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My California - East Fork Gold Prospecting

derekrichardsonMar 16, 2020, 3:10:33 PM

Once again I headed up the East fork San Gabriel river for some gold prospecting! I hiked in to my usual camp and spent a few days camping and digging. On my way up I stopped and climbed up the east side of the Narrows to check out some old mines. There were a bunch of mines, but these mines are old placer mines that are dug into the ancient riverbed material. Unlike a hardrock mine the material is loose rocks and gravel which is way to dangerous for me to go in very far. Especially alone. But it was fun to see the mines, and the views overlooking the narrows were awesome!

Hiking up the East Fork

In the Narrows

One of the mines above the Narrows

Another Mine

Overlooking the Narrows

I decided this trip I was going to go back to working the bedrock on the inside bend just above my camp. The bedrock on this bend is a bit interesting. It's mostly Green Pelona Schist, but there is a couple large veins of white jagged bedrock running through it as well. And at the white veins there is spring water gushing out from cracks in the bedrock. I'd previously (about a year or so ago) cleaned off most of the white bedrock areas and did pretty well. Lots of cracks and crevices that were filled with nice pickers! This time I decided to clean off the Schist bedrock just upstream from the veins of white bedrock. Unfortunately it was much smoother with almost no crevices. I cleaned it all off and still found some decent gold, but only really small flakes.

Prospecting

Standing on a small waterfall

Checking on the Iron Fork camp

East Fork

Cleaning off the Green Schist

On the hike out I decided to climb up and check out another old high trail above the east side of the narrows. This one led to some springs coming out of a huge cliff. I had to summon my inner mountain goat to get up there but it was way awesome! After exploring the high trail I headed back down to the river and then hiked back down the river to the trailhead.