Albert Fausel used to spend his days at his family’s hardware store sorting through boxes of bolts and pacing back and forth on creaking old floorboards to greet his loyal customers. But on a recent sunny afternoon, he put on his wetsuit and diving mask and ducked his face into the shallow creek near his home in search of treasure after the recent heavy rain.
An amateur gold prospector, Mr. Fausel used only his hands to brush aside the sand and gravel at the bottom of the creek and then, still underwater, let out a cry that could be heard through his snorkel. him: “Woooo-hoo -hoooo!
He showed up with what gold-seekers call treasure – not exactly a lump of gold, but big enough for you to pinch in your finger – and he gave the glitter to his gold digger friend, Fuzzy. In just 20 minutes of groping around the creek bed, Mr. Fausel found about 0 worth of gold.
The rushing waters are splitting and bringing gold mines to the people.
There’s been a gold rush in California in recent days – the kind that happens when nature unleashes a treasure trove of sparkling precious metals. Heavy winter rainfall in California carries water through rivers and mountain streams. And as warmer weather melts huge snowbanks, rushing waters are splitting and bringing gold mines to the people. Violent wildfires in recent years have also loosened the soil, helping to push downstream what some here call the gold of floods .
Such gold mining is currently severely restricted in California, but gold prospectors say recent consecutive winter storms have produced an unstoppable effect . It was as if Mother Nature had aimed a pressure washer at the hills and brought in some precious minerals still lying in the rocks and dirt.
“Whenever you can stand by a river and hear the rock roll, you know the gold is moving,” said Jim Eakin, owner of a local firewood business who found a huge lump of gold. . He found a nugget of gold so large that four years ago he bought a brand new Ford F-150 pickup with the money he got from it. Like many of his gold-hunting friends, Mr Eakin, who often wears a gold nugget around his neck, was cautious when asked exactly where he had unearthed the lump that had just been loaded onto the truck.
With gold prices nearing a peak of ,000 an ounce, Eakin ranks himself among the gold-seekers who can “read taste” and profit from flood weather.
Mr. Dayton is a former police officer and firefighter who now makes a living as a gold hunter . In just a few outings in April, he found gold pieces worth 0. Gold seekers like him predict the greatest gold is yet to come, when river levels recede and rocks and sandbanks become accessible would be the perfect time.