Flash in the Pan Blog

Are you missing Gold Rush Alaska? Going through GRA withdrawals? Can’t wait to warmly snuggle into a frenetic season 2 to witness the Hoffman crew try it all again, ineptly fumbling through the process of breaking new ground in the Yukon Territory and setting up yet another half-baked wash plant? Are you anxious to see if Mr. Hurt will finally get to bedrock in the mythical Porcupine creek glory hole? You betting both “competitors” are going to lose their shirts (again)? Well, I may have a way for you to get your fix.

Last week, new member Fish50 introduced himself on the club forums and asked for some advice.

Boy is it easy to make fun of the gang at Gold Rush Alaska, so much so that we have had more than 3200 views of our own Reality Behind Reality video in just a month. Seriously it's like shooting fish in a barrel at times.

Ok, I have probably been spending way too much time lately focusing on Gold Rush Alaska. I can't help it. It's not as though I am addicted to the show or something. In reality, I am addicted to the fake reality behind the hit reality show. The more I read about Gold Rush Alaska, the more disapointed I become. It's hard to see the gold prospecting and mining going on through all the scripted drama. I wish they had just left the crew at Porcupine creek alone to do whatever comes naturally.

During episode 9 of the Ore Dump Podcast, ol’ Uno started spouting off about China’s rare earth monopoly and the impact of their ongoing embargo to the rest of the world. Not wanting to look like a complete hillbilly for not having a clue as to what he was talking about, I chose to simply nod my head knowingly and threw out a couple of affirmations as if I knew enough to either agree or disagree with what he was saying. Well, I thought it was about time to dig around a bit and figure it out and of course share my findings with you so you don't sound like a hillbilly at your next fancy cocktail party).

With the work week behind us, ol’ Uno and I were quite excited to spend early Sunday morning out on Olney Creek following the gold streak we were playing with last week. We figured that if we started early enough, we could get a couple of hours prospecting for gold in before heading back to the house to catch the Seattle Seahawks hopefully beating down Chicago to cinch the playoffs. Unfortunately for us, it has been raining heavily over the past couple of days so that when we arrived at 8am Olney was moving fast. It didn’t take long for us to figure out that there just wasn’t a safe place to cross to where we wanted to dig.

Well, if you missed the Prospectors Plus Member’s Dredge Camp 2010 – you really missed out. What a blast! There were more than 40 members able to attend during the weekend outing, running about a dozen or so dredges (including Doug’s 4-inch monster) right on the #7 claim on Williams Creek. In addition to the mountains of great food put on by our very own master chef Laren, there was loads of different equipment for people to try their hand at (like the new Gold Grabber II) and many new friends to meet. It was a fantastic first ‘big’ event for our club!

As you know, the philosophy we live by here at Prospectors Plus is a love of bringing people together, people open to teaching, sharing and learning all aspects of prospecting together and having fun in the process. For a long while now, we have thought the best way to capture that knowledge and spread the reach of our passion is through video and the internet. Well, the time has come to do something about that.

In an effort to add more value, we have been scouring the internet looking for great video resources to share prospecting know-how. The Panning Basics article has been updated with two videos demonstrating both basic panning techniques and a very cool demonstration of tap-n-fan. Hope you enjoy.