Since I am from Oregon, Toledo specifically I am going to go out in my motor home this summer around the state. Are any of you aware of specific areas that are not listed in the GPAA and The Standard places open by the state of Oregon like Quartzville out of Sweet home. We ae going to plan several one week and two week trips. I know that the lower Umpqua is supposed to be good sluicing and dredging. I am not into dredging but it will be fun to try some slucing if I can find an area that I can get to that hasn't already been worked over. When we came home Feb. 20th we drove by about 15 people on the lower umpqua who were sluicing , panning and highbanking right beside the freeway. I presume that they were GPAA members. My wife wanted to joing them but it was almost freezing outside.
If anyone has any ideas of places to go where we can find a little gold I would love to hear from you.
Thanks John
Replies
Son and I were up the N. Fork Santiam River last summer.
Brought my sluice and a couple pans.
Couldn't even find a place to park my suv.
Too many people "recreating" and such! LOL
Opal creek near there has some gold they say but we couldn't try it.
Hope to go to Dole by Myrtle Creek this coming summer.
Quartz Creek also has been mentioned in local forum.
HH
Grey
I've had the most luck on the N. Fork Santiam, by hiking up river from the Shady Cove campground. There is a nice gravel bar just above the swimming hole with the log across it. You'll have to get wet to get to it, but you usually won't be bothered by anyone.
I also go to Quartzville for a week long trip every summer with my two boys. There are places with better gold, but if you get there on a Sunday evening or Monday you can get a good camp spot. The thing I like the most is that you pretty much have that whole section of river to yourself. It's nice because you can leave all your stuff set up so you don't lose time with set-up and take down every day. It's also nice when it's hot because most of the river only gets a couple hours of direct sunlight during the middle of the day.
I can't wait to get out there and get wet and muddy!!!!
Derik
You can try the north santiam river up buy elkhorn or try the molalla river
The place you saw off the freeway on the umpqua must have been at myrtle creek? If it was it was a place people call Dole road. You get there by turning off of the freeway at myrtle creek and taking a left just after you cross the bridge.
I've been there a couple of times, and there is some decent gold there, and you don't have to dig deep to get it.
The Rogue river is always a good bet also.
There are also a few campgrounds out near Sumpter that are open to recreational mining, but I haven't been to them. I'm hoping to check them out this spring with my kids.
Other than that, and the places listed in the GPAA, I'm not sure where you can go that isn't claimed.
rookieminer
Sorry,
It's Derik Farlow, I'm use to using my user name from OGH.
Thanks Derik;
We are planning to go to the Burnt River Outing in June, then work the gpaa claims in that area for a few weeks. If we had known how bad the weather was going to get we would probably stayed in Arizona another month or two. We had six inches of snow two days ago and we lost power to the house for 16 hours. It is great that we had the motorhome parked outside so we just moved right back into it.
After being down in arizona for over two months I sure enjoyed the warm weather. We may eventually sell the home and move to a warmer climate.
Take care.
John Tharp