Yellow Creek

Yellow Creek Bar

Yellow Creek Bar
Placer Mining Claim

40 Acres

Yellow Creek is one of the most beautiful creeks in Plumas County and Advanced Geologic was fortunate to acquire this mining claim. Yellow Creek is located in western Plumas County and flows from Humbug Valley into the North Fork of the Feather River near Beldon (just below the famous Rich Bar discovery). PG&E maintains a superb campground in Humbug Valley that has been the summer home to many miners and prospectors of Yellow Creek.

Yellow Creek has been historically mined since the bonanza was discovered at Rich Bar. Tailing piles are scattered about the drainage and there is an old flume along the east bank, but clearly the old prospectors did not get it all. The gold in Yellow Creek is bright and plentiful! It is generally chunky from nearby bedrock source. Yellow Creek is noted for its exquisite Fall colors, and the creek name comes not the color of the leaves, but its GOLD!

The Yellow Creek Bar placer mining claim is an excellent claim with tremendous opportunity for gold prospecting. It is located 10 miles south of Highway 89 and two miles south of the Yellow Creek Campground on Yellow Creek Road. Motor Homes and RVs can easily navigate Yellow Creek Road to the campground; however, you will need a 4wd to drive down a steep two-track access road to the creek. The access road leads right to a sweet camp site along the creek just south of the southern claim boundary. It is an easy, short walk along the creek trail to the claim.

The claim attributes are

The bedrock is Feather River ultramafic belt or serpentine. Mineralized up-drainage rocks include marine and volcanic sediments of the Shoe Fly Formation and undifferentiated Triassic marine and volcanic rocks. The Melones fault or contact with the Feather River ultramafic belt and the Shoe Fly Formation crops out a short distance upstream of the claim. The fault is associated with high-grade gold mineralization here and elsewhere in the northern Sierra. The Shoe Fly Formation is also a huge source of gold in Yellow Creek.

Yellow Creek maintains a consistent flow of between 1-3 feet deep nearly all year and has excellent fishing. Excellent foot trails service both side of the river and downed trees serve as bridges across the stream.

The creek gently meanders through a straight, south-facing portion of the valley littered with boulders and a few downed trees and logs. Broken and fractured bedrock is exposed in a number of locations and there is a prominent, unexplored clay ledge. Prospectors up stream have found nuggets lying right on top of this clay ledge. Under the clay ledge are old, unexplored gravels.

Several locations show the high-bank deposits consist of a thin veneer of recent flood deposits that are underlain by older "unworked" stream deposits. These floods also scoured the old remnant terrace deposits, exposing tree roots that have held onto their gravels for several decades. Older remnant terrace deposits exist higher up the slope and are equally unexplored. The relic flume was breached by the old prospectors to wash these gravel deposits into their sluice boxes. Prospectors armed with metal detectors will be keen on those targets.

While there are locations where gravels on bedrock is readily accessible, other places it may be 4-8 feet below the water. For this reason much of Yellow Creek has not been mined very well in the past and experienced miners with a 5" or larger dredge could reap some huge rewards. Hence the prospecting skills required for the Yellow Creek Bar placer mining claim is recreational to advanced.

The snow usually melts off in late May or early June, which is just in time for the opening of dredging season on the creek (last weekend in May to the second week of October.

This is a great site for not only families, but experienced prospectors as well. Miners and prospectors will have a life-time of opportunities before this claim is played out.