How Did The Gold Rush Walk Right Past This Creek?

The gold rush missed a lot of gold. So, I'm spending the next 3 days showing you why looking for gold is still very profitable. How is this stuff still here? >> So, we're at the river and there's way more water than we expected. >> So, today will be a bit rough. Not only is it harder to find spots to work when the water is ripping, but those spots have to be relatively safe to access. Luckily, I'm a pro and quickly narrowed in on a nice spot. So, I'm finding a lot of little gold right here, but I can't fill it because it's just too dark and too deep. But trust me, I see gold. So, this spot I noticed in the summertime when the water was much lower. I waited to work the spot when the water was high so that I would have more room to work. I want to put that in. It's on the It's on the top. When you find gold, it's a good sign that there could be gold around. >> Now, this crevice is a perfect example of what you're looking for. The gravel is pretty tight at the bottom. It's really smoky, which means it hasn't been disturbed. It's parallel to the river. And the best one, we're finding gold here. >> Got another one. The gold that I am finding here seems to be mixed in the gravels and not on the bedrock, which tells me it's what's called flood gold. Either way, gold is gold, and there could always be something nice and big at the very bottom. So, I just found two nice nuggets. One really coarse one and one flat, big flat one. My lips are numb. >> So, the thingy in my hand is called a snuffer bottle. You use it to suck up pieces of gold. However, the pieces here are too big to go up the straw. A really good problem to have. Nice. >> Found some water. that in. Be careful. It's on there. It's on there. So, clearly there's a good amount of gold here. So, I have to take it a little slower. I often use a flashlight, but try not using it while I'm filming because it makes it harder for you guys to see. All right. So, I dug out that crevice the best that I could and I didn't see anything else. So, I'm thinking most of the gold was in the overburden and all the material that I was kicking out of the way had gold in it. In fact, I know it had gold in it, but I can't really get it all. So, Lauren and I are just going to have a little bit of food and then I'm going to keep wandering around and see what else we can find. So, we're at the river and it's way way more water than we thought. It's hard to even get across, but I've got this trusty crowbar, so that definitely helps. So, my mission, look along the edge of the river and look for catch points in the bedrock where gravel and gold may have been trapped. And if you're lucky, you might even find bedrocks. If you're lucky, you might find bedrock closer to the center of the river, which is where the biggest and heaviest gold will sit. Something about me is I love waterfalls. You got to check this out. Oh, and look, it's Pioneer Polly. Say hello. Working a little more upstream now, I started to find some bigger pieces of gold again. A great sign. It's in the straw. It's not as big as I thought, but I need you to put it in the bottle for me. Like I said, it's just really cold and I Yeah, she's here. Might as well use her. I should have turned the camera off. I found a little pile of iron stone. Move those out of the way. I found two more. These two pieces were sitting together, so that's why it looks like one piece. Working at the top of my claim now, Lauren and I worked an area together, but after not finding anything else, decided to call it day one. >> You hungry? You want You want a snack? All right. So for creek numero dos, it's pretty flooded, but that's not really a bad thing here because there's so much bedrock. And I can actually work on the higher benches, which is what I'm planning on doing today. Got our first little piece. Not sure if you're going to see it or not because it's pretty dark in this canyon. I also have my better stoper bottle today. This creek I find harder to film at because it's dark. I've never had a bad day here either. So hopefully by saying that I don't jinx it. So I went upstream a little bit to an area that I was met detecting a while back and now that area is fully underwater so it makes it really easy to snipe. I found a lot of gold and lead here so I know this is a good spot. And just found another nice piece. >> Got another little one. So, the creek I'm at today is actually one of my favorites because of how much gold was never rescued. Right there. >> Okay, that's our biggest piece of the day so far. Hopefully, we'll beat it. >> Shallow right here. hard to hold the camera. So, like I said, I've met detected this area before, but I wasn't able to get to the bottom of some of the crevices because the detector doesn't go that deep. So, what I'm