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Glad to see your efforts showing what can be done with the types of detectors most of us can afford, well done! You’re giving a good “get up and go use what you’ve got” message for sure! Only one critique though, which of the “Sierra’s” was that at? I’ve only been to one. (Sorry, the geographer in me couldn’t ignore that!😉). Keep up the good work!

😉Just sayin, it would've been wrong to read about someone being suggested to go somewhere with them not knowing they could get a ticket and lose their prospecting equipment for it. It's his choice and at least he's free to make a knowledgeable one about it now. You are right too, the hobo miners there don't care and don't have much to give up for it. And yup, the Dale is a good area. it's where I detected my first pickers. - that's one of my favorite places to go also. Lots of drywashing there and if you look at it on Google Earth, it's amazing how much organized testing has been done across the hillsides - you can see grids across some of them. Lots of claims there too, so one has to check the maps.

A lot of gold has been recovered from the East Fork of the San Gabriel, but unfortunately, much of it has been removed from mineral recovery and it’s now closed to Prospecting- if going there, along with Lytle Creek and other formerly open gold prospecting areas on the Angeles National Forest, one should check the forest website for information.

Check this out too: https://www.mindat.org/locentry-694426.html

Hey Bill, do you guys belong to any clubs with claims? Try those first, but the most local mining districts to Los Angeles include Randsburg, El Paso's, Coolgardie (Barstow), Big Bear & Holcomb Valley, Dale (29 Palms) and further out include Cargo Muchacho and Potholes towards Yuma.

Some interesting stories here. One of note; a policeman received a 16-month sentence for trying to sell 10 coins from the area where the horde was recovered: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-59151380

Jim, I very much agree with you! Good thing is at least some of the cars, particularly Toyotas and maybe others, have a built in door key and there’s an inductive pad behind the start button so if you hold your fob up against it, it will get enough power to activate, even if the fob battery is dead. Now if you accidentally smacked the fob with a rock or something, you're out of luck. Guess you’d have to hope that you brought enough water to wait for help or at least for a safe walk back! 😉

Sometimes leaving keys behind is a good idea. My wife’s crew left their lunchboxes under the truck for the cool shade, and I suggested that she leave the keys in one of them or put a flagging note on the steering wheel to remind her about the boxes before driving off. Well, they were all lined up neatly under the truck and she proceeded to run all of them over. She forgot my advice and I never said “I told you so”.

I used to glue a spare key into the wheelwell with black silicone before the dang blasted key fobs were invented, now what do I do? 🤔

"All of the gold discovered thus far would fit in a cube that is 28 meters wide on every side." -USGS https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-gold-has-been-found-world?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products

Thanks for posting that Gerry, I had no idea NC had a significant amount of gold deposits, here is an interesting historic reference about it - there still might be some really big lunkers just waiting to be found out there!😉 “The first documented discovery of gold in the United States was in 1799 at John Reed's farm in Cabarrus County, NC. John Reed’s son, Conrad, found a 17-pound gold nugget while fishing in Little Meadow Creek. This discovery started the first gold rush in the nation's history.” https://gastonlibrary.libguides.com/gold

Be careful with inexpensive inverters, the cheap ones try to simulate an AC current by using a square wave and they have been known to blow out sensitive electronics and charging units. They should only be used to power AC motors. A pure sine wave inverter has more of a true AC current. That’s why you see “filtered AC” power outlets on boats and other commercial vehicles for powering computers and other electronics. Pure sine wave AC inverters are more expensive than simple unfiltered square wave inverters. It would be much better and safer to use the 12V charger instead of the 110 charger with an inverter, as mentioned previously, there is less waste of electricity because you are not converting 12V DC to 110 AC then back to 7.5V DC in the charger.

