Last Post 28 Jan 2017 09:46 AM by  ADAM ANDREWS
San Gabriel Mtn's, east fork river Gold camping trip
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ADAM ANDREWS
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07 Sep 2016 04:45 PM

      Hi everybody,

     

      For Labor Day Weekend, we headed to the San Gabriel Mountains in the Southern California area. The east fork river has been a hot spot for Gold since mining was invented. This rich Gold area should be a monument to Gold Miners

     

      Our trip was crazy, no parking, I couldn't go where I wanted to go. There were cars parked all the way down the road, so we ended up at 'nugget alley' if you're familiar with the area. There had to be 200 campers there, most on the river. 

     

    The good:

     

    We had nice weather, good BBQ, and some nice Gold. 

     

      I'm pretty good at reading the rocks for Gold, so we aimed for an inside bend that had gray rock with Quartz veins everywhere. That area has veins of dark black rock also. There are piles of Quartz on the outside bend, but I jumped in a big hole on the inside bend and got some good Gold, almost 0.8 of a gram of Gold.

     

    The bad:

       Too many campers, rude campers, loud campers, etc. It was also a lot of hard work, and almost worth the lack of sleep from 200 campers everywhere on the river, and the (two) really loud Spanish (taco shop) music boom boxes until 3 frikkin' thirty. And I won't mention the very loud cars racing up & down the mountain...Next time I'll hike up river past the diapers, graffiti, trash, etc. The only reason I didn't is because all of the parking was full.

     

    The ugly:

     

       Staying up river is preferable to seeing a 100 kids peeing down river...

     

    Here's a few pics...

     

    ADAM ANDREWS
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    07 Sep 2016 04:47 PM

      The east fork river..

     

    ADAM ANDREWS
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    07 Sep 2016 04:49 PM

      The folding sluice box in the river, while trying out my new classifier...

     

    ADAM ANDREWS
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    07 Sep 2016 04:51 PM

      A closer look, you can't see it, but there's Gold in the box...

     

    ADAM ANDREWS
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    07 Sep 2016 04:53 PM

      Another look...

     

    ADAM ANDREWS
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    07 Sep 2016 04:55 PM

      Here's the weekends Gold, a lot of digging & work. It's 0.8 of a gram of Gold. Woo hoo.

     

    ADAM ANDREWS
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    07 Sep 2016 04:57 PM

      Last pic...

     

    Bob Clark
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    31 Oct 2016 05:56 PM
    Looks like a pretty spot, you did well.
    ADAM ANDREWS
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    01 Nov 2016 06:56 PM

       If you want to see some awesome videos of this area, look on you tube for East Fork River, San Gabriel Mountains Gold.

    MICHAEL BUCKMAN
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    27 Jan 2017 04:19 PM
    You really need to go up at least 4 miles to get to the really good gold. I am surprised you did so well in nugget alley. It's pretty played out there. There must be new gold from recent rains coming down.

    This is the best gold I've found in California to date. My best trip there was 5 days where 2 of us got just over 5 grams. That was a gram a day!!!! We were up there pretty far. I've found that the pay streak starts at about 16 inches down, then peters out at around 3 to 4 feet. I'm sure there is another pay streak deeper, but haven't gone that deep yet. I've seen lots of nuggets come out of there from people following the bedrock. The full time miners there find some nice pieces!!!
    ADAM ANDREWS
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    28 Jan 2017 09:46 AM

       Ya four miles up river is called the 'war zone'. For sure that's an awesome spot. It's the straight flat area about a mile before the 'Bridge to no where'. And as a bonus, the hikers going to the bridge are cute, some wear bikinis and hiking boots.



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