doing today is I'm digging the crevices out that I could get with the detector and just sniping it with my hand. I will need new gloves at some point, though. Just popped out another one. I love this. So, this is something you don't see very much. A piece of gold just sitting out in the open. Those are called sunbakers. >> I really like finding gold out in the open. You normally see it in creeks that never been sniped before or during slash after big floods. I think this piece just rolled down recently. I might as well check this little catch zone to my left here. Never know. That little catch zone ended up turning into a larger crevice. So I set myself up to move more overden out of the way to have a peek. And not long into this, I heard a bear. So I'm in the water here side bit. Obviously pretty sure I just heard a bear wolf. Not like a dog wolf. It was like a I've only ever heard that when I came across a bear once before. I don't see it. I'm looking around, but I just got to make a little more noise so I don't spook it. Okay, I moved to a shallower area where I metal detected a couple nuggets in the summer. Also, after just hearing what I perceived as a bear, I did want to be closer to my bear spray. And had I heard this next sound while I was laying there, I would have already had it in my hand. This makes me nervous to even play back, but let me play it back. So, I'm not sure if you can hear that or I'm crazy, but to me, that doesn't sound natural. It's not really what I heard earlier, but I'm 90% sure that was a black bear, too close for comfort. So anyway, while I wasn't getting mauled by a bear, I was actually finding gold here. So that's good. >> It's amazing what you see when you're sniping. This is good and bad. Good because we're finding gold. Bad because I missed it with the detector. So the area that I'm working here is obviously really shallow, but there's a ton of fractured bedrock. So I'm finding a lot of small gold. Most of the time I don't even film that because the gold's just too small and makes me feel insecure. But every once in a while, I'll see a nice sparkle, which deserves me turning on the camera. I just seen a really nice piece of gold. It's probably going to be about 2 or 3 g. It looks way bigger underwater, like I always say, but for sure it's going to be over 1 g. Okay. Now, I have to say this every time. What you see on video is different from what I see through my mask. Next time you go swimming with goggles on, you'll see just how much bigger everything else looks. This actually helps you when you're looking for gold. >> Hey, what up? The stuffer. So, it might not have been that big. >> Now, obviously, when you find a decent piece of gold in a spot, you make sure you dig to the bottom. There could always be something bigger underneath. Good girl. Another one. A good time to put this gold around. Nice. When I got to the bottom, I just found a little piece of lead shot. It It was worth a try. I love being out here. Let me know if you think I should keep the beard or get rid of it. I look like Yukon Cornelius. So, I have 12% battery left on my GoPro. I'm not sure if I'm going to do day three again, like the last video, if you haven't already seen that, or I'm just going to call it a day after today, cuz today was actually pretty good. I'm going to search around for maybe another hour or so, and I'll film whatever I film. Yeah. Hello. I'm working in this beautiful quartz thing, and I see a piece of gold. I should have turned the camera off. I see a couple more. Oh, yeah. This crevice right here is perfect. The slope of the bedrock leads right into the crevice and there's packed rock. Another great indicator is that we already found gold on the surface. So, there could easily be a lot more gold at the bottom of this crevice. >> This is actually starting to look like a nice crevice because we just found three pieces of gold and a piece of lead near the surface. Now, because we did find gold on the surface, you kind of want to break up these rocks carefully. And I'm also fanning the material with my hand up the crevice because as gold falls, it wants to go deeper. So, if I blow everything upwards, the gold should fall down relatively close to where I can see it. I also noticed the deep part of the crevice was actually kind of smooth, which isn't ideal, but because we are finding gold here, it is definitely worth checking out. Boring. This is hard work. Following the crack down, I see a piece of gold. It's a nice chunky one. I don't really know how big it is though because it's like stuck in the clay. Now, this piece right here, I was kind of thinking it was pyite cuz I couldn't really see it. But after freezing this frame, that is definitely gold. Okay, I worked that crevice, got to the bottom, didn't see any more gold. Moving on. >> Okay, so