I have been wanting to post on our recent gold prospecting outing for a long time, but just haven’t had time. I finally got a few minutes, so here goes. Recently I packed up the H3T with all our gold prospecting gear plus my wife and stepson and we drove out to Barstow to a claim that the local Gold Prospectors Club maintains for use by the club members. Since we usually have three or four people in the T when we go, all the gear has to fit into the back of the truck. Here is a picture of the back end with all our gear.
And another with the cargo slide extended.
Starting from the front, there are six 6 gallon water containers to run the recalculating sluice across the front and the CO2 tank is in the farthest corner. There are three shovels running from the front to back down the middle and my Hi-Lift jack on the bottom center. In the middle is my tool box, winch and Hi-Lift jack accessories, tire patch kit and four 5 gallon Home Depot buckets. In the back on the left side is our recalculating sluice, two seat cushions, three classifiers (to sift the dirt by size), folding chairs, a folding porta potty and the cooler.
Here is a picture of the sluice set up and running. My wife, Colleen, is feeding dirt into the top and my stepson, Aaron, is scraping tailings out the end. The biggest feature of this sluice is that it all packs up into the base and lid and closed up like a suitcase. I’d have a hard time fitting a larger sluice into the truck.
The water sprays in at the top where Colleen is feeding dirt and it flows down the sluice where the denser gold is trapped in the riffles. The water is caught in the gray tub at the end. The water is drawn through a U shaped black plastic pipe siphon, just below the yellow frame in the picture. At the lower left corner is a bilge pump that pumps the water back up to the top. We use about 12 to 15 gallons of water to get the sluice started and add 15 to 18 gallons as the day by. The last 6 gallon jug is usually used for clean-up at the end of the day.
Here is a picture at the end of the day with it all packed up and ready to go home.
The cargo slide comes in very handy on trips like this. I can load everything and tie it all down and then slide it closed. I can’t imagine loading all this gear and tying it down while crawling in under the SlantBack.
And another with the cargo slide extended.
Starting from the front, there are six 6 gallon water containers to run the recalculating sluice across the front and the CO2 tank is in the farthest corner. There are three shovels running from the front to back down the middle and my Hi-Lift jack on the bottom center. In the middle is my tool box, winch and Hi-Lift jack accessories, tire patch kit and four 5 gallon Home Depot buckets. In the back on the left side is our recalculating sluice, two seat cushions, three classifiers (to sift the dirt by size), folding chairs, a folding porta potty and the cooler.
Here is a picture of the sluice set up and running. My wife, Colleen, is feeding dirt into the top and my stepson, Aaron, is scraping tailings out the end. The biggest feature of this sluice is that it all packs up into the base and lid and closed up like a suitcase. I’d have a hard time fitting a larger sluice into the truck.
The water sprays in at the top where Colleen is feeding dirt and it flows down the sluice where the denser gold is trapped in the riffles. The water is caught in the gray tub at the end. The water is drawn through a U shaped black plastic pipe siphon, just below the yellow frame in the picture. At the lower left corner is a bilge pump that pumps the water back up to the top. We use about 12 to 15 gallons of water to get the sluice started and add 15 to 18 gallons as the day by. The last 6 gallon jug is usually used for clean-up at the end of the day.
Here is a picture at the end of the day with it all packed up and ready to go home.
The cargo slide comes in very handy on trips like this. I can load everything and tie it all down and then slide it closed. I can’t imagine loading all this gear and tying it down while crawling in under the SlantBack.
