Santa Rosa Mountains

Willow Creek



The books say there's a 17 mile stretch of the range
that has gold bearing creeks. This is the first one
I got access to, as you have to cross private land.
This is the third creek going north up the range.
Rebel Creek the first was inaccessible as I wasn't
 able to gain permission from land owners. Eagle
  Creek the second was from this area.



This is the road going up the creek into the mountains.



I not only got permission from Darrell a local farm
and rancher but he showed me a nice cottonwood
shaded area on the creek to camp.



The upper creek has running water in it. They built
a small dam half way down to use the water for
irrigation of their crops. The books say the old
timers worked a 6 mile stretch of this creek.



My prospecting partner Coco leading the way.



Far up the creek there's evidence of old rock cabins.



I detected around the walls and grounds a while
but there's a lot of iron trash in the area.



Another old cabin, they say the Chinese miners
worked this area down to bedrock and took out
much coarse gold.



This is Chris a local land owner, he gave me
 permission to cross his property and explore
farther up the creek.



This area has a very red layer of gravel in the creek.
I panned a little of it from a few places and
found a little color.



Chris and I did a little work with the battery
operated trommel, but got no color. I think
you would find gold further down in the
gravel's. We were digging off the surface as
I was showing Chris how a trommel works.
This creek gave up a lot of gold
in the 1800's.



Higher up on the hill sides there's lots of Quartz
outcrops. This one had a small audit started in it.
There were many of these in the area.



Looking down from the audit to the creek.



Even though I found little gold while exploring this
Creek I had a great time and made two new friends.
Thanks to Darrell and Chris for making my
stay very enjoyable.


Back to Bill and Linda's