The Sierra Nevada is littered with gold, the celebrity element that rocked financial institutions last month at a record $1,000 an ounce in futures trading. Suddenly, gold panning has become a hot recreational activity.
"We're inundated, sending people away," says Brent Shock, owner of Gold Prospecting Adventures in Jamestown. "It's remarkable."
For the past 25 years, his company has taught folks how to find gold and has led groups into Calaveras County forests in search of riches, but mostly good times. This year, Gold Prospecting Adventures is booked solid into June.
"Since it's gone the way it has (gold prices and business), we're bringing back the helicopter trips," Shock says. On those trips, groups of four or five are dropped into rugged mountain areas to search for gold.
Since its record high, gold has hovered around $900 an ounce. In 2000, gold was around $280 an ounce.
"In California, they say, 80 percent of the gold is still in the gold fields," says Mark Michalski, a ranger at Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma.
Gold panning is alluring both in a get-rich sense and for its scenic value – towering trees; icy, clear water; clean air. It's ideal and inexpensive for solo and family outings.
Realistically, recreational gold panners aren't likely to get rich, but the prospect of a few hefty nuggets glistening in the pan is enticement enough.
"Everybody is getting a little excited," says Frank Sullivan, owner of Pioneer Motherlode Mining Supply in Auburn. "The old-timers who retired a few years ago are coming back out. Of course, the people who have cabin fever are coming and buying sluice boxes, pans and digging tools."
Last spring, Sullivan said, somebody discovered a 19-ounce nugget using a "metal locator" or detector. The biggest he's ever seen is a 3-pound chunk of gold.
"I've never found one that big, of course," he says. "But the thing about gold is that your luck is always as good as the next guy's."
Sullivan says gold plucked from rivers around the Auburn area is 83 percent to 86 percent pure gold, the rest being silver and impurities. He added that the north fork of the Yuba River "has always produced the biggest pieces of gold. South of there, the gold gets finer."
Any experienced gold seeker will tell you that the stories about hot spots and nugget size aren't necessarily the whole truth.
"Gold miners are like fishermen. Believe about half of what they tell you," warns Mike Koettle of Miners Emporium in Sierra City.
Then he offers his own treasure-hunting tales. He remembers a 28-ounce nugget found in recent years, but he says that was minuscule compared with those unearthed back in the day.
"Way back when, there were nuggets that weighed several pounds," he says. "One weighed 95 pounds back in the 1800s."
Gold nuggets scattered about on Main Street in Jamestown is a story to be believed. While a new sewer line was being dug down the middle of Jamestown's Main Street in 1984, a pair described as "amateur prospectors" began plucking gold nuggets from the piles of excavated soil and rock.
After a three-day gold rush in the middle of the street, the contractor began hauling the piles away to a lot with a locked fence.
In 1993, the Jamestown Mine put a 60-pound chunk of gold, then valued at $3.5 million, on sale. Smaller gold chunks, some reportedly weighing as much as 20 pounds, had broken off the main piece.
Gold is nearly twice as heavy as lead. Despite its density, gold is soft. In the prospector's pan, gold settles to the bottom as the motion of the water washes other material away. You're much more likely to find gold flakes in the pan than gold nuggets.
Gold's value isn't just based on weight. The shape of a nugget can increase its value two- or threefold. Gold can be sold to prospecting stores, jewelers, other hobbyists and businesses like Security Gold Exchange Inc. in Grass Valley.
But before you buy a pack mule, there's one more important lesson to learn about gold panning. Rangers get a little testy when visitors begin digging holes in search of gold in state and federal parks.
Panning is harmless enough unless you're doing it on a staked claim, private property or public lands where it's prohibited (see accompanying story).
"The general rule is once you learn how to pan for gold, the next thing you need to know is whose land it is and the regulations," says Michalski, the park ranger. "You wouldn't like it if I went to your house and starting digging in your backyard."
