0:11 [SPEAKER_01]: But as you guys get out, I start to hear gunfire, like I'm a shock guy. 0:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I was just like, guys, do you guys hear that? 0:22 [SPEAKER_01]: But by that point in time, you guys had already been in this gold fever, and you guys are so determined. 0:29 [SPEAKER_01]: You're like, yeah, I'm sure it's fine. 0:31 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was some people up on the hill, target shooting, they were shooting handguns, or something like that. 0:37 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it was rifles. 0:38 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was handguns. 0:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Probably 9mm, 9mm, 9mm, 45mm, one of the two. 0:44 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm here today with Branton Nick, and we're going to be trying something a little different. 0:50 [SPEAKER_01]: It occurred to me, after our national park series, we had not yet discussed one of my favorite parts of that trip, 0:58 [SPEAKER_01]: The day we went gold panning and a cold Washington River, I figured the best way to share that with you would be to sit down with both of them and remember it together. 1:10 [SPEAKER_01]: On trips like the one we took, it's easy to get comfortable hearing about history. 1:16 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm always on the lookout for ways to experience it firsthand. 1:20 [SPEAKER_01]: To do things people would have done hundreds of years ago. 1:35 [SPEAKER_01]: Alright, so where were we in Washington when we decided that we wanted to do this? 1:40 [SPEAKER_02]: I think honestly, it started off with just a bunch of jokes about how I like rocks. 1:45 [SPEAKER_02]: And then we were like, hey, we should go gold hunting or searching for gold. 1:49 [SPEAKER_02]: I know I got on the topic like when I was living out in California, the American River out there. 1:54 [SPEAKER_02]: It's just littered with fools gold. 1:56 [SPEAKER_02]: And so my sister and I, we were actually, we traveled up to King's Canyon, and we stopped along the side of the highway, and we were just like, hey, let's go check out the river, and we stepped down in it, and all of a sudden we just saw all kinds of shimmering, and we thought it was gold, so we spent like two hours there, just playing around in the river. 2:18 [SPEAKER_02]: We were like, we actually went and bought like buckets just so we could bring this sand home with each other. 2:23 [SPEAKER_01]: I think in part we just figured we couldn't do worse than that, but because Brent had such a good time with it, we decided to try it ourselves, with more of a focus on history. 2:38 [SPEAKER_01]: We'd heard about the 49ers of the California Gold Rush, and the 59ers of the Nevada Silver Rush, which had happened 10 years later, and wanted to get a better sense of the actual experience of being out in the water trying to strike it rich. 2:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Our tour guide in the Virginia City mineshaft, Spencer, had gotten us excited about all of the gold and silver still waiting to be found. 3:06 [SPEAKER_01]: But also warned against looking for it, underground. 3:11 [SPEAKER_01]: There are still 300 miles of silver mineshafts under the small town of Virginia City. 3:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for modern day treasure hunters to wander into those mines 3:27 [SPEAKER_01]: A combination of crumbling walls, rotten timbers, and lethal gas have killed untold numbers of now missing persons. 3:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Spencer was talking about how their minds still there that have silver and gold and even one mind in particular I think has a ton of gold but the mine ended up flooding and 3:57 [SPEAKER_02]: The risk factor between the flooding and trying to remove that, trying to get back down there in comparison to how much gold silver was down there. 4:07 [SPEAKER_02]: It was too high of a risk factor, but apparently they're still a good chunk of stuff down there. 4:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, a lot of times when they come across how much of a vein they think might be down there. 4:19 [SPEAKER_01]: They'll have to create an estimate on how much it were cost. 4:24 [SPEAKER_01]: to go down to get it. 4:25 [SPEAKER_01]: And if that cost is too great, meaning if they think, well, we could go down there and get it there, might be a million dollars worth of code or silver, but it's going to cost us almost that just to go down there and get it. 4:37 [SPEAKER_01]: That's not going to be worth it. 4:39 [SPEAKER_03]: Cost benefit analysis, I think, the industry term. 4:43 [SPEAKER_03]: But I got the sense that much of the cost was wrapped up in 4:48 [SPEAKER_03]: ensuring the operation because of how dangerous it was. 4:53 [SPEAKER_03]: We're getting coverage for these extended high danger. 4:58 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, if you go back and look at the 5:03 [SPEAKER_02]: time and era that wasn't a factor then they literally had a canary and Spencer was talking about having a canary and that the physical bird and that was like their indicator of hey when the bird stops chirping that basically means we should get out because of all the toxic poisonous gases that are like coming out of that area you're gonna die so they used a canary as their method but like now 5:28 [SPEAKER_02]: We've got all kinds of legislation, walls put in place that just prevents any of that. 5:33 [SPEAKER_02]: We can't get away with any of that stuff now. 5:35 [SPEAKER_03]: We value human life in a way that they did not. 5:38 [SPEAKER_03]: The life expectancy of these guys was 40. 