FarTraveller

"Why Is A $1500 Pi Even Being Talked About?" Because that's a fair price? GPZ, after having such a long run, can't possibly cost more than $1000 to produce. The industry is dominated by a monopolistic cabal. AlgoForce has a simple business plan: 1. Sell a PI detector at a fair price resulting in such demand the factory cannot even keep up. 2. Accept Minelab's offer to buy AlgoForce. 3. Start collecting mansions and yachts For us, it's a great time to get one or two PI detectors. Once Minelab owns AlgoForce, they'll neaten up the package and the units will be priced at $3500. Would be great if AlgoForce would remain in the market and outside of the price fixing club. They should also jump into the coil aftermarket. The result would be honest pricing from the big brands.

I am winding through AZ, NM, NV, and the CA desert. My route isn't set yet and will be flexible as I go depending on weather and whatnot. I agree that hunting gold in areas where none has ever been found would be the best way to not find any. I don't work tailing piles or patches that are detector hot-spots even if there is good gold still there. That said, I do like to hunt "two canyons over" from proven ground. There, I expect to find 1. nothing or 2. a bit of gold that was overlooked or not worth the effort of OTs working the rich diggings two canyons over. I do use all the tools recommended in this thread. The reason I asked opinions about a places that match my criteria is that I thought "crowd sourcing" might be one more tool in the tool box. It was worth a shot. Unfortunately, a few people didn't understand that I'd never be interested in rooting around in their holes and thought I was asking to do just that. Hard to get to places with little gold is what I'm after. How would I know there's little gold there? Because gold was found, but not a lot, and so there's no beaten path leading there and little reason for others to hunt since what was little to begin with is less now. That said, even in such cases I still won't hunt the garbage heap that coughed up little gold, but rather, I like to cast about two or three canyons over. I don't dream of prospecting in ranges where no one has ever found gold, or where people have found millions of ounces. Motherload area CA, ranges where a trace of gold has never been found, Superstition Mountains, and in or around LSD or Rich Hill are perfect example of a places I'd never sweep.

We all have our preferences about what kind of ground we like. I explained that I steer clear of patches that have been dug time and again over the decades. I agree that there is still gold. Have at it. That's not the gold I'm after. Now you mention the fringes; if by fringes you mean "a few canyons over", then again, I'm with you. I'm not the sort to start sweeping were I notice the last unfilled hole in a patch. To me, that's still a heavily worked site full of shot. If there's nice gold still to be found, that's great for people who don't mind high trash ratios in well travelled ground. I'm not betting on finding the one auriferous draw left that hasn't been dry washed. I like to imagine the thirsty OTs dragging their equipment and arses miles from water and roads. There is plenty of coarse gold that was too hard to get to be worth it in that time. So OTs would scratch about, get a little easy gold, and move on if there wasn't enough to survive on. They would have got more if they had the tools and tech I have, but they didn't. Finding that abandoned gold 5 miles from the nearest donkey trail is rewarding to me. And yeah, if there was rich gold there, there would be a road leading right to it, obviously. When someone says "I don't like heavily worked areas, even if they have good gold, I prefer to roam extremely tough places far from roads even if it means I have to work harder for less gold", you probably shouldn't immediately blurt out "hey, do your own work, there's no free lunch, stop trying to freely exchange general ideas with likeminded people on a very specific forum that exists for that purpose!" According to my original post, someone might answer something like: "California side of the Sylvania Mountains. There's no active claims, but it has produced small amounts of native gold and won't be full of trash because it never warranted heavy traffic. There's not much for access or water, but that's what you asked for right?". To me, it seems a reasonable question and rational reply. Maybe I'm missing something.

Thank you Redz and Bishop for the feedback. I do use mylandmatters, mindat, westernmininghistory, USGS resources, among others. I am going in May, but my current list of target areas are not new to me and are 6000 feet at the lowest so heat hasn't been a problem. To the less than helpful folk who said I'm asking for someone else's hunting grounds, I guess I wasted my time specifically explaining that I don't have any interest in other people's trash ridden holes two steps from the highway no matter how earnestly they imagine themselves as guardians of some legendary secret nugget patch. As I said, I'm looking for general areas to explore, not specific spots that have already been located. All I do is roam remote areas and though most promising spots have been worked by OT dry-washers, I still find places that haven't been metal detected, and most importantly for my taste, the places I go are low on trash. I really thought I made myself clear.

I enjoy exploring/boondocking in very remote locations and my next month-long trip will be focused on metal detecting. I am hoping to get some input from some of the people here about what barely accessible locations may be promising for nuggets. My priorities: Nuggets, not interested in artifacts, lost treasures, etc. I don't prefer locations where I know others have detected already I'd rather get less gold if it means less trash The more remote, the better. I'm not asking for a treasure map to anyone's secret potato patch. Just wish to know what general area you would think worthy of exploration in light of the priorities I've listed. Thanks in advance for any feedback!

How about a solar powered AI driven autonomous drone that drives around obstacles to scan every inch if a site to map every likely gold signal?