mossing? Options

[rich on western ...]

Anybody try mossing in CO? I have found an area that has moss on the banks. Wanted to see if there was any gold in it. Are there any rules against pulling it up? Didn't know if it would be considered damaging to river banks?

[chadrack]

Hello, Rich. This is just my personal opinion, and I am far from being a "greenie", but I just hate this practice. It just wrecks beautiful spots and is never really worth it. The moss takes too long to establish and to ruin it for a possible few specks of gold just doesn't make sense to me. Especially in Colorado where the gold is usually small and generally kinda widely disseminated. The lush"aire" it creates in a surroundings, like the ferns, just adds so much to a prospecting, rockhounding, fishing, or one of those "just absorbing" trips. I love few things more, than in the dead of winter, a perfect winter in which the ice formed slow, extra cold and clear, to lay on my stomach in a great big parka, and observe through a foot of said ice, water clear, the moss as green as it can be. The micro environment, with the tiny accordant plants and lichens, and those miniature mushrooms with the quarter inch caps, all frozen in motion, is just so special. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, man. Worth more than gold to me. Now, I'm not so vain to suggest you shouldn't dig it up because of my opinion, I wish you felt the same way. Don't get me wrong, I'm an excavating son of a gun, and I have been digging around in deserts and forests all my life. Mine tailings attract me like a magnet, a good unfilled hole is a thing to behold, and I think huge open pit mines are cool and quite the accomplishments. I just like cool mossy spots. Heh, heh, I'm really going on about this, no? It is because, for years now, I have read on other sites about folks who go along and fill 5 gallon buckets with the stuff, take it back to camp to burn and pan, and get all proud of themselves for getting a little gold. Now that's vain. It is a lazy man's way of gathering what should be more of a resource than a fever. Wrong kind of bulldozer. There is nothing wrong with shaking some in your pan out of curiosity or as an indicator some times, I do, but to head out and do some mossing is just self serving and destructive. As to the rules, to heck with the rules, use common sense and your best judgement. For years now, I have bitten my tongue on this "technique" called mossing, and now, thanks to the great folks who created and run this site, I have gotten this off of my chest. It is just an opinion, don't take it at all personally Rich, you just happened to pose the question on a night I felt like typing. Hope you find tons of gold, especially in the gravels. Thanks for letting me go on. C

[CP]

Good post Chad and I hear what you are saying.
If there was an economically viable deposit under that moss it would be gone under claim/mining ops, but generally there isn't a need to disturb moss just out panning and prospecting. If the moss were to have gold in it the you should be able to find some in the creek bed as well.

Post hole prospecting up a hill once you've found a good placer in the creek taper off would be the way the old timers did it.
Once the good color drops in the creek bed, then check either side of the creek up the hill in several spots for more deposit evidence.

Even though the old timers wouldn't have given a second thought to plowing in all the moss......today's world is a bit different. While miners with ops today even wouldn't worry about some small patch of moss probably..... but while out prospecting at what is called the "recreational" level there should be concern for impacts.
At that level, there is definately rules against digging in the banks from what I've read.

CP

[rich on western ...]

Very good points. I did take up a little to pan out and it only had black sand and a little bit of gold dust in it anyway. Would take quite a bit of moss to add up to anything. Not worth the trouble and destruction of pulling it up. If it was worth pulling up I bet one could carefully shake it out and replant it. But in this case is much better to leave it be.

[Coalbunny]

Good point Dan. I feel that way about crevacing. Why bust up the bedrock for what may not be anymore than a gram of gold? All that labor, and for what?
Same amnount of labor, put into actually prospecting and not mossing or crevacing, can produce more in the gravels instead.

IMO.