The New 49'ers

I got gold fever in 2000 when I went to a dredge earth first rally at Rivers West RV Park on the Umpqua River. Leonard Leeper, from Buena Vista, Colorado had his dredge in the river and I got to breathe under water. I never found any gold but I was hooked. I don’t remember when I purchased my New 49ers membership but for the last 15 years I’ve wanted to come to Happy Camp. Monday evening I finally pulled into Happy Camp for the first time. On Tuesday My better half,BJ, and I went to K-23 Wingate. My first pan had a flake bigger than I’ve found in many years on the Rogue River. Man was I stoked. I ran about 10 pans of material and found gold in every pan. Sometimes it was just a couple of flyspecks and sometimes there were a few flakes. My last pan had over 15 pieces of gold. I had to quit for the day because it was 93 degrees and the river was just a little colder than I wanted to jump into.
On Wednesday we went to Sluice Box and I ran about 15 pans and only found 1 little speck, so tomorrow We’re going back to Wingate.
Maybe I’ll see you there.

Randy

I spent a week at Screamin' Diesel (Rivers West) Didn't get down to bedrock til my last dredge day... ended up with about a dwt. I wish I'd had more time, there were some pretty promising cracks to work on the park side of the river about 1/4 Mi. upstream of the bridge. That was the last time my dredge was in the water,(or probably will ever be, even if they start issuing permits again, I'm getting too old and puny) I sure miss it, i kinda fell in love with the rattle of gravel in the nozzle...