I made this 12v 35Ah (420Wh) portable power battery with left over parts, but you can do it for $100 to $250, depending on options you want, such as solar charging, vehicle charging vs. 120v charging, adding a 120v power inverter, etc. When fully charged, it runs our refrigerator for a day and could provide about 6-8 charges for GPX-6000 batteries without drawing it down too low. The battery is based on a low cost 12v 35Ah deep cycle gel cell made for mobility scooters and trolling motors like this: ML35-12 - 12 Volt 35 AH SLA Battery- Mighty Max Battery Brand Product https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K8V2VD0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_5R2WR55KHZYEF1202G21 The Renogy 20amp DC-DC battery charger lets us charge it from solar panels and from our truck batteries- it will automatically charge when the truck is running too: Renogy 20A DC to DC On-Board Battery Charger Flooded, Gel, AGM, and Lithium Batteries Using Multi-stage Charging https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q5VYPCF/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_YD8N92AHJP683K2SA7HH?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 The case is a $9 HF plastic ammo box with a built-in handy cover storage area for cables, connectors, etc. I cut about 1/3 off the side of the tray and used it to mount the switch panel and 12v and USB charging plugs to: https://www.harborfreight.com/tactical-ammoutility-box-64113.html And I added a switch, voltage meter, USB power plugs and a cigarette lighter plug port like this to it: Linkstyle 4 in 1 Charger Socket... Linkstyle 4 in 1 Charger Socket Panel, 12V 4.2A Dual USB Charger Socket Power Outlet & LED Voltmeter & Cigarette Lighter Socket & LED Lighted ON Off Rocker Toggle Switch for Car Marine Boat RV Truck https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JHH5YP4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_H1ADSMJJS3CJ91M7JEBS Also adding a 13.8v step up transformer to run my refrigerator and drone charger as they are designed for slightly higher voltage than the 12v a automotive battery provides after the engine turns off: DC-DC Boost Module 9-12v to 13.8V... DC-DC Boost Module 9-14V to 13.8V 10A 138Wmax Power Supply Converter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AW1JKO8?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share This project is in progress still (adding fuses and additional plugs) so I can send more info to the build, including how to make just the basic version with the parts listed above and just a few more. Just PM me if interested. -Anthony

Off-roading and EV’s means a lot of waiting around in the daylight doing a lot of nothing (prospecting?) while the sun does its stuff!

…and running a 100w solar charger all day will replenish the loss of charging a couple 6k batteries on your truck battery.

I don’t have a GPX-6000 (yet), so I was going by what both Rob and Jerry said about it’s rating, it looks like Rob is advertising that battery as 100Wh. I was a bit surprised about that because it would be a pretty large lithium battery (My drone batteries are 60Wh and they are twice the size of a 6000 battery). So if it were true, that 500Wh Jackery of yours would not last five charges because you wouldn’t want to run it down to zero. 25% is a good stopping point which would only give you about four charges if it was truly a 100Wh battery and about twice that if it has a 42Wh battery rating. 42Wh does make more sense, what is the output voltage of it?

I have a 2017 Tacoma as well. I run my refrigerator as described earlier. Yours will require the most power of all the devices you listed. If you want that to run continuously day and night, you will need batteries that can keep up and a way to recharge them. For starters to determine the minimal battery capacity, what is the peak power consumption rating of your refrigerator?

Gerry, if you do decide to go with a dual battery setup for your truck and want to DIY- all you need are battery cables and a automatic charging relay which will keep both topped off when your truck is running, then attach the solar charger to the second battery in camp and use it for charging the detectors or other items- that way your main battery will always be full. The Blue Seas ACR’s are marine grade, here is the model I put in my truck- If you do install it all you need to connect are the two batteries and the single ground (from the middle terminals), the LED and ignition isolation pins don’t need to be connected: Blue Sea Systems Automatic Charging Relays (ACRs) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OTIPDQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_75WY5FKHAG7VWT2M8JKM?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Gerry, there are a couple options you could use. A 100w or 200w solar panel would keep your truck battery topped off if it is parked the whole time you are camping and will accommodate detector charging or running a small portable refrigerator for a couple days…. I put in a two-battery system on my truck and use a folding 100w suitcase solar charger around camp. There are many different solar panel brands out there, just be sure to consider getting a deep cycle for the second battery you are charging from as it will allow for more charging cycles.

A 2 in 100 billion chance… https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/130220-russia-meteorite-ann-hodges-science-space-hit

I was a raft guide there in the 80’s. We had a group of musicians playing blues in camp one night next to Briceberg and a miner came off the hill to join our little party. Nice fellow who went back to his place and get his gold from the season to show us- he had a large mayonnaise jar full that he dredged from his spots nearby the bridge. Wow! I never saw or held such a heavy collection of gold. Sure was pretty too, and it was mostly coarse stuff. I can see why it brings such excitement to the finder!

The worse - present in every place detectorists go as well!

One night at work I had to scare off a mtn lion that I could see in my headlamp. It was hunkered down under a bush on the only trail back to my truck, so I grunted and waved a big branch while stomp-walking towards it. I thought it was a smaller one at first, but it jumped to the side clearing the tall bushes and ran off without making a single sound. That was fun. I've seen bears too, but only their butts as they ran off.

Google does track ads, but in the preference settings you can turn off their “ad sense” which helps you keep out of trouble, but can also randomly put up ads you don’t want significant others to see! ”I don’t know what that is honey, it just showed up there! You see it doesn’t have anything to do with gold prospecting, and you know that’s all I ever look at”😅

Should’ve seen the ones I had to hide from my wife! I turned off Google’s ad sense in my browser settings and now I am getting a lot of ads for clothing she nor I would never wear! 😦