5:41 [SPEAKER_03]: Something like that, they lived a really wealthy, hedonistic life. 5:47 [SPEAKER_03]: for about three years, the gas is one thing. 5:50 [SPEAKER_03]: It was soft rock mining, which means there were caven's all the time. 5:55 [SPEAKER_03]: So there's just a huge list of reasons why going back down there today's a bad idea. 6:02 [SPEAKER_03]: But... 6:03 [SPEAKER_03]: We went into that probably thinking it'd be fun to go down some mineshafts and wander around. 6:09 [SPEAKER_03]: Spencer told us if you do, you will die and no one will ever find your body. 6:13 [SPEAKER_03]: And so our focus shifted. 6:15 [SPEAKER_01]: I checked out. 6:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 6:17 [SPEAKER_01]: He was like, I was down there couldn't feel my back anymore. 6:20 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, nope. 6:21 [SPEAKER_01]: That's it for me. 6:23 [SPEAKER_03]: But we were looking for some lower risk opportunities to encounter the past. 6:29 [SPEAKER_02]: I think the two of us were able to stand well, I don't know you you're pretty tall too. 6:33 [SPEAKER_02]: Were you able to stand up all the way in the shaft? 6:36 [SPEAKER_02]: No, not all the way. 6:37 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so that's the thing. 6:38 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like those mine shafts were like five maybe five and a half feet. 6:43 [SPEAKER_02]: I was barely clear in them and you guys were breaking your back trying to walk through there. 6:48 [SPEAKER_01]: It was absolutely miserable. 6:49 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I didn't look fun at all. 6:51 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think what you want to do in a trip like this is balance official prepared activities or tours where you have preset outcomes that you know you're going to get with times where you're just wandering around doing your own thing and feeling what people in those times would have felt seeing what they would have seen and so coming out of a mind tour and we might have done a second mind tour, I don't remember. 7:16 [SPEAKER_03]: but I think we had the impulse to just go do something on our own and we found this map that showed us a place an hour from where we were in anacordus, where we could go get in a stream and just play around, dig around. 7:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well you found an app. 7:33 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so there's an app and then I started just doing some research on rock counting, just in general, and like places to dig in like specific areas or places that you could. 7:46 [SPEAKER_01]: The name of the website we used was RockHoundResource.com. 7:53 [SPEAKER_01]: This site not only gave us some idea of the gear we'd need, but it provided a state-by-state map of different locations where precious rocks and metals have been found. 8:04 [SPEAKER_01]: We basically just picked the GPS location of the nearest place where gold had been found. 8:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Gold was first discovered in Washington in the 1850s, and then again in the 1880s. 8:19 [SPEAKER_01]: While there was never a gold rush like the ones in California and Alaska, a number of productive mines were established. 8:28 [SPEAKER_01]: The vast majority of these were short-lived, but from time to time, a bit of gold still surfaces 8:37 [SPEAKER_02]: Honestly, the first location that we showed up to just seemed like it was somebody's like backyard almost across the river was these house and stuff over there So I remember us trying to like get to it. 8:47 [SPEAKER_02]: It was like actually a private property if you remember that. 8:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're driving. 8:51 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're driving driving road like in this big SUV. 8:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and brands looking through the app 8:59 [SPEAKER_01]: and apparently you're able to somehow filter where you're seeing what type of mineral. 9:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so we've got a bunch of gold. 9:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we've got a bunch of gold. 9:07 [SPEAKER_01]: So then you're able to see, and I assume it works by people are reporting where they found this certain mineral. 9:14 [SPEAKER_01]: So people who have been to this location are putting hey, I found gold of this location and they're pinning it on that map on the app And that's what we did. 9:24 [SPEAKER_02]: We just followed the the GPS to to that location and what was interesting It was just like basically coordinates like the long-student ladder to coordinates It wasn't even like like a address or anything 9:38 [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, I remember the very first time you mentioned this, the true crime podcast during me immediately questions like the mode of behind these people and I just thought if these people are really finding gold and silver, why are they flagging it to anyone who could go out and find more that makes sense. 9:58 [SPEAKER_01]: And he's kind of just kind of 9:59 [SPEAKER_02]: I just thought that was just so weird and odd and the fact that we're driving down like this kind of almost what I felt like was like a one way Like middle of nowhere. 10:09 [SPEAKER_02]: It just like felt like total act murder country. 