High Banking Gold

We spent all day yesterday high banking.  I don't think I have ever worked so hard in my whole life.  And I paid for it too boot.  They fill up this tub with dirt.  This fill consists of clumps of dirt that are almost as hard as a rock.  You have to break them up.  Then of course there are rocks, and you throw them out.  You work all this out through a drain at the bottom with water.  We did 3 tubs of them.   The last tub was hard.  I kept looking at the dirt and thinking it wasn't going down very fast.  I also kept thinking about that couple they said did 5 tubs.  I wonder if they were telling us a tale.

We started at around 10 o'clock and finished at 4.  The only breaks we took was when they clean out the sluice.
They clean everything it caught and then fill up the tub and you start all over again.  You save the sand from the sluice in a bucket and then you have to pan it for the gold.  Which Ed did the next day.  We did find some small flakes in it but I couldn't even get it to weigh on a postage scale.

 

I even have a battle scar where Ed hit my hand with the pick.  I was reaching to rinse off a rock.  I should have look first.

 

I talked to a guy who had did this the day before and asked him if he thought it was worth it.  He told me he did.  I wasn't planning on getting rich  but I thought we would get some small nuggets.  All we ended up with were some small flakes.  The day before when we were panning  Ed had found 3 small particles .  It had been so much easier than the high banking and it cost less. 

Ed says we are in training for when we go out west to pan for gold. I think we are in training on how not to get taken.  I told him I would rather go lose my money at the casino, it sure is a lot easier.

We do plan on doing some more panning but one thing for sure we will not do the high banking again.  It was an experience, but that is about all  I can say about it. 

Well life goes on, you live and learn and it gives us a story to tell.

HAPPY TRAILS  Love Ed and Lyn