Visiting California

Hi all,

I'm heading to the States next month and was planning to spend some time in the Mother Lode district. I've been wanting to vist the area for years, since I went through on the California Zephyr in about 1991 on my way to go skiing in Colorado. All I could do was watch from the window of the train and listen to the commentary, the Donner Party, Donner Pass and all.

I was wondering if you need permits to go metal detecting, if you can hire them over there and I presume some of the the areas are open to try your luck panning or detecting?

Any pointers would be useful. I see some of the gold people find there is clearly alluvial and water worn, but others look crystalline, jagged and pretty close to vein sources, if they weren't even still in the veins. Is that the case?

Cheers, hope to learn more of this fantastic gold area. Any good historical books on the subject too?

GoldnQuartz.

You do not need a permit to detect in the Motherlode, their is plenty of land to hunt on just be careful not to go on marked claims. You can get maps showing lands that are under BLM control or managed by the Bureau of Land Management in the Motherlode. Another way to get to hunt is to just go online and join a prospecting club that has good claims...one club that is based in Coulterville, California is called AMRA https://americanminingrights.com/ they have some good claims. If your interested in hunting the deserts join up with the Orange County 49ers. As for hiring a detector, it may be a tough road to find a shop that hires out detectors, most of them just sell them. But you best bet again is to research on the web. The terrain here is rough, rocky and very thick with brush..so be prepared and do a bit of research in the area you interested in. Good Luck out there....

Thanks for the heads-up California! Sounds similar to here in many respects. I've been doing some research ito areas too, and the terrain looks very - well, challenging to say the least., I've heard of all sorts of things like poison oak. in the semi arid and arid lands of Australia there isn't much like that, the country is fairly open and low relief. in outback Sa the highest thing on the horizon is you. the highest plants are salt bush, about 3' high at best. But some of the incised river canyons in california, the rainfall, and the thick vegetation are an altogether different story. Looks like an interesting place to visit though. I think I'll pack a detector. I'm using a minelab GPX5000.

Cheers for now, hope we can meet somewhere.

Research is important....the poison oak in late summer is not much of a threat because it's dried up by then and easily avoided. But one of my favorite places to poke around as I have found gold under near them. Send me a p.m. when you get here....

Sounds good! Some of the prospecting in the rivers looks like a real blast! Crevicing and diving looks like some good fun too. can't seem to PM at this point. Was wondering how to do that.

Anyway cheers for now.

GoldnQuartz wrote:Sounds good! Some of the prospecting in the rivers looks like a real blast! Crevicing and diving looks like some good fun too. can't seem to PM at this point. Was wondering how to do that.

Anyway cheers for now.

Hi GoldnQuartz
You should be able to send pm's now.. see the envelope with the mp on it under the user's profile, thats the one to click on.
Just click on the user's envelope ( like California ) with the mp on it.. and away you go.
Any problems just ask

Cheers
Jen

Thanks Jen!