10:12 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and at some point the GPS was going out of service because we were running out of cell phones We couldn't see so then the GPS 10:19 [SPEAKER_01]: would go out, but then we had what some people were called gold fever, I guess, where we were just so determined to get to that location, especially because at some point brands just so determined to get to this location and where we just spent so long trying to get to it that we're gonna, we're just so determined to get to this area by this small river or Lake or whatever, it's a river. 10:41 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, as a river, we're trying to, I don't even remember 10:46 [SPEAKER_02]: We stopped alongside the road and Nick and I remember us getting out and we see this, I don't know, it said private property on the gate, but we slipped in back there and we're trying to figure out how to get down. 10:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, there was a for sale sign. 11:00 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's because we were a sign. 11:02 [SPEAKER_01]: That's what it was. 11:02 [SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot of private property signs all around. 11:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 11:06 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was very anti, let's not go on property that says private property because we might get shot. 11:14 [SPEAKER_01]: But then we saw for sale sign and we thought, well, if there's a for sale sign, we can always, if we get caught, we can always just say that we're looking around. 11:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because we're interested in possibly buying some property. 11:27 [SPEAKER_01]: So we saw the for sale sign and then you guys, I believe you guys walked around that property and was able to actually find some way that there was a walkway or something because I ended up moving the vehicle over to near that walkway. 11:41 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, so, so we started off at the property that was for sale and we just went back in the back and we're trying to find a way down, but the woods, I don't know if you remember this or not Nick, but the woods just trying to get down to the river it was like a six foot drop off like down to the river and there's a bunch of brush and stuff around, but 11:58 [SPEAKER_02]: When we were walking back there, we noticed that there was like black sand that actually the whole just ground wasn't really muddy. 12:07 [SPEAKER_02]: It was sandy, which makes sense because we're near closer near a riverbank. 12:11 [SPEAKER_02]: But usually when you see black sand associated with a river and it's usually in the bend in which in this case was 12:22 [SPEAKER_02]: Black sand is usually an indication that there could be gold flakes, gold dust or possibly even gold nuggets there, and it indicates this because the black sand is heavier. 12:36 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so black sand is what it is, it's iron, iron is the black and what happens is that the sand, the, it's basically just by density, what'll happen is that gold is the heaviest, typically gold will be the heaviest thing in the river, period. 12:53 [SPEAKER_02]: And so, 12:54 [SPEAKER_02]: Second to that is the black sand, so when you've got a river that's coming around to bend a lot of times what people will look for is they will look for the bend in the river and they will look for rocks that are multiple different sizes. 13:12 [SPEAKER_02]: So usually you'll get larger ones, you'll get some small to medium, but there's a lot of variety of just larger stones just in general and it acts as a catch. 13:24 [SPEAKER_02]: Taking all the particles when the rivers just, after rain, you've seen a river after it rains, it gets really super muddy, all the settlement just kicks up because the water is just rushing down. 13:35 [SPEAKER_02]: What happens is that all that stuff just gets kicked up and then the heavier particles get trapped in those rocks. 13:43 [SPEAKER_02]: And so they'll settle down and usually what gets trapped there is that iron in the black. 13:48 [SPEAKER_02]: And underneath of that is usually the goal. 13:51 [SPEAKER_02]: So usually that's a good place to look. 13:53 [SPEAKER_02]: So anytime you see like an indication of like even on the banks and stuff like sand, that's usually good indicator that there's going to be at least some gold dust there or something. 14:04 [SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of yeah. 14:05 [SPEAKER_03]: And so that's what we found is a place with multiple bends. 14:09 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 14:09 [SPEAKER_03]: That came together and nodded together in this one spot beneath the bridge. 14:15 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and well, so before we got to that area, we actually, like, I just remember us in that portion, we were picking up sand on the ground, like, we'd actually, and it had been raining. 14:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was raining, so it was very muddy. 14:31 [SPEAKER_01]: So I remember I was driving a Tahoe in a mess, I was trying to park it in a way that I wouldn't get it stuck to, so like there's nowhere to park it, so I was parked on the side of the road, and we had two pans, and we had a bucket. 14:49 [SPEAKER_02]: right and then I think we had some like cups or something I think it was like cups from like fast food restaurant or something like that that we had went to prior I remember like the first location when he stopped at we that's what I was talking about we found that bike saying they were just kind of picking it up with our hands and then I think we threw some in a cup but we never did really find anything there. 