Gold Prospecting in Alabama.
Start Date: February 20, 2011
End Date: October ? 2011
Decided to start close to home for my first adventure on the list,And YES there is gold in Alabama, it is part of the Piedmont uplift that runs thru Georgia and the Carolina's. After a couple of weeks of just pulling into the woods near a creek and camping I ran across this place. The Alabama Gold camp. It is a two-hundred acre camp for people interested in gold prospecting, they have RV camping ,tent camping and cabins you can rent, and they rent equipment for prospecting. They have a well stocked mining store. Even if you are not interested in looking for gold it is a great place to camp. So I decided to make this my base camp and venture out from here. Their web site is www.alabamagoldcamp.com. The store is run by Ms. Sue and Mike Jones, in November Ms Sue packs up and heads for Arizona, and wont be back until April.
Base Camp
Since I started this adventure long before this blog, this will be a synopsis of the adventure. First month and it is to cold to be camping in Alabama in February. Luckily I came prepared and the morning frost on the sleeping bag did not bother me until I had to crawl out of it. Winter still has a hold on everything and it is all gloomy . Did some panning but spent most of the time trying to stay warm. Sunshine has come and the plants and trees are springing to life, It is a beautiful place to be, nothing like being in the outdoors in the fresh spring air. Early part of spring and I have the place to myself. Late spring and the prospectors start showing up, Most of them either have their own high banker, A machine you set on the bank of the creek and shovel dirt into it and it uses water to separate the gold from the dirt. Or they have their own dredge, 
A machine that floats in the creek and you vacuum the bottom of the creek and it separates the gold from the dirt. It is by far the best way to get the most gold. Everyone you meet is very helpful and you will learn everything there is to know about finding gold. Every third Saturday they have a gold club meeting and a common, this is a chance for you to run the different types of equipment, at the end of the the day they have dinner and split up the gold that was found that day and everyone is given a share.
Here is some of the gold that I have found.
Decided to take the little tent and some food and drove into the woods to camp. this was the view out the front of the tent, spent three days doing nothing but thinking.
four inch dredge in the creek
Big boy toys 5 and 8 inch dredges
The best way to look for gold is to dredge, its a vacuum cleaner for the creek. You will find more gold because you are moving alot of dirt and you go down to the bedrock where most of the gold will be. I use a 2 inch dredge, they are classified by the size of the diameter of the hose that sucks up the dirt.Most guys have four inch dredges that are equipt with an air compressor so they can breathe underwater.The owner of the camp has an eight inch dredge that has 2 16hp pumps. You have to have a backhoe to put it in the water.
The water started getting cold, you need a wet suit to keep warm, but it turns out I have a alergy to latex, the wet suit gave me a rash and gave me toxic shock was laid up for a week, almost back to a 100% now
That pretty much brings it up to date, I will post on the blog from now on.
