Season Finale @ the Bedrock Bonanza placer claim

2011 wasn't a great year on the Bedrock Bonanza placer claim. The late winter kept the river swolen well into late July-early August. That made for a short season. On top of that, BLM performed an 'instream' project consisting of digging over 20+ 'salmon pools' over the entire length of the claim.
They dug down to bedrock and placed the gold mearing material up on the bank. Then they did a road decomissioning and cut a new ATV trail high above the old trail. Some of the material that came out of the 'salmon pools' ended up being used for fill on the new ATV trail. So now my gold bearing gravel is scattered helter skelter all over the place. I wrote a letter to the editor of a few local papers trying to express my frustrations. You can read my letter HERE.

I spent most of my time each trip at one spot I call the Glory Hole. I uncovered some bedrock steps that payed half way decent but required processing alot of material. Since all of my work is with hand tools, I was limited to how many pans I could process in a day's time. The bedrock steps sloped downstream so as I cleaned out the next step, the debris was tossed into the previous worked out step.
On my last trip in October, I cleaned step #4 and hit the face on what looks like step #5. This will have to wait until next season as snow is forecast for the area.

This is the total from working the bedrock steps. Just a touch over 2.5 pennyweight. The gold on the right is what I took from step #4 on my last trip.
My winter mining will find me back on the Clearwater River in search of frozen colors!