surveying before I started back at college, and this summer I've been doing environmental surveying for pipelines, if it comes down to it I'll just read up on some locations and set out on foot with my 24 hour pack, shovel, bucket, and pan. I'm going to be in a condo in Breckenridge by myself, I can't imagine just sitting around!

[nate]

Welcome to the forums okie! Ditto to what the above folks said. I do highly recommend a membership as the information you can access is invaluable. What are the dates you will be here again? I think I'm missing them in your previous posts.

Colorado prospector is a huge resource for finding areas to legally dig. In the last couple years I've been a part of 8 or 10 outings and always had something to take home.. .and more importantly learned a whole bunch. It's very possible that there will be a members outing during your time here.....even if it's not a gold outing, you may be tempted by some crystals.

Breckenridge is a great area for gold,(toms baby was found there) but to my knowledge there is little to no open areas worth prospecting. Definitely do your land use research before heading out if you are soloing.

[CP]

If I joined "the club", do you think I'd better my chances of finding a willing partner? I've searched for diamonds at the worlds only public diamond mine, I want to mine for gold now. I'd love to bring home a nugget, but a few flakes would work. I just doubt that I even have shovels available for my use when I'm there. . .I could pack my pan in a carry on, get a bucket from a hardware store, and be pretty close. . .but I'd rather not have to get down to the point that I'm buying "disposable" shovels to do any panning!

Yep if you join the club I would think you'd have a great chance of hooking up with one or more of the club members while you're here with this much time left before then to make a plan with em". Also, I'm betting if you can hook up with anyone, they'll more than likely be happy to let you use a couple tools like shovels and buckets etc if needed. Our club members are just plain ol' awesome in that way!!
I sure think you'd enjoy club membership, not just on this trip but well before and after too.

Oh and there is a spot or two in Summit county for researched club areas also.

[OkieCoyote]

Welcome to the forums okie! Ditto to what the above folks said. I do highly recommend a membership as the information you can access is invaluable. What are the dates you will be here again? I think I'm missing them in your previous posts.

Colorado prospector is a huge resource for finding areas to legally dig. In the last couple years I've been a part of 8 or 10 outings and always had something to take home.. .and more importantly learned a whole bunch. It's very possible that there will be a members outing during your time here.....even if it's not a gold outing, you may be tempted by some crystals.

Breckenridge is a great area for gold,(toms baby was found there) but to my knowledge there is little to no open areas worth prospecting. Definitely do your land use research before heading out if you are soloing.

I am flying in the afternoon of the 10th and leaving late on the 15th! I have a whitewater trip through Royal Gorge on the 11th, but other than that I have no obligations! I am looking to hire a fly-fishing guide as well, but I have a feeling it will be easier to find a fishing guide than someone familiar with the geology of the area! Crystals would be just as cool as gold, to me at least. All of the geology classes I've taken gave me more of an appreciation for "rocks" than I'd had before!

We don't have much in the way crystals in this part of OK either (maybe some small pieces of quarts cemented into the limestone that prevails in my particular area), so anything like that would be great! I went diamond mining at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas when I was about 10, and I've always enjoyed looking for fossils. I have a small collection of rocks I'd throw in my pocket while working as a roughneck on a small truck-mounted rig and shoveling away the cuttings. Occasionally we'd be a hundred feet down and some pretty interesting looking rocks would start popping out! We have "rose rocks" here, but they're not much to look at.

[OkieCoyote]

Yep if you join the club I would think you'd have a great chance of hooking up with one or more of the club members while you're here with this much time left before then to make a plan with em". Also, I'm betting if you can hook up with anyone, they'll more than likely be happy to let you use a couple tools like shovels and buckets etc if needed. Our club members are just plain ol' awesome in that way!!
I sure think you'd enjoy club membership, not just on this trip but well before and after too.

Oh and there is a spot or two in Summit county for researched club areas also.

I will have to see if I can spare the membership fee, but that shouldn't be a problem for, at the very least, good info on areas open to panning! I was already looking at topo's and aerials of the area and scouting out places to check for claims. Sounds like I could even benefit from some resources as far as rock hounding here in OK!

[OkieCoyote]

So I put my newly acquired camera gear to good use (I was once an amateur race car driver and semi-professional photographer. . .Lol, but I traded my camera and lenses for an AR-15 about 6 years ago. . .) and took some pics of the rocks I pulled up when I was drilling. It was just a few, although I do have more in storage somewhere. The first 1 is probably boring for you guys. It looks to be igneous/metamorphic like marble, the second looks to be sedimentary because it almost has some petrified wood-like characteristics on the rough surface and you can see clear stratification. The 3rd and 4th. . .they blew my mind. I always thought they were just shiny and black. They're smoky-opaque with shiny inside. I'm trying to think of what hole these came out of! It wasn't more than 80ft deep lol, where there's a will there's a way!

ADS_4785 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/150550051@N05/

ADS_4788 (2) by https://www.flickr.com/photos/150550051@N05/

ADS_4793 (2) by https://www.flickr.com/photos/150550051@N05/

ADS_4794 (2) by https://www.flickr.com/photos/150550051@N05/

What've I got here?!

[OkieCoyote]

I want to try polishing one with my dremel...but I don't even know what the interesting ones actually are. They could try to shear...makes me nervous! But I want to do what I can without damaging them when I clean them. I did put the piece of marble (?) into some mild acid (vinegar, I think?) to dissolve some calcite stuck to the surface, I can't recall for sure because that was many years and quite a few finals ago. We have a ton of limestone down here as the first layer of bedrock, so to find that without big concretions was unusual. I remember the (what I'm calling) marble being like a foot thick layer we punched through pretty quick. The smaller semi-opaque ones came mixed in cuttings in adjacent holes at another site...when your job is fill the drum with the cuttings, replace drum when it's full, get drill pipe, etc it all blends together and to the other guys for sure (...all felons, come to find out. Took the job from someone who wanted to keep me going to college by scaring me haha. Tough work, and was interesting until there wasn't anything new...) they were always just rocks.

[nate]

Have you done any home tests to determine their properties? Scratch or specific gravity? Looks like obsidian at first glance. I've also found some petrified wood/algae that looks similar to that .

[OkieCoyote]

Have you done any home tests to determine their properties? Scratch or specific gravity? Looks like obsidian at first glance. I've also found some petrified wood/algae that looks similar to that .

Negative. I was starting to think obsidian too on the smaller dark pieces, they're different, and came from a different site than, the larger black piece which I also suspect is petrified. I think I am going to mount the polishing wheel on my bench grinder and take out all my polishing rouge for the small presumably obsidian pieces. I'll get back with results

My grandma has an enormous piece of petrified wood that's much lighter in color that someone in her family apparently found out on their old farmland (supposedly...I haven't heard of it being around that area but I don't know for sure!), it's probably 18" long and at its largest around 5-6" in maximum thickness. It has to weigh 20-25lbs. . .she wanted me to put it in her flowerbed out front! I made her hide it some haha, it is a really cool specimen. I have another that I think to possibly be a large fossil, but I haven't followed up on it yet. By large, I mean a generally cylindrical, somewhat curved rock with a distinct channel running down one side of it with the other side covered with fairly regular "pock marks" about ~1" in diameter. I don't know of any geologic process that could result in such a regularly shaped, irregular rock. . .