15:10 [SPEAKER_02]: So then you guys come back to the Tahoe. 15:12 [SPEAKER_02]: We're like, we can't get down to the river, basically, it's really what happened to the Tahoe. 15:16 [SPEAKER_02]: And so we noticed like, we had passed a place where we saw like this bridge and it looked like a public area. 15:23 [SPEAKER_02]: They're like a walking trail, basically, that you could go through. 15:26 [SPEAKER_01]: There was some type of trail that led somewhere we weren't sure what happened. 15:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 15:29 [SPEAKER_01]: and so that's where we stopped and did like the primary digging like where we actually started to so what happens is you guys ended up getting back in the Tahoe you guys were already getting muddy at this point we moved down to the other location I backed in but as you guys get out I 15:48 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm a shotgun. 15:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I was just like guys. 15:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you guys hear that? 15:55 [SPEAKER_01]: But by that point in time, you guys had already been in this gold fever. 16:00 [SPEAKER_01]: We were guys so into trouble. 16:02 [SPEAKER_01]: You're like, yeah, I'm sure it's fine. 16:04 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think they it was some people up on the hill target shooting. 16:08 [SPEAKER_02]: They were shooting handguns or something like that. 16:10 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it was rifles. 16:11 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was handguns. 16:12 [SPEAKER_01]: But like smaller slow probably nine millimeter nine nine millimeter 45 one of the two whatever was though it was loud And it was echoing in the woods. 16:21 [SPEAKER_01]: You could definitely hear it But we were so like we're gonna find gold. 16:27 [SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna find gold that or like it's okay No big deal like these guys are just shooting out in the woods or something like we thought it was just the locals like the neighbors 16:35 [SPEAKER_03]: Until we heard the leaves flipping next to us. 16:39 [SPEAKER_01]: You guys. 16:40 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you guys live. 16:41 [SPEAKER_01]: You guys live. 16:42 [SPEAKER_01]: I stay in the vehicle. 16:43 [SPEAKER_01]: I stay in the vehicle. 16:46 [SPEAKER_01]: And all that you guys talk about after you guys leave the vehicle. 16:48 [SPEAKER_01]: So I stay in the vehicle, but and we had no cell phone service. 16:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely no service. 16:53 [SPEAKER_01]: So we're in raining. 16:54 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's all muddy. 16:56 [SPEAKER_01]: So I ended up staying with the vehicle because we weren't sure if we were going to be a lot of park there. 16:59 [SPEAKER_01]: So we were worried that someone might stop if it was private property or whatever the deal was. 17:05 [SPEAKER_01]: So I stayed with the car and I was hearing the gunfire go off. 17:09 [SPEAKER_01]: I tried to record some of it This is some of what I heard from the car 17:36 [SPEAKER_01]: This is next recording from the creek. 18:10 [SPEAKER_01]: I remember at some point in time, I was really worried about the gunfire because I kept hearing it, so I ended up putting the recliner back in my chair, and just leaning it back because in my mind, I thought, well, if a bullet strikes the windows, I guess, at least if I'm leaning back in the chair, 18:28 [SPEAKER_01]: it's going to have to go through the doors of this car but then at some point in time I decided that you guys had been gone for a really long time and I was getting really nervous so I ended up getting out to try to find you and we've been good. 18:43 [SPEAKER_01]: But all of you guys talk about what happens after you guys leave. 18:45 [SPEAKER_02]: We had been gone for probably, I don't know at that point, maybe like 35 minutes, 40 minutes somewhere on there and we had found a good spot in the river and I remember us just walking down almost like underneath of that bridge and there was this log there that we just propped up our bucket, our panning supplies and that kind of stuff. 19:04 [SPEAKER_02]: And then all the sudden we just heard just the gunfire and I remember Nick just gonna, hey, I don't know, this sounds like it's close. 19:12 [SPEAKER_02]: All of a sudden we just heard like a ricochet like flip right across like it sound like it was just coming across the trees over top of us. 19:20 [SPEAKER_02]: And then a few more rounds and all of a sudden we just felt like it was getting closer. 19:24 [SPEAKER_02]: So we start diving like duck and underneath of that log because we thought we're going to get hit by something. 19:30 [SPEAKER_03]: but you didn't leave now we didn't we're still looking for gold we're gonna find him gold and that's man but i will say i was laying in the mud until yeah firing stop you literally were in the mud initially you made it sound like we were just walking around undaunted i was laying against that log like it like uh 19:51 [SPEAKER_03]: civil war and I hear I am like the guy like peaking my head up above the log like train but also I don't know guns I just know that there are guns going off on side of us and I keep hearing 20:04 [SPEAKER_03]: synchronize with these guns this flipping through the leaves. 