My California - Holcomb Valley
For this weeks Show Us Your California contest by @socalsteemit I take you to the site of the biggest gold rush in Southern California...
Holcomb Valley!
In 1860 "Grizzly Bill" Holcomb was hunting a grizzly bear north of Big Bear when he discovered gold in Caribou creek. The word of his discovery got out and before long Holcomb Valley was the site of the largest gold rush in Southern California. Over 1500 miners and their families came to the valley in search of the precious metal. If you're interested in learning a bit more about the Holcomb Valley gold rush you can watch this great episode of California's Gold by Huell Howser. Today there is only a few old cabin ruins and long forgotten mines from the days of the gold rush. But there is still gold there! And recreational prospectors like myself still often go to Holcomb Valley in search of some gold!
Overlooking Big Bear lake
Upper Holcomb Valley
Camping in Holcomb Valley
Now before you grab your pick and shovel and run to the hills you should know that you can't just go digging anywhere in Holcomb Valley. Many areas are already claimed. A gold claim is different than a property claim. It's only a claim on the minerals in the ground. Anyone can come onto a gold claim and hike or camp... pretty much do anything except dig. Luckily for me I joined the GPAA (the Gold Prospectors Association of America) a few years ago which allows me access to any of their claims all over the U.S. a few of which are right here in Holcomb Valley!
A map of two of the GPAA claims in Holcomb (not exact)
Camping on the 'Holcomb Gold' GPAA claim
Digging on a GPAA claim. Notice the two distinct layers in the dirt.
Now back in the early gold rush there was a lot of placer mining where big "Long Tom" sluice boxes were used to process the material, but the limited availability of water made it hard to dig areas far from the creeks. Hardrock mining became more popular in the later years of the rush as the placer deposits in the creek beds were heavily worked and thus began the search for the quartz veins that were the source of the gold. And many deep mines were dug all over the valley. Today prospectors like myself use more modern technology such as drywashers which allow us to quickly and efficiently process material without the need for much water. Thus allowing us to easily work spots that were much more difficult for the the old timers.
Drywashing
Drywashing
Drywashing
A small hardrock dig
I've prospected Holcomb Valley quite a few times now. And I must admit, I'm still looking for a good spot. I've found gold everytime, just not as much as I'd like. I know there are better spots. It just takes time to research and check them all. But even if I'm not getting rich up there it's always a great place to just get away. Cool fresh air, beautiful mountain scenery, lots of interesting history... Holcomb Valley is AWESOME!!
Some wildflowers in the valley
Old metal can deep in the woods
Rock formations in the valley
The view from the rocks
Drywashing a GPAA claim
Pup is a gold prospector too!
Gold!!
And that's this weeks glimpse into My California!!
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I would love to be able to do some gold prospecting like that what you have shown here. I have done some diamond prospecting before but never had any luck with it. That is really neat that as member you can work the claims owned by the group. How expensive are individual claims in that same area?
Ya the GPAA is awesome. Membership price just went up but it's still not bad. $80 for a year or $150 for 3 years. And they give you a bunch of goodies to sweeten the deal. Plus subscriptions to the newsletter and the magazine. And you get the Mining Guide which has all the info for all their claims. That's the most important part! Then there are also local chapters that do monthly meetings and organize weekly or semi weekly outings to the claims. I have a chapter near me and I used to go regularly to the meetings. It was fun and I enjoyed talking with the other prospectors, but the more you go the more they want you get involved with all the club business (and club drama) and I just don't have time for all that. I don't really know how much buying a claim in Holcomb would be. It's a lot more than a GPAA membership though.
I was just curious , I don't know if it would 500 or 5000 I have never done any gold prospecting. I have done some diamond digging in a State park in Arkansas and while it was fun and pretty inexpensive I still manged not to get any diamonds.
Back when I was single and living in little town about an hour from that place I was at a bar one Friday night and this hot little country girl was in there. We started visiting and she asked me what I was planning on doing on Saturday.
I told her I was going digging for diamonds so she would get a big stone in that engagement ring she was going to get from me. She ended up going with me that next day and while we didn't find any diamonds we had some great fun. She was smoking hot in that bikini she wore to dig diamonds in.
I ended up dating her for almost a year before I moved back to Texas.
A claim could be anywhere from $5,000-$5,000,000. You can see some for sale here. Sounds like digging for diamonds was fun without even finding any!
Hey thanks for that link, I saw one on there that was $33 million , that is a whole bunch of dinero for sure. The lowest price I saw was $5,000 so it really is a big spread for sure in prices.
Yes, the price they charge is less than $10 a day and each day I have been there, people did find diamonds, just not me.
This sounds suspiciously close to camping, heh. Not for me, but it made for a cool post.
Thanks @fromage! Yep, I love camping in Holcomb valley. I know camping isn't for everyone though.
Love your prospect pup and the view! It looks like back breaking work - but if you hit pay dirt it'll be euphoric!
Have a nice rest of your weekend! ✌️
It can be tough work, that's for sure. But I enjoy the hard work. It keeps me strong. You have a nice weekend as well @mikeycolon!
In my place Aceh, the miner of gold looking for gold by grinding the rock until it become mud and they use mercury to collect the gold, that is definitely destroy the environment. But your method to find the gold is nice. thank you for sharing this @derekrichardson. wish you could find more next time. #steemitbloggers
Yep. Here in California they used to use a lot of methods that were destructive to the environment such as the use of Mercury or the large scale hydraulic mining. There are rules against that now. All the prospecting I do is environmentally friendly. I use simple tools like a small sluice or dry washer and a gold pan. And I do have a rock crusher for processing hard rock material as well, but after crushing I process that material with a blue bowl. No mercury. That stuff is not only bad for the environment but very poisonous for humans. Thank you so much for reading my post @el-nailul, I'm really glad you liked it! And I hope I find more next time too! Always do, lol.
I should read more about dry washer and blue bowl, thank you for sharing this to me my friend
My pleasure.
wow it is adventures..
Amazing photographs of Holcomb Valley..
Thanks for sharing your beautiful memories..
My pleasure @tussar11. I'm glad you liked the photos. And yes, looking for gold is always an adventure!
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Hiya, @livinguktaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made the Honorable mentions list in today's Travel Digest #360.
Please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider upvoting the Travel Digest if you like what we're doing.
Sweet! Thanks @livinguktaiwan.
We are SO proud to have you as a member of our
FANTABULOUS @steemitbloggers family!
uvoted and resteemed!
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Thanks @steemitbloggers! I was just thinking about how I've been in the Steemit Bloggers family for well over a year now!! Oh, how the time flies when you're having fun. I almost can't believe it. I hope to be part of the family for years to come!!
So super cool, thanks for the beautiful scenery and all the info on gold prospecting. You are so knowledgeable.
My pleasure Love,cat. Glad you enjoyed it!
@derekrichardson,
Great post. I love gold mining ... although I've only done it a couple of times (mostly in Africa). The discovery of a piece of gold, no matter how small, is an addictive hit like few others. And it's good, clean fun (although we brought with us a couple bottles of booze and so the talk ended up being pretty dirty ... soldiers).
Alas, I now live in Florida ... a bloody huge sand bar with not so much as a molecule of gold in it. I'm envious.
Quill
Yup, just some small flakes can keep you coming back for more. Gold fever is real. And I have it! lol. I visited Florida once. It was pretty nice, but no mountains at all. I need mountains.
@derekrichardson,
You get used to the flatness after a while, and hence, when you travel ... the first thing you notice is the non-flatness. "Oh My God, a ten foot hill. Take a picture." :-)
Quill