While in Denver last week, the O’Haras and the Martins went on a gold panning adventure in the Phoenix Gold Mine located in Idaho Springs, Colorado.

The day began by feeding chipmunks at the entrance of the mine. Pans of seeds were provided. If you don’t like chipmunks crawling on you, don’t pick up a pan of seed. They are not shy.

After a brief set of instructions, we were turned loose to go gold panning in the creek that runs down from the mountain. Jeff’s family had their own panning bowls while Susan and the kids used the metal pie plates provided by the mine. Susan wasted no time in scooping up some of the creek’s dirt and sifting through it.

The creek definitely contains gold, just not enough for the owners to mine (they’ve moved on to the next mountain). If you’re patient and lucky enough, you’ll start to find little gold flakes down in the bottom of your pan. Talon (Jeff’s son) found a few flakes in his first pan’s worth of pay dirt.

For a couple of hours, everybody panned away. Mason ended up finding a nugget roughly the size of a BB. Morgan found a few flakes but lost interest fairly quickly. Susan brought home a jug full of dirt and has been sorting through it at the dinner table, looking for more gold.