First Gold In New Mexico

Our first day (for this trip) in New Mexico saw us venturing into the desert- 15 miles from camp, then off road, four-wheeling in the Quig for about a mile to a claim that Stonewall Gene had been given permission for us to work on. We classified material from a small wash that fed into a larger wash, worked it down to the hard pack layer, then used our "vacs" to sweep the cracks and crevices. We lugged the buckets down the hill and into the larger wash- then ran all the material through the back-pack sized dry washer that we tote with us everywhere we go. Presto Change-o, Magicadoola, gold in the clean up! So New Mexico becomes our tenth state where we have found gold. Have to give a lot of the credit to Stonewall for the groundwork that got us on the claim and into a location that was very good. The campground also has its own claim for use by campers and we aim to rustle some dirt over there as well- with hopefully even more successful results.

So Stonewall, Harry, Marilyn and I dug in the wash today. Jules, Wayne and Carol headed out rock hounding. Nancy and John dry washed with Nancy's homemade dry-washer at the camp claim; then Nancy came home and made an awesome homemade stew that fed all of us around a campfire as darkness fell and the desert night turned cold. It was a magnificent day!

States Where We Found Gold