gold panning

[flyanddrive]

A couple of friends and I are interested in giving gold panning a try just for kicks and giggles. Does anyone have any info on good areas to try? I have read that AF canyon above tibble fork can be good. If anyone has anything to offer on the subject it would be appreciated. We are in Provo but wouldn't mind driving for an hour or two.
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[wiperhunter2]

Some friends at work are into panning for gold and the Uintahs are a place they go when panning in Utah. There are several books on the subject that you could read about in the library but I don't remember if they give locations. Good luck. WH2
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]I have done a lot of gold panning and gold diving...mostly in California and Arizona. While Utah is highly mineralized and has lots of good rock hounding, there are really not many good spots to consistently find enough gold to make the effort worthwhile.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Indeed there are books in the library and in outdoor oriented stores around the state that tell where gold HAS been found. Unfortunately, most of the places that have produced gold have been either totally mined out or are under private claim. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The flip side of that is that almost any stream will have at least a few flakes or specks of gold somewhere, if you know where to look and how to find it. It is not just laying on the surface for anyone to pick up. In most cases you have to find pockets in bedrock and clean out a lot of rock and gravel to get down to the "pay zone". It is a lot of hard work and you seldom score more than a few flecks of color for a handling a whole lot of rock and gravel.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]There are legends of an old mine in the Uintahs, known and guarded by the Native Americans of the area. Every state has such legends. Some may even be true.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]In days of old it was possible to pan gold below the mouth of Bingham Canyon. Now you can't get near it.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Yes, there are minor veins of low grade gold ore all over Utah. There is a lot of gold mixed in with the copper, silver, lead and other minerals. The only problem is that it takes sophisticated mining equipment and chemical processes to get the gold out of that ore. In some instances the gold is in almost microscopic dust distributed in extremely small amounts in very hard rock. There is no way for an average prospector to even know it is in there, much less mine it profitably.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]If I may suggest a fun and potentially more profitable venture, invest in a good metal detector and go "coin shooting" in some of the old communities around Utah. Between finding old coins and metal artifacts, you can also find old dumps full of very valuable old glass bottles. If nothing else, make the rounds at schools and parks and find the lost lunch money in the sand beneath swings and other play ground equipment. The sandy beaches on many lakes can be productive too.[/#0000ff]
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