just got changed. I'm at the truck and we have the snuffer bottle. So, I'm not going to weigh the gold yet. I'm going to wait at the end of the video, but if I don't do day three, then you're going to see me wait in a second. Otherwise, you're going to have to wait till the end of day three. I am, however, going to dump this baby out to see what we got. I know this is going to be good. Oh, I love this creek. Look at that gold and some lead. Okay, that's as clean as I'm going to get it right now. A lot of this uh rock is pretty heavy, too, and it's hard to wash down. But look at this piece. That is the biggest piece of the day. Underwater, this thing looked like it was like 10 oz, but obviously it's going to be maybe about a gram. It's pretty thick. And this is the piece that I thought it was a piece of pyite. Of course, we got a couple other pieces in here. all look pretty pretty chunky. And we have some lead. So, I'm going to put this back in the snuffer bottle and I'll see you on day three or we'll go to my house. I don't know. Uh-oh. I just realized one of the pieces has mercury all over it, which means the gold is going to get decaminated. Dam uh contaminated. So, I'm just going to leave this piece in the pan and uh not suck that one up. Surprise. Day three. I decided to stay at the same river we were at the other day because uh it was good. We found good goldness. We have Lauren here again. What are you doing? >> I'm sewing my wets suit cuz I ruined it on barnacles. >> The more holes the better. It means you swim faster. I do have my metal detector with me today. I might bring it down, but I'm hesitant to leave it in the car. I'll bring it anyways. Doesn't hurt. So, I didn't bring it because I didn't want to. Welcome to Jurassic Park. So, just like the other day, the water is still high, which isn't a big deal. We actually want the water to be high because we'll be sniping the higher benches, the areas that are normally out of the water. But today, Lauren and I are going to go downstream where we haven't really explored. So, with any luck, there'll be gold. Be careful, Lauren. The water is wet. All right. Our first piece of the day is a nice little picker. So, I went up the straw. So, it obviously wasn't that big. What we want to find are nuggets that don't fit up the straw. So, back again, digging in nature's crevice, looking for their nuggets. All right. I shouldn't have turned the camera off. I worked most of that crevice down, didn't see anything. So, I started working up above it and like 4 in above it, I found another one probably about the same size up top. This crevice is really thin. It's almost invisible underneath that moss, but as it goes deeper, it gets bigger. So, I definitely want to check that out after. Okay, now that we've established that there's gold right here, I'm going to work further down a little bit more, but it requires me to move a lot of rock out of the way. So, give me 5 or 10 minutes. I'll clean this out and then we'll hopefully find more. I know you can't really see me here, but all I'm doing is just moving all the big rocks out of the way so I can more easily fan away the gravel and see if this crevice continues, which in the best case there'll be a million ounces in it. A rock. Okay, I'm almost at the very bottom and I I see a nice one, I think. Don't quote me on that. We'll find out in a second. >> So, this piece actually doesn't look bad. They all look good to me, but they all look bigger with my mask, like I already explained, but there's a lot of gravel packed in here, which is a great sign, but also makes it harder for me to work. So, I set my camera up here to make it easier for you guys to see, and so I can use both of my hands. Also, if you like these videos and you want to see more, you can subscribe to this channel for free or check out my other social media because I post often and you'll be able to see when the next videos are Okay. The deeper I go, the more work it is to go deeper, if that makes sense. I just seen another nice little piece of gold, and I think this spot is going to be good. >> Stop. So, I originally saw one piece, but after giving it a fan, there were more. We got three pieces in there. That's a good sign there could be gold around. Okay, I'm going to get Lauren here to hold the light up there. There's actually a lot of gold in here. Unfortunately, my snuffer bottle can only suck up one or two pieces at a time, unlike a suction dredge. But I'm not complaining, though. This is still awesome. >> There's gold there. Now, when a piece of gold won't go up this straw, you know it's a good size. There's lead down there, too. So, we're obviously finding the heavies. >> More frothy river buildup. Do you think he's going to eat it? So, I did see a couple smaller pie my lips are numb. I saw a couple