This past weekend Oct. 9-12 was the PLP Annual Fallfest, the weather cooperated with the temperatures in the mid 80’s, wind but not too much and over 100 people in attendance from all over the state. Most folks worked piles they either paid Duisenburg for or the open piles that PLP bought for the participants to work. Treasure Seekers also opened 130 acres of the South Freedom and Freedom claim south of the railroad tracks for everyone to use. Friday and Saturday a dozen people were over there checking it out. I spent 3 hours metal detecting and then another 2 hours drywashing some test areas. My old hill from 20 years ago yielded 11 colors for a 30-minute run and my test of the plunge pool right out of the tunnel in the new washout area yielded 8 colors for a 1 hr run. The were a number of very interesting seminars for the attendees including one on metal detecting and another by Miner Ma on map research and interpreting Lidar maps. The Friday night spaghetti dinner was attended by some 60 people, and the desserts were very tasty as well. Saturday night was the bar-b-que went off without a hitch and was followed by the raffle drawing. Congratulations to Jim Jupena with a metal detector win, Art and Rosie for a silver round, Mike and Mindy for another silver round, and Thomas for a one-year membership to the Coarsegold Prospecting group. When we return in November, I will be back to testing the north basin again as there has been a lot of runoff and flushing from the rain several weeks ago. On Tuesday the 7th another beautiful 5.8-gram nugget was found by one of our members in the claim area, probably exposed due to the washing off of the sand or was transported by the water flow to where it was found.

Our outing in October is another seeded hunt currently listed as a night hunt on the 18th and there will be food. It will be at Crown Point Shores our alternate Mission Bay location. At the moment only 5 members have signed up for the hunt. If by Thursday, the 16th more people haven’t expressed interest in participating then the event will be cancelled.

Jerryk