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Littleton Co Trip..... Any Gold Nuggets To Be Found Detecting?


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Will be out in Littleton....Boulder area for 3 - 4 weeks. Would like to do some nugget shooting (maybe panning) while Im out there in Sept. Any areas anyone would suggest, in say a 50-100 miles of either place? Will have my Gold Bug Pro and pans. Never have done any nugget shooting been detecting for 50 plus years.

 

Dan

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  • The title was changed to Littleton Co Trip..... any Gold Nuggets To Be Found Detecting?

Hobo...thanks for the tip...looks like a good area and its only 48 miles from where we will be. My wife and I have also been looking for some land and maybe a small house outside of Denver. May be a good place to look when were there as well.

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Clear Creek which winds its way from the high Rockies (east side of Continental Divide) all the way down through Denver has not only produced profitable gold but also currently has parts where open (i.e. to the public) prospecting is permitted.  Here are a couple listed on this (yes, Steve's) site:

http://www.ci.wheatridge.co.us/1184/Gold-Panning

http://jeffco.us/open-space/activities/gold-prospecting/

In June I visited the Wheatridge site.  The creek flow at that time was still fairly strong so I was unable to get to the northside, but that is where the tailings are located.  You may be able to ford the creek now, but if you park at the public parking area on the East side of Youngfield you can walk under the I-70 bridges along the north side of the creek and access the main area that way.  (It's not an easy traverse if you're carrying a detector in your hands, though.  I recommend a walking stick to assist you.)  I'm vaguely familiar with the 10 miles further west (second link) but didn't visit there recently.  My recollection is that large scale commercial dredging was done there in the past.  That alone ought to indicate it's worth checking out if you have time.

I was told (by reliable sources) that metal detecting in Wheatridge city parks (first link above) requires a permit.  I don't know if this applies to the above gold-panning site.  To be on the safe side, if you're doing more than collecting paydirt to pan, you might want to look into that, although it would probably take a letter-of-the-law person to object to someone using one in the placer tailings.  These laws are typically written (agree or not) to prevent people from damaging public greenspace (e.g. manicured city parks).

Good hunting!

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