20:08 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there was no more than 10 feet away. 20:10 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and so I asked you is this what I think it is over in these leaves and you thought that it was. 20:16 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and we were just like, yeah, at that point I was like, yeah, that's what's going on because it was like you said it was synchronized. 20:23 [SPEAKER_02]: We, yeah, it was it was scary. 20:25 [SPEAKER_02]: That's actually probably the. 20:27 [SPEAKER_03]: When I got up, I went under the bridging went to the other side. 20:29 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I know you did, yeah. 20:31 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was the guy who was like, well, it's over. 20:33 [SPEAKER_01]: So I still stay there. 20:34 [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know that because when I approached you guys, 20:38 [SPEAKER_01]: That was before you came. 20:39 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Nick. 20:41 [SPEAKER_01]: You were on one side of the bridge and that was still on the other. 20:43 [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know that until now. 20:45 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm still on the side of particularly getting shot because But you didn't have any cares. 20:49 [SPEAKER_01]: You were just over there. 20:51 [SPEAKER_01]: Just moved. 20:51 [SPEAKER_02]: I was so enthralled with my little pan trying to find them old nuggies. 20:56 [SPEAKER_01]: You were over there just in your own little world. 20:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, super excited. 21:00 [SPEAKER_01]: We're good. 21:01 [SPEAKER_01]: There's video evidence of it too. 21:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we've got. 21:04 [SPEAKER_03]: But I will say that while I had enough sense to walk away from gunfire, 21:09 [SPEAKER_03]: There really is a feverish adrenaline-fueled energy to the whole thing. 21:16 [SPEAKER_03]: You find yourself losing track of time, not realizing how tired you are, how cold, how hungry when you actually walk away from the stream three hours later. 21:28 [SPEAKER_03]: It feels like it's been a half hour later, and at least I was to the point of 21:39 [SPEAKER_03]: by the inexperience that should not have been that tiring, but my adrenaline was just driving the whole thing. 21:46 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I didn't expect that. 21:48 [SPEAKER_03]: We were not chasing gold nuggets either. 21:50 [SPEAKER_03]: Only in our dreams. 21:52 [SPEAKER_03]: We were chasing little specks of like fine gold frankly sparkle and to be honest with you. 21:59 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think we found anything at all, even though we thought we did. 22:02 [SPEAKER_03]: We thought we did. 22:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 22:04 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, it would have amounted to 35 cents worth of gold. 22:09 [SPEAKER_02]: over and wouldn't have paid for the guys to get there. 22:12 [SPEAKER_03]: But even that was intoxicating. 22:15 [SPEAKER_03]: It was. 22:15 [SPEAKER_03]: And not in ironic, self aware way. 22:20 [SPEAKER_03]: It was. 22:21 [SPEAKER_03]: really intoxicating. 22:23 [SPEAKER_03]: The idea that there is precious metal at your feet, you just have to keep digging. 22:27 [SPEAKER_02]: Right. 22:27 [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember like at one point, Shane said it was raining, it was cold and the water was even colder and at one point I was trying to keep my shoes dry and that kind of thing but I got so enthralled and I started looking over at the other side like what I was describing about the rocks being in that specific formation of just 22:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Multiple stones of larger smaller size that kind of thing in a bend and I'm like I need to get over there So I didn't want to get my shoes wet. 22:57 [SPEAKER_02]: This water's freezing and I literally take my shoes off and just walk across the river And when I got back out of the water I just realized like how cold my feet actually was 23:08 [SPEAKER_02]: And so I don't think it was at that point like anything that would damage anything but like I could imagine just thinking of like people who were doing that hours upon end days upon days and just not thinking about that stuff getting frostbite getting whatever just being out there because they're so consumed trying to find it right I would not have believed it until doing it and 23:30 [SPEAKER_03]: It was probably 35 degrees or 40 degrees the water. 23:35 [SPEAKER_03]: I was up to my knees for probably an hour and a half And I didn't feel it at all. 23:38 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I got to the point where we got out and I almost went down on one knee I was so cold and so tired and yeah to add to this wolf 23:48 [SPEAKER_03]: Jane is just enjoying this spectacle of these two knuckleheads digging around according to taking pictures and cold water for specs of gold that don't exist. 23:57 [SPEAKER_03]: But part of I think the absurdity of it is that we're underdressed, we're wearing other people's clothes because we went to a junk shop. 24:06 [SPEAKER_03]: We did a re-sale shop, but shoes that didn't fit. 24:10 [SPEAKER_03]: and other stuff that we knew is going to get destroyed. 24:13 [SPEAKER_02]: I forgot about that. 24:14 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we totally. 