Midway into my first tank of gas I was beginning to see color in my sluicebox. Needless to say, I was excited.

Sure enough, after hiking a couple miles uphill and hacking through some brush, we found the place just as he had described it.

My right rib cage took the brunt of the blow from the fall, which left me feeling partially paralyzed and in immense pain.

My brother Darryl and I had not had a prospecting adventure since January and we wanted to try out our new drywasher, so we decided to go for the weekend and check out some claims near Barstow…

We all love to see that first glimmer of gold when it peeks out from under the black sand in our pan, or feel the weight of a nugget in our scoop when we dig a good target. But sometimes things don’t go quite so smoothly.

The temptation to enter the dark interiors beckoned to me before the day was finished but I resisted.

The dredge and our gear, with us clinging on to the sides, bounced along until it got hung up on a large boulder in the middle of the river.