Early Days on the American River

Here is a story from one of our early adventures: Ever hear of the old adage, "Gold is where you find it?" Charlotte and I had been mining up and down the river and up and down Shirttail Creek in 1980 thru 1983 or so. We had found some decent gold, occasionally, extravagant gold. We had one and two ounce days. During those years, we had noticed several parties dredging around an enormous boulder at the mouth of Shirttail Creek. We had been having our success by using a grip hoist, a winch, that could pull 6 tons straight. We had lots of chain and cable chokers and had learned to tie onto boulders and either tow them out of our hole or at the very least, roll them out. We left the American River for a creek in the high country for three dredging seasons. Then we took an 18 month housesit in the Applegate area up near Colfax. We had kept in touch with our old friend Ron and had a little free time on our hands so we teamed up to take on the boulder project that you can watch below.