I really enjoy gold prospecting it turns out as a hobby and, like many others I often hoped and wondered if I will ever find the mother lode. I have prospected from Alaska to South america and much in between. What I can share with you if your new to prospecting I do know one thing for sure -- you will not find it watching TV or sitting around the house. Gold prospecting is not easy and requires research, time, and quite a bit of effort. You will either love it or hate it, but many catch the fever, gold fever. but you will never know until you try.
Gold Prospecting and Treasure Hunting stories abound through out history - some are sad while others are wonderful.
Let's explore California's rich gold history by going prospecting and panning for gold in the San Gabriels, They claim that the early and current prospectors only recovered 1/3rd of the placer gold so looking back in time up the canyon's and rivers of the San Gabriel mountains searching for those elusive California gold deposits.
The San Gabriel mountain range is within a rocks through from downtown L.A.. The highest elevation, Mount San Antonio at 10,064 ft., rises towards the eastern extremity of the range which extends from the Cajon Pass on the east, to the Santa Monica and Santa Susanna ranges on the west, bound on the north by the Antelope Valley and the Mojave Desert and to the south by the community of Los Angeles.
This is one of the original gold discovery sites in California, with discoveries as early as 1844. Where gold was recovered from the sand and gravel operations in the riverbed. Now days with California drought still prevailing rivers & creeks are low.
Professional and hobbyist prospectors and miners uncovered more metals through panning, sniping, and prospecting. Although most of the world's gold is now produced in massive open-pit mines, "looking for gold [the old-fashioned way] is a popular hobby, and some people are making a living.
When all goes well, the heavier gold nuggets or gold dust settles to the bottom of the pan. Gold panning techniques are centuries old, but Isaac Humphrey is credited with introducing gold panning at Coloma in 1848. However, the Spanish and Mexicans may have beaten Humphrey to the punch as they also had developed the skills. But the early Indians of the area beat all by using a type of blanket/ rug used to separate the gold from the over burden.
Unfortunately prospecting in the San Gabriel River is now illegal thanks to President Obama.The 2014 film, Thomas R. Wood's L.A. Miner, follows young prospector Patrick Blankenship into the Angeles National Forest, where Blankenship sluices and pans for gold in a wild section of the East Fork of the A short documentary film on recreational gold prospecting in the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument is attracting a bit of attention for a reason its filmmaker didn't anticipate: prospecting in the Monument is illegal. Problem is, mining of any kind is illegal along the East Fork of the San Gabriel, and has been since well before the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument was established in 2014. This reveals that the land use conflict that's likely inevitable as more people try to use the protected area an hour's drive north of Los Angeles.Blankenship isn't alone up there: the East Fork is home to a number of small-scale prospectors, some of whom have been looking for gold in them there hills for decades.
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