Colorado Gold

[Glenn in CO]

This year has been a lot of ups and downs in getting some detecting in for coins, relics and gold nuggets. With the pandemic, restrictions placed by the pandemic, fires, detector coils issues and finally my father passing at the end of July made it hard to get some serious detecting outings in. Luckily the local parks are still giving up a few old coins. We made a trip to the mountains before my father passed and did some relic hunting at an old mining camp and found a few tokens and relics. At least it rain a little bit every day to make the smoke from the fires more bearable. Finally we were able to get a trip in to do some nugget hunting.

I and my wife arrived at our camping spot on a late Monday afternoon. We decided to have an early dinner and then do some scouting around the area that we hunt deciding on which areas we wanted to hunt first the following day. Finishing up dinner, I went out to get the UTV ready and a young woman drives up on a ATV to our camping area requesting help with her father-in-law who just rolled an ATV. It was about a five minute ride from where we were camped where the accident occurred. Her father-in-law had been unconscious for couple of minutes but was now sitting up in the middle of the road asking the same questions over and over every thirty seconds. He had some cuts to his forehead and road rash on his back and legs. I looked over to where the ATV was parked and it looked like it faired pretty well. Then I looked down beside the ATV and there was his helmet in three different pieces. He was in a lot of pain and didn’t want to get up or move around. I suggested that we not to try and move him and contact search and rescue to help. Unfortunately there is no cell service for miles in that area, so the daughter-in-law and I take off to try to find some help. There is a sand and gravel operation near where we were camped and thought there might be someone around that could help. It was early evening and several vehicles and equipment were scattered around, but no one working out in the equipment yard. We drove up to one of the cabins and luckily someone was home and had a landline to make a call. The whole ordeal took search and rescue about two and half hours to get in and get him out, but they felt he was going to be ok. The strangest thing to come out of this accident was he was driving the ATV at a high rate of speed over washouts across the road and catching air for thrills and they video it on their camera for all to see and remember.

Well 2020 mark thirty years of metal detecting for gold specimens in this area, adding a few years more before that using sluices, high-bankers and gold pans. Every year we have come away with some gold. On this trip our first day both I and my wife got skunked. Second day my wife decided to stay back at camp and recoup from hiking and detecting at 11,000 ft. I was lucky and found one within forty-five minutes and glad as I didn’t want to go home skunked. That was the only nugget I found that day. Third day I hunted three hours before the smoke from the fires was expected to roll in and I ended up not find any.

It’s a small one and happy to have found it as the odds were stacking up against me of getting any gold this year.  Here are pictures of the gold before cleaning with a little limonite on the front and back side of the specimen and then I used a little acid to remove the limonite.

[IdahoPeg]

Very nice piece of gold in some beautiful country! Glad you and your wife were able to get away.

[flakmagnet]

Exquisite gold and a good story. Thank you for posting.

[LuckyLundy]

Great story & Hunt!  👍🇺🇸

Rick

[MSC]

Great looking nugget !!

[Valens Legacy]

Great story and a very nice find, glad you had fun on your trip.

Wish you more luck on your next outing.

[normmcq]

Beautiful specimen! Nice find

                                                                     Norm

[Joe D.]

   That nugget probably won't buy you much! But helping to save a life is worth a thousand nuggets! Great job on both! And great story!👍👍

[mn90403]

That was a good read and your photos were excellent.

How did you get the black background photo?

Mitchel

[Glenn in CO]

9 hours ago, Joe D. said:

   That nugget probably won't buy you much! But helping to save a life is worth a thousand nuggets! Great job on both! And great story!👍👍

We are always glad to help someone need. Late in the year there is a lot less people in the area, so if you run to trouble it can be awhile before you see someone. Sometime in the 1990's we were on our atv driving to our detecting spot and found someone who had a accident with a trail bike. His leg was pretty banged up, so we got him on the atv and my wife drove the atv and I rode his trail bike to try find some help. We were able to reach a top of a mountain and met some hikers and luckily one was a trauma nurse. They contacted search and rescue and were able to get him out. He ended up breaking is leg in several pieces and was in rehab for over a year. We met him again a decade later as he was a speaker for our club meeting on the history of the area we prospect on. He told us spent the summers there researching the area for books he was writing and always hoped he would find us and thank us for helping him. He was so thrilled to meet us again and told us the rest of the story.

What's great about the gold specimens that we find is that they are very rare and valuable. The specimens don't have to be large or have a lot of weight. Bryan Lees of Collectors Edge  appraised the gold specimens that we were displaying in the Colorado School of Mines museum. You should check out the Collectors Edge website if you are into mineral specimens.

Here are a couple examples: