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Pining For Gold Mining: Diamonds Are Arkansas' Best Friend

It's a whole new type of laid-off travel; gold mining is back with a vengeance and oftentimes, the richest veins are closer than you think. All this week we'll be digging deep into the USA's dirt to uncover the best spots for sifting your way into a small fortune, or at least one month's rent. Any suggestions or questions? Let us know.

Gold prices may be hovering around the very tempting $900 an ounce, but diamonds are still very much in demand, and we figured that you'd need something to set into your newly-wrought gold jewelry. Take some business away from DeBeers and go hunting for your own gems outside of Murfreesboro, Arkansas at the Crater of Diamonds State Park.

Armed with a campsite, the Park attracts people from all over the south for days at a time as they try their hand at digging for the rough stuff—keep in mind that they won't be perfectly-cut, clear stones just lying there in wait for you. Nonetheless, the park's website lists daily finds which include a 1-carat find on May 30.

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Tags: Gold-Mining / Gold Mines / Treasure Hunting / Adventure Travel / Pioneer Travel / Georgia Travel / → All Tags

Pining For Gold Mining: Some Real Peaches in Georgia

It's a whole new type of laid-off travel; gold mining is back with a vengeance and oftentimes, the richest veins are closer than you think. All this week we'll be digging deep into the USA's dirt to uncover the best spots for sifting your way into a small fortune, or at least one month's rent. Any suggestions or questions? Let us know.

As any visitor to Tennessee tourist towns will know, gold mining isn't just an activity left to the Southwest states. In fact, the first major US gold rush happened in Dahlonega, Georgia in 1828— the town's name even means "yellow money" in Cherokee. Although most of the big stakes were cleaned out by the US Treasury back in the day, the rebranding of the area as a wine country has reinvigorated tourist gold mining as a secondary activity.

The king of mining in Dahlonega is undoubtably the Crisson Gold Mine, which offers treasure hunting activities for every level of fortune-seeker. From metal detectors and panning to using a trommel—machines that effectively pan for you, and at a faster pace— Crisson offers some of the most tourist-friendly gold hunting around. The quarry out back even boasts old mine machinery and a quartz stamp mill for the the historically curious.

Gold ore is available in two ways at Crisson: fresh from the earth and ready to be panned or trommelled, or "salted," which is essentially more expensive ore as it has been purposefully peppered with possible finds. And if you can't make it down to Georgia anytime soon but want to try your hand at panning, the mine offers 1 gallon of the "super high grade gold ore concentrates" for $125, shippable to your house. What an idea for a summer backyard BBQ party!

Related Stories:
· Crisson Gold Mine [Official Site]
· Panning For Gold Makes a Comback [Jaunted]
· Gold Mining Coverage [Jaunted]

[Quarry photo: Crisson Mine; Gold photo: aresauburn]

Tags: Gold-Mining / Gold Mines / Treasure Hunting / Adventure Travel / Pioneer Travel / Phoenix / Arizona Travel / → All Tags

Pining for Gold Mining: Heli Between Prospects in Arizona

It's a whole new type of laid-off travel; gold mining is back with a vengeance and oftentimes, the richest veins are closer than you think. All this week we'll be digging deep into the USA's dirt to uncover the best spots for sifting your way into a small fortune, or at least one month's rent. Any suggestions or questions? Let us know.

We've covered gold mining the old fashioned way, of panning beside a river, and even a more current version involving Hummers out of Las Vegas, but what about the future of prospecting?

If the streams all get picked over during this recession, we may see more and more helicopter tours departing to harder-to-reach areas, ever in search of a record find. For $4,000 per couple, you can hop such a chopper at Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport for a 5-day vacation of flying over mesas and setting down for a little private claim digging—after instruction on the best methods, of course.

There are longer and further trips available for the hardcore treasure hunters, but we'd think that 5 days working hard for the money (er, gold) in the hot Arizona sun should be plenty to satisfy your curiosity about heli-gold-digging. -

Related Stories:
· Arizona Gold Adventures [Official Site]
· Panning For Gold Makes a Comback [Jaunted]
· Gold Mining Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: wharman]

Tags: Gold-Mining / Gold Mines / Treasure Hunting / Adventure Travel / Pioneer Travel / Las Vegas / Nevada Travel / → All Tags

Pining for Gold Mining: Take a Hummer Out of Las Vegas

It's a whole new type of laid-off travel; gold mining is back with a vengeance and oftentimes, the richest veins are closer than you think. All this week we'll be digging deep into the USA's dirt to uncover the best spots for sifting your way into a small fortune, or at least one month's rent. Any suggestions or questions? Let us know.

Usually folks don't head to Las Vegas anticipating a weekend of sitting quietly by a stream, panning for bits of gold. So that's why, if you do opt to step away from the slots long enough to indulge fantasies of treasure hunting, an LV-based tour company will take out out for it in sufficiently flashy style.

Smack down $200 and pack your Timberlands for the "Off Road Hummer Gold Rush Adventure Tour" from Grand Canyon Tour Company. They'll pick you up at your Vegas hotel in a rough-and-ready Hummer, before driving you out into the middle of nowhere for a 4x4 experience, a visit to the Eldorado canyon, and some panning of your own outside of Savage Mine.

Keep whatever you find, even though you know that it'll end up on the craps table later that evening. And since this is only a day-long tour, no commitment to pioneer living with outdoor toilets and baked beans cooked over a fire needed.

Related Stories:
· Hummer Gold Rush Adventure Tour [Grand Canyon Tours]
· Panning For Gold Makes a Comback [Jaunted]
· Gold Mining Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: customsnow162]

Tags: Gold-Mining / Gold Mines / Treasure Hunting / Adventure Travel / Pioneer Travel / Los Angeles / California Travel / → All Tags

Pining For Gold Mining: Angeles National Forest

It's a whole new type of laid-off travel; gold mining is back with a vengeance and oftentimes, the richest veins are closer than you think. All this week we'll be digging deep into the USA's dirt to uncover the best spots for sifting your way into a small fortune, or at least one month's rent. Any suggestions or questions? Let us know.

In an effort to perhaps lift the spirits of those with pink slips in the LA-area, USA Today reported in April that the Angeles National Forest was THE place to be for old-school pioneer gold mining. Now that the price of gold is high enough—at nearly $900 an ounce—to convince people to squat next to streams for hours, it seems that the proximity of the Forest's natural (and sparkling) resources to Los Angeles is drawing the crowds.

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