In many previous posts, I have spoken of passing through South Park on my way to somewhere else. To me, that’s all it was.
Remember that in Colorado, a “park” is a large flat high-elevation area that is surrounded by mountains. Colorado has many; for example, Estes Park, Woodland Park, Taylor Park, etc. South Park is Colorado’s largest park. It is famous for two things: a TV show on Comedy Central, and a gold rush.
South Park is not a town; it is a place. A place that is ten thousand feet above sea level, mostly flat, and maybe 20 miles wide (east to west) by thirty miles long (north to south). Two of the South Platte River’s three forks flow through it.
The largest town in South Park is Fairplay, built for gold miners and named to attract them to settle there instead of the various mining camps in the area where miners were constantly being cheated. The “town” of South Park in the TV show is Fairplay.
I had begun to notice an RV park on the Middle Fork of the river while passing through town. On the way home from one of my trips that I wrote about earlier here, I stopped in to have a look.
It’s built on an old gold claim. A dredge came through a hundred years ago and took out all of the big gold, but there is still plenty of small gold on the riverbanks for recreational panning. And you can pan for gold to your heart’s content when you’re staying there. Ohhh, boy. Gold panning! My favorite! I knew where my next trip in the motorhome was going to be!
So here’s a shot of “the diggins.” The pay dirt is up on the side bank of the riverbed, where the yellow-handled shovel is. There’s a farm stock-watering tank down on the flat area; that’s where you do your initial panning.
Gold panning cosists of repeatedly shaking a wad of dirt/gravel under water in a gold pan over and over and over. You can’t see the gold at first; all you have is a glob of wet dirt.
Whatever gold is in there will be the heaviest particles in the pan. As you shake, and shake, and shake the pan, the little flecks of gold will slowly work their way to the bottom. Your job is to repeatedly wash away the lightest stuff in the pan, which works its way to the top as you shake. At first, that’s just dirty water. You shake, and pour a little bit of the muddy water off. Then you scoop up more water, and shake some more, and pour off a little bit more.
The guy managing the RV park insisted on taking some pictures of me, using my camera, of me panning. This might be the only photo you will see of me in this entire substack.
We used a vintage pan he had for the shot, to look authentic. Nowadays, prospectors use brightly colored plastic pans. You’ll see why in a little bit.
So here’s a shot of me, washing a fresh pan of dirt in the river, just as the Old Prospectors did it in the olden days. LOL, my friend Dave, who reads this Substack, was horrified when he saw this shot. “Dude, you look FAT! You need to find a camera angle or something where you don’t look so fat!”
Well… yeah. I was about a hundred pounds overweight at the time. It was what it was. But I was happy.
After many many shakings and pourings, the dirt in the pan is down to just sand. There are two kinds: blonde sand and black sand. The blonde sand is on top, as it is lighter than the black stuff. The black sand is the second-heaviest thing in the pan. The gold, if you’ve done everything properly, is under the black sand. You still can’t see it.
You continue dipping, shaking and pouring until the blonde sand has been washed away, with only black sand (and hopefully gold underneath it) left. At this point, you dump it all into what’s called a “finish pan.”
Finish pans are bright blue plastic, and smooth: there are no riffles in them. They are used for the final step in separating the black sand from the gold. After some more shaking, and carefully pouring off a little bit of sand at a time, the gold begins to appear:
It is at this point that you find yourself grinning. GOLD! It is SO pretty. The deep blue of the gold pan makes the gold easier to see. This shot is somewhat bigger than the others; if you click on it, you can enlarge it to hopefully see the little flakes of gold better.
Your task now is to finish separating the black sand from the gold - the most time-consuming part of the whole thing. I usually did this up at camp, next to the motorhome:
And that, Dear Reader, is your introduction to gold panning. This RV park became my favorite RV park in the whole world, because I love panning for gold. I made many trips there over the next couple of years, and became friends with the various people that were running the place at various times.
I just now looked up this place on the Internet. It’s still there, and their website says that you can still pan for gold there. It looks all fancy now with pavement and stuff. If you’re ever passing through South Park in an RV, do consider stopping at the Middle Fork RV Park in Fairplay, Colorado for a couple of nights, and a day of digging for gold.
That "Dave" fella sounds like a total dick! If you could see HIM now, I bet he's fat af. Glad for the large pic of gold panning, I can tell by your description in this wonderful story that you love panning very much. Now tell that "Dave" idiot to F Off!