more small pieces down there, but they're getting blown away when I fan. And I have to fan hard because it's deep and that's the only way to move material. So, I'm just going to take my time down here and try to get it all. Hopefully, there'll be more as we go down. Thank you for being such a help. You're welcome. >> The water's really ripping today and it's actually freezing. How cold are you? >> Every time I find a piece of gold, I'm a little bit warmer, but I'll be honest, I'm pretty cold right now. >> Yeah, it's pretty freezing. >> Lauren and I continued downstream a little further to try and narrow in on another spot. I looked everywhere, even more towards the center of the river where it's a little sketchy. Eventually, I found a crack that looked all right, but only had a couple pieces in it. All right, so it's been about half an hour later. I looked everywhere. Haven't found anything until now. It's a really small piece. I'd like to mention I did suck up a leak. It was Yeah, you can see right there on the edge of the snuff bottle. It was trying to take my gold, so I sucked it up. So, that piece was so small. I don't even know why I decided to film it. But, uh, this is our last crevice of the day. We're both pretty tired, so we decided to do one more and hopefully leave with a bang. And we did. To my surprise, I found a rock. >> And then we decided to leave. Okay, Lauren and I are back at the car here. Here is the gold and the leech that we found. That's kind of gross, actually. As you can see, our leech friend here is trying to take our nugget. This is kind of why I sucked him up. I guess he just really likes gold. He leeches onto it. Another successful day. I'm really pleased with that. I'm very grateful also that there is a lot of big gold here. Um even though these aren't monster nuggets, they're still nuggets and it's more than what you would get. Probably panning. My favorite piece of today is probably this guy. It is probably the biggest one and it has the most character. My second favorite is the piece that the leech is actually trying to steal. And in case you're wondering why I'm not using a gold pan, I just forgot it. So, I'm using the coil cover to the detector. So, what did you think of today? Were you successfully happy? Successful? I sure was. >> Yay. Anyways, nice. So, what we're going to do now is I'm going to go take Lauren home and then I'm going to go home and weigh all three days to see how much gold we have. And if we're lucky, we're going to find we're going to have more than I found in the last video. And if you haven't seen it, I think you should check it out because it's amazing. Okay, finally, after well, 3 days, so I calculated 16 hours of looking for gold. This is our loot. A lot of the gold that came from day one, which was a different creek, has some really nice coarse pieces in here, which is a good sign that we're close to where the gold is coming from. Now, something interesting is that gold can come in different shapes, round, long, and even in crystal form, which is also known as crystalline gold. We have crystal structures. Some have the terminated tip like a quartz crystal. Some can be blocky and square. Some leafy looking and just super shiny. And some that even look like this, which is what I discovered I found. Now, this is mine. It's much smaller than those samples I showed you, but it's my very first gold crystal. It is a little bit worn, but nonetheless, it's my first crystal, and I'm actually pretty pleased with that. And right next to that piece of gold was this beautiful gold specimen. You can see the quartz sitting right in there. If this thing was maybe five times bigger, it would make a perfect necklace pendant. And again, also quite small. And as a bonus, I found this other nice piece that also has quartz in it. And of course, we have our big piece of gold, or the biggest one that we found during this trip. It's for sure going to be over 1 g. It might hit 2 g, but probably not. And we can't forget our piece of gold that has mercury on it. I'll probably just smoke it later. All in all, a very successful 3 days. Now, let's weigh the gold. Starting with our second biggest piece here. Uh, half a gram. Half a gram. Ah, 6. So, just over half a gram. Now, our biggest nugget. Take your guesses. I'm going to say 6 oz. Obviously. Oh, yep. 1.27 g. So, like I predicted, over 1 g, under 2 g. Should have been 10 oz. Now, let's weigh everything together. I'm not going to use a piece of paper this time to do this. I'm just going to do the old pinch thing. 8.95. Come on, baby. Hit 12 lb. 9.07 g. So, today's gold price, that's going to be around $1,100 US or $1,600 Canadian. Now, if you divide that by the 16 hours that we worked, that's $61 US per hour or $88 Canadian per hour. Now, if you ask me, that's the best job in the