Hello,
I am looking at possibly spending a few weeks while I am in Alaska this year checking out the Chicken Gold Camp (and claims), their web site makes it look like a nice campground and they seem to be getting good color from the open claims (pay to dig open areas).
Has anyone here been to the area, or know someone who has who can give me your opinion of the campgrounds and gold prospecting there? If you were there, did you find any gold (decient amount for the type of mining you were doing - by decient amount, I mean find enough to make it a fun trip)?
How were the owner's of the place? Nice people? Helpful?
What time of the year did you go and how was the weather?
Any info would be helpful..... Thank you.
Replies
Chicken Gold Camp.........it is good place to spend two weeks of your time. It does cost to go there. Everything has a charge. I was working there and my husband went with me to the Meyers Fork claim area just so I didnt have to go by my self and when we got back they acted like we had stole a million dollars from them because he didnt pay the fee for going up there till we got back. It was rainy day and I didnt want my husband to leave with the 4wheeler and then it came a downpour. Kent had worked for them and well just felt like they blowed this all out of sorts. This isnt a isolated incident, there are those who can tell their story about Chicken Gold Camp. Go and form your own opinion. Maybe you like being mined. We have known them many years. They are terriffic people. they love their palace if you can figure that out.
You can go to akmining.com and join the forum on that sight and ask the owner of the Chicken AK Camp. The site has plenty of Alaska Information.
Charlie
There is a forum member who commented that it is a "tourist gold mining trap". But I have friends who go every year and have found some very nice gold. 2 years ago they found many onces and some extremely large nuggets; one the size of your thumb...and others like marbles. They got to bedrock under the perma-frost. Last year they only found a little over 1 oz. in a month.
I hear you don't want to take a big rig, (Pickup and Camper is big enough), as the camp sites are primitive. I have two different friends going up to Chicken this summer. Gold can be elusive.....just never know till you hit the good spot with a nozzel or shovel.
Thanks Brian,
did they say how the campground was? I hate places where you only have 5 feet between the tents.
Sounds like your friends do pretty well.... As far as "tourist traps" go, I prospect a few places in NC. that people call tourist traps and find plenty of gold and have a good time because I don't stand at a sluice and pan bags of concentrates..... I get out there and dig on the claims (properties), sampling and prospecting the same as I would anywhere else. As long as there is good ground to dig and you can work it on your own instead of panning their bags of salted material I don't concider them Tourist Traps, just short term digging leases on someone elses claim....
I'll be driving more than 16,000 miles round trip on this outing over more than a 9 or 10 month period (east coast to west coast as far south as Georgia and north to Alaska), so no, I won't be taking a big rig just high bankers, pans, sluice, digging tools and some specialty equipment....
Do your friends highbank or dredge? Just curious.....
Thanks again for the info,
Jim.
They were dredging. The size of the dredge they could use was limited to a small dredge...I believe under 3 inch.
Sounds like there are some vids and web sites you can visit. I hear the camsites are small.....don't take some big rig like a truck and big 5th wheel....no room.....is what I understand.
Good Luck