24:16 [SPEAKER_02]: So this is when we were in an accordus. 24:18 [SPEAKER_02]: We went to that thrift shop and we got ready like jackets for like $2 and pairs of shoes that didn't fit. 24:26 [SPEAKER_01]: What I thought was weird was that I've all the shoes there. 24:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Of all the men's shoes, Brent picked those red high heels. 24:34 [SPEAKER_01]: I just thought why the why those and why the women cheese strings, but I've never seen in more confidence I was so much to see me out there man. 24:43 [SPEAKER_01]: He was just he was running my stuff. 24:45 [SPEAKER_01]: But I also loved at one point when Nick ends up going further into the woods and Brent is over there doing his thing in the river. 24:54 [SPEAKER_01]: I thought that because the river is going wild and strong and it's hard to hear anything, and it's also like misting. 25:03 [SPEAKER_01]: So everything is what. 25:06 [SPEAKER_01]: I thought that I heard Nick Yel and when I heard Nick Yel, I yelled back asking if he was okay and I didn't hear anything back. 25:15 [SPEAKER_01]: So I yelled down to Brent and I said, Brent, I think Nick is yelling for us to come help him. 25:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And Brent goes, okay, and he is still doing his little thing with his pan. 25:27 [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, Brent, I think we need to go help Nick, all right, and he's still doing his thing. 25:33 [SPEAKER_01]: And I looked to him and I said, Brent, get out of the water right now. 25:37 [SPEAKER_01]: And he goes, okay, I'm on my way. 25:40 [SPEAKER_01]: He puts down. 25:42 [SPEAKER_01]: I was just like, I was busy trying to find them nuggets. 25:46 [SPEAKER_01]: And he finally comes up when we go find you and I was frustrated because I was like, I had to put my shoe because I was like Tried to put my shoes back all and then I got crap And I guess you had y'all, so I did hear you y'all. 25:58 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, I just thought I found gold Yeah, he was trying to get your attention 26:04 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, nothing crazy happened, but we did. 26:06 [SPEAKER_02]: That's the interesting thing about it. 26:07 [SPEAKER_02]: It was, we ended up pretty far apart from each other. 26:11 [SPEAKER_02]: And it was just this mindless thing that happened where we were just in the moment, trying to find stuff. 26:20 [SPEAKER_02]: And we all just, the two of us just went our separate ways, which was interesting. 26:24 [SPEAKER_02]: We didn't stay together. 26:25 [SPEAKER_02]: We were just looking at different parts of the river. 26:27 [SPEAKER_02]: And we just decided to go without even talking to each other. 26:31 [SPEAKER_02]: And so all of a sudden, I look up and next gone. 26:33 [SPEAKER_02]: So I remember trying to get back over to you, and I'm like, how in the world did you get down over there? 26:40 [SPEAKER_03]: It was a big nest of broken tree bristles right in the middle of the, so I had to walk just get down in the river to get to it, but there was so much black sand I could see it from the bank. 26:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 26:52 [SPEAKER_03]: I was just chasing that. 26:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Did you guys notice that on the bridge, there were signs they're talking about how the 27:03 [SPEAKER_01]: It would have been a good trouts there. 27:05 [SPEAKER_01]: There were yeah, so all over that bridge. 27:08 [SPEAKER_01]: There were actually large science I guess did you guys remember the lady that what was walking there with her dog? 27:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they had the dog Yeah, so there was a lady who started walking with her dogs there, but she didn't walk very far just to the bridge and back and 27:24 [SPEAKER_01]: Because I felt weird because Brant was down there and you were down there and so like she approached with her dogs And I just was just like, oh They're dog for help me. 27:33 [SPEAKER_01]: They're digging for gold or something like that because I was just like, oh, we would probably like really weird with buckets and Vehicle a black vehicle parked backwards, you know, like this is very true crime We're burying a body back here, you know in the woods with gunfire going off 27:48 [SPEAKER_01]: Not to mention the windows are blacked out on the thing yeah, so it was just very weird And then you could just tell like she was just uncomfortable approaching three men in the woods So I was just like, oh yeah, you're looking for gold So anyway, but yeah, so there were also three there were there were a big these big three signs I think I have pictures of that that talked about how it was used for trout and so that was the purpose of the river So it's a very strong flow and then the trout flow upstream in that river 28:17 [SPEAKER_01]: But I think it's funny though because you both walk past those three very large signs didn't even look out of it. 28:24 [SPEAKER_01]: I had no or so focused on what you were doing that you didn't know idea. 28:28 [SPEAKER_03]: I don't remember the lady. 28:31 [SPEAKER_02]: I remember the lady just because her dog came down till greet me. 28:35 [SPEAKER_02]: Because I was on that one side I just heard it and it was a scary down and was like trying to get to me. 28:39 [SPEAKER_02]: But I remember that but I definitely don't remember those signs and we walked that bridge. 