As the ground thaws and dries out and the warmth of spring starts to settle in, it’s time to start afresh with a new prospecting season.

The red dot on the diagram points out where the gravels there were also carrying, but not as much color. The gold was sparse below the point indicated.

To add to the confusion, the dam wasn’t holding back a large amount of water. It was full of gravels and had a small creek running through it. I had to know more.

…we focused on various layers of hard-packed flood material out of the creek, and we also obtained some material up quite a ways from the creek itself on bedrock.

Let’s set up a thought experiment: Suppose you had some material that ran one ounce per ton gold, which is generally considered high grade to fantastic grade depending on the circumstances.