High High Banking continued

Enough setup stuff! Lets see some high banking pictures.

Hard at work adjusting the high banker

Steve is adjusting the high banker. This is a truly beautiful setting to work in. The Arkansas River valley is one of the prettiest spots in Colorado.

Proper water adjustment

Ok, I lied. I had to include one more setup picture. When the angle and the water flow is set properly, the water almost "bounces" over the riffles. This creates good low pressure areas behind each riffle. The box angle wants to be just steep enough so some carpet is exposed in front of each riffle when shoveling into it at your normal speed. If it is too steep, you will lose gold. If not steep enough, the riffles will clog up and you will have to shovel slower. This size high banker will keep two people my age shoveling as fast as they want.

It may not be a dredge nozzle but there's gold here

The rock bank is packed hard enough that a pick works best to loosen the material. We collapsed the bank using the pick and then shoveled the loose material into the hopper. We would trade off doing the pick work. Neither one of us are as young as we used to be.