28:46 [SPEAKER_02]: four times like we I know I did like walking past at several times so that just goes to show that I was focused on the dirt that was in my bucket and my band and moving it around you know. 28:57 [SPEAKER_03]: I think one of the things that is interesting about it to me is the fact that we knew it was 29:09 [SPEAKER_03]: especially reflecting on it. 29:10 [SPEAKER_03]: We can shake our heads, but I would go do it again tomorrow if I could. 29:14 [SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's this primal self validating activity where you can just get dirty and chase money. 29:25 [SPEAKER_02]: It's that it's almost like that adrenaline of like trying to strike it rich. 29:29 [SPEAKER_03]: It's more than that though. 29:30 [SPEAKER_03]: It's not just about money. 29:32 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 29:33 [SPEAKER_03]: It's maybe just about, on some level, achieving something that is about luck and it's about being determined and putting your hands to something, being willing to go the extra 10 feet. 29:52 [SPEAKER_03]: take your shoes off in 30 degree water or whatever the case may be. 29:57 [SPEAKER_03]: Just engaging the natural environment on these very elemental terms. 30:02 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 30:02 [SPEAKER_03]: It's not so different from building a campfire and the percentage of the experience that consists of that will vary from one person to the next. 30:11 [SPEAKER_03]: But I think it's in there. 30:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 30:12 [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's in there for me. 30:14 [SPEAKER_03]: Like I I really we saw nuggets at the 30:19 [SPEAKER_03]: would have blown our minds. 30:21 [SPEAKER_03]: Had we found them? 30:22 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 30:22 [SPEAKER_03]: And they were good sized. 30:24 [SPEAKER_03]: He was selling them for $35. 30:26 [SPEAKER_03]: And it was real gold. 30:28 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, yes. 30:29 [SPEAKER_03]: So it's like, had we found something like that? 30:32 [SPEAKER_03]: We would have. 30:34 [SPEAKER_03]: lost our minds and it would have been awesome and it would probably be up on one of the walls here in a fray. 30:40 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, giant, giant, fray when I saw that, when I saw those, I just thought, boy, if I would have just seen one of those, it would have been so easy for one of you guys to spy and just been like, why I found this at the beach? 30:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Because that wasn't the only location that you guys had. 30:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Search, we were trying. 30:59 [SPEAKER_01]: I pyramid like you guys saw Black Sand and you guys used a cup or something and had cuped up some Black Sand and I still got something. 31:07 [SPEAKER_03]: So I refer to that just to say we knew we weren't going to get rich and the hunt was still real. 31:13 [SPEAKER_03]: The adrenaline was still pumping. 31:15 [SPEAKER_03]: If you were to describe the experience in its base components to someone and say, hey, do you want to be wet and tired? 31:24 [SPEAKER_03]: outside to no purpose at all. 31:26 [SPEAKER_03]: Nothing good will come of it. 31:27 [SPEAKER_03]: You're not going to have any more money, any more energy you're going to be hungry and dehydrated. 31:32 [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, will we be hiking? 31:33 [SPEAKER_03]: No, you're going to stand in the same spot for three hours. 31:36 [SPEAKER_03]: You might be sure you're driving a terrible experience. 31:41 [SPEAKER_00]: And yet it's not. 31:42 [SPEAKER_03]: And so that was the thing I kept coming back to it and saying, what does it say about me? 31:46 [SPEAKER_00]: What does it say about people? 31:48 [SPEAKER_03]: Like this is I am not the kind of person who would 31:52 [SPEAKER_03]: I would expect to go for that and I did. 31:55 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think the attachment to Shane like trying to get my attention of hey Nick just yelled and we're you need to go check to see what's going on and I'm still like enthralled with my pan and these rocks in this pan. 32:14 [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's a personal testament. 32:15 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it hit me a little bit harder that you're like oh shoot. 32:19 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like. 32:20 [SPEAKER_02]: basically ignoring someone who could be in danger. 32:24 [SPEAKER_02]: He could have fallen to the river. 32:27 [SPEAKER_01]: He could have been like, but I'm still like, I ain't we're gonna find that gold naggy. 32:32 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, what if I miss out on the one time when he could have found a gold naggy? 32:36 [SPEAKER_01]: But I also love, too, that there was the way that we just described even finding gold. 32:45 [SPEAKER_01]: We had a term for it that made it sound fun, and that was a golden nugget. 32:51 [SPEAKER_01]: which sounds so childish, but it also makes it also sound fun. 32:58 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so after the entire experience, it sounds absolutely horrible. 33:03 [SPEAKER_01]: I remember telling people what happened after we left there. 33:07 [SPEAKER_01]: We were so hungry, wet. 33:10 [SPEAKER_01]: We ended up coming across that little diner. 