[treecotton]

hi all

are there any good places to find gold around quartzsite.
well be down there for 2 wks. be down oct 8.
looking for any help i can get got the new 3500 from chris
give it a good try thanks
dave

[Montana]

Tree cotton. It's a great detecting area. Chris and I got some nice ones there the last time we visited. One of the best areas in Az. The GPs kick butt there in the deeper ground for the bigger nuggets. Most folks who go there use VLFs chasing the tiny surface specks which were very plentiful in the past . They still find them though. Just not in the numbers of the past.----Bob

[Chris Gholson]

Hi Dave,

Quartzsite is a great place to try your hand at nugget-shooting. There have been 1000's of nuggets picked up in this area over the years. It is a favorite winter retreat for snowbirds, so it can get a bit crowded from Nov-March. The RV Parks are too crazy for me; I think its better to find a little quiet place off in the bush somewhere away from the hum of generators. We used to camp off the Dome Rock Interchange, or further west heading towards Ehernberg.

The principal districts are the La Paz placers, Plomosa placers, La Cholla placers, Oro Fino and Middle Camp. The GPAA has some claims in the area, all of which have gold. For more info. you can check out the AZO website for details on the districts or grab yourself a copy of Placer Gold Deposits of Arizona by M. Johnson. It is the Arizona Nugget Hunter's Bible, it only costs about $8. That little orange book has put me onto a lot of gold, they are also available on the website.

Best of luck to you, if I can dig up some old photos I'll post them below.

Bob,

That trip we took a year or two back to QZSTE was an eye opener. Those gullies had been pounded since the 70's, shouldn't have been anything left! Amazing what a Minelab GP & NF coil are capable of. Maybe another visit this winter...

[Colorado Bob]

Hey guys, no reason to bring those ML's to the Quartzsite area as there is no gold left here. I know, I live here. OK, just jerking your chain's, there is still gold, but I'm not sure that there are as many pieces of gold as there are people here in the winter. I dont even try to hunt close to Quartzsite in the winter, if your not careful you will trip over someone else's feet. Usually hunt 15 to 30 mi. away from town. Just about everyone camps at Dome Rock or near-by, so in the past years, I bet there has been a couple thousand detectors, or more, in that area, and there is still a little gold left. Example: Awhile back it was real hot and as I live about 10 min. from there, I though it would be a good time to go out there and fool around for awhile, as no one would be camping this time of year, [wrong] some nut was camped out in 110 degree's, anyway I was working a little area about 100yds. off the paved road, when I quit I had found nine small ones, the largest one 54 grains, for you grammies, that about 3.499 grams. That was with my GB2, not a ML. Be interesting to run an ML over the same dirt.

[Montana]

Colorado Bob. 3 1/2 grams? I'll be right over.----Bob

[Colorado Bob]

Montana,
I think, an even better place is around the hill to the Trigo mountains,[that is, if Chris hasn't already been there & taken out all the gold]. The ground is covered with hot rocks, by the hundreds. A lot of the soil is red or a reddish brown. Lots of dry wash piles and some short tunnels into the sides of wash. We worked the area a couple of times with GB2's. You will go nuts while yanking your hair out & trying to ground balance every five feet. It's an area for an ML only. Nothing else works.

[Montana]

Bob. Yes we,ve been there to the Trigos. Chris had already been there before me and he showed me several spots where nuggets used to be. I had my best luck behind our camp at dome rock. Like you say , It's hard to squeeze between the motorhomes there in the winter. Chris, Doc, and Mojave John did better across the freeway. Wonder how many patches got wiped out by the freeway ? Countless nuggets have been found in that area. For sheer numbers, that may have been the best detecting in Az. and they weren't all small nuggets. As with all patches the big ones are the first to go. You can see where the hot spots were, with all the rocks raked into windrows as the VLFers gathered up the crumbs. A little walking with the GPs turned up some nice nuggets in the 4-5 gram range. Great place in the spring and fall when the crowds aren't there, and there is still gold to be found.---Bob

[Montana]

Here's a couple of photos of gold from the last quick trip over there.---Bob

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•  IMG_00171.jpg (12.33K)
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[Colorado Bob]

Montana,
As you know, some of the good areas are just inside the boundary, so if you come over just for that, you may want to check ahead a little, before you make plans. Last year, or I guess it was the year before, some of the guys were being stopped by the guys in green [army]. Don't know how it is now as I haven't been over there for awhile. Guess I'll check it out one of these day's. Bob T.

[Colorado Bob]

Nice looking nug's Bob, I'll take some of that every day, it don't have to be huge to make me happy. Bob T.

[Chris Gholson]

Colorado Bob,

I was a little late getting into the Trigos. By '97 most of the larger & surface gold had been picked up with the Bugs and Goldmasters. Having said that, my wife and I did do fairly well with the SD 2100's snagging a few tiny patches here and there. We focused mostly on the deeper banks & benches, and those areas where the really nasty hot rocks had concentrated. Nothing big, but we added quite a few little ones to the bottle. My last trip or two didn't produce a single nugget. Slim pickings these days, but still a fun place to detect...

Here are some pics I dug out of the photo albums and scanned

[Colorado Bob]

Chris,
I noticed that both items in the photo are yellow, so both must be good.
Bob T.