Dredging Adventure => Chicken Alaska, June 28Th => July 10Th

[JR BOI 11]

Well we’re finally close to heading to Chicken Alaska for our summer prospecting adventure.  My wife and I booked a trip with Dean Race of Gold Fever Prospecting and will spend the better part of 2 weeks dredging on the south fork of the 40 mile.  We’ve spent a lot of time, money, and effort getting ready for this thing as we need to go in light and when you have to pack in your own wet suites, bags and sleeping pads, it’s tough to be anything but light!  Additionally, we’ve spent the better part of six months getting in shape as I’m sure the 23 hr of daylight will tempt us to want to work beyond our normal prospecting routine.

 

We had our dredge in the water pretty early here in Idaho with spring runoff  but I’m not sure what to expect with regard to water temperature up there?  I likely won’t have an issue, but I hope my wife can handle it OK.  I do not believe he runs any sort of hot water system but I may be mistaken.  We’re looking forward to seeing the country and hopefully getting into some larger gold.  We work our butts off down here for flour gold, it all adds up but working with some lager gold for a change will be cool.  I hope to have a good trip report to share when I return.

 

Feel free to drop me a line if you have suggestions as this is my first prospecting adventure to Alaska.  I’ve been up there a couple other times fishing, but never spent any time in the interior of Alaska such as this.

 

JR

[bk5520 1]

That is awesome, I have always dreamed of going to Alaska.i had a friend approach me 20 years ago about dredging at nome.at the time I was a young man with no Capitol and a large young family so nome was out of the question then. Now I can only imagine it is like combat fishing on the little salmon river....

I have been dredging several years here in idaho and love it. 2 of my 5 children have caught the bug big time. Last year my youngest daughter had a story published in the ICMJ. We really enjoy spending time underwater together.

I hope that you have a great time and find good gold with Dean. Please keep us posted on how things go.

Bill

[leonard 10]

My last trip to Alaska was in 2010. I had 125 pounds of "stuff" in 3 big bags. That included all of my dredging gear. My biggest problem was moving it from one airline terminal to another by myself in Nome. That was the beginning of the adventure. From there everything went downhill and we ended up on the east beach of Nome camped in a small tent for 9 days. The dredging stuff was a waste. Noone was dredging for 2 weeks.

 

http://golddredgervideo.com/alaska2008/tentfever.wmv

 

Leonard

[Reno Chris 101]

I've read that story Leonard, and I feel really bad for what happened. You just never know what the weather will be. I am also headed to Chicken to do some metal detecting, and I will also be in a tent. I hope the weather holds! My first two prospecting trips to Alaska were very nice with overall good weather.