Prospecting trip on 6-14-03

(All Images are thumbnailed, click on the image for full size to open in a new window.)

Here is the view as we started heading down the path into the valley.

Once at the bottom, here is a look down the creek.

Further down the creek the walls start to close in.

Here's a little waterfall. I think it is feeding from the swamp on the other side of the cliff.

Another closer pic of the waterfall.

Still closing in.

Here we crossed the creek, walked up the hill and checked out the swamp on the other side of the shale cliffs. This swamp is in the valley that the creek used to flow MANY years ago. But the creek busted through the bank and began a new course, leaving the old ox-bowls to fill with swamp over the years.

Here is a beaver swimming around in the swamp.

We then headed back through the woods to the creek, and down to where the creek meets up with another creek and cuts through a narrow canyon.

Another view of where they meet.

This picture is looking upstrean from the narrow canyon, to where the creeks meet.

This is a look down into the start of the narrow passage.

A little closer.

Still closer.

And a nice close up.

Here is the sluice box set up, back up stream. Catching the gold!

And a close up of the ribbed matting in the head of the box. Hard to see, but there is fine gold showing in the black mat. No nuggets today, but atleast we didn't get skunked. Oh yeah, every test pan we panned, showed some color. Not bad for testing a new creek.