33:12 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember that? 33:13 [SPEAKER_01]: The food was... 33:15 [SPEAKER_01]: not great but we were so hungry and that moment the food was amazing yeah and people also need to know that we have been driving in the car for a very long time leading up to this point so we were already to a mental and physical exhaustion state we weren't in our best condition to be out there doing all of this stuff too 33:39 [SPEAKER_01]: But we go through all of that and after the after that point, we still refer to it as, are we gonna find the Golden Nuggie? 33:47 [SPEAKER_01]: It still was this fun thing that we were still referring to as. 33:51 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think at this point, honestly, we were on week three, like the end of week three, and we had driven thousands of miles. 33:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, we started doing crime con, a huge crime convention in Vegas. 34:04 [SPEAKER_01]: We started driving through all of these national parks, 34:07 [SPEAKER_01]: So we were already doing all of this, driving all of these thousands of miles doing all of that up to this point. 34:15 [SPEAKER_01]: So, all to say that we were, after this entire experience, we were still calling it and giving it this, this fun experience. 34:25 [SPEAKER_01]: Days before we started painting for gold, we watched the movie, the ballad of Buster Scrogs, back at the Airbnb. 34:34 [SPEAKER_01]: In one scene, a gold prospector played by Tom Whites, searches for gold, a longer riverbed, and it was here that Brant found his other go to phrase. 34:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Hello Mr. 34:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Rocket. 35:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Hello Mr. 35:02 [UNKNOWN]: Rocket. 35:09 [SPEAKER_01]: That was basically Brent for today's straight. 35:13 [SPEAKER_01]: He was calling for Mr. Pocket, pretty much everywhere we went. 35:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Like someone who had just lost their dog. 35:21 [SPEAKER_02]: We brought all kinds of material back to their B&B and I think even then after that I spent two hours out there like sifting through material from that bucket. 35:31 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember coming out me doing that Nick, but I was out there still playing and saying after all this done. 35:37 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's fair to say that we spent more money on the gas to go out to that location and on the pans than in time. 35:49 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't think. 35:50 [SPEAKER_02]: But I had like a little sniffer bottle that I was like, so to explain a sniffer one does. 35:56 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, sniffer bottle doesn't sound just sounds questionable. 35:59 [SPEAKER_02]: We begin with, but it's called a sniffer bottle. 36:02 [SPEAKER_02]: And basically, usually those are this one was a cheap one. 36:06 [SPEAKER_02]: It just had like the little plant is basically a plastic tube, but usually they're like a glass tube. 36:11 [SPEAKER_02]: But the goal of it is that you get a little bit of water in it, and you squeeze it to have a little bit of pressure, suction, and when you find a little bit of gold dust, or like a small nugget, like in the pan, you're able to release that pressure in the bottle, and it sucks up that nugget into this nifer bottle, and so once you're able to release that pressure in the bottle, and you're able to release that pressure in the bottle, and it sucks up that nugget into this nifer bottle, and so once you're able to release that pressure in the bottle, and you're able to release that pressure in the bottle, and you're able to release that pressure in the bottle, and you're able to release that pressure in the bottle, and you're able to release that pressure in the bottle, and you're able to release that pressure in the bottle, and you're able to release that pressure in the bottle, and you're able to release that pressure in the bottle, and you're able to release that pressure 36:37 [SPEAKER_02]: the sniffer bottle is full or like you found everything that you could in your pen, you let that dry and basically just open up the cap and let the water dry and what's left is basically the fine dust that's in the bottle. 36:52 [SPEAKER_02]: That's the principle of like this nifer model, but I had one of those and I could have swore up and down. 36:57 [SPEAKER_02]: I had like at least a little piece But after I started dumped I dumped it out on like a little paper towel and stuff like that And I thought I had something but then I like knocked the paper towel and then I never found it again So we may or may not have found gold I would 37:18 [SPEAKER_03]: swear that I found some in this. 37:21 [SPEAKER_03]: But I don't know how to sift it out. 37:23 [SPEAKER_03]: I think I dumped it right back. 37:24 [SPEAKER_02]: I remember you just getting frustrated. 37:26 [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what I'm doing to this day. 37:29 [SPEAKER_03]: But there was something there. 37:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 37:32 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. 37:33 [SPEAKER_02]: Move. 37:35 [SPEAKER_02]: We can say that we found some, but we don't have the gold to prove it. 37:40 [SPEAKER_01]: Something that size of a grain of sand. 37:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 37:42 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, literally the grain of sand. 37:45 [SPEAKER_01]: That is how big it was. 37:46 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 37:48 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Brent says it's tiny, never was a true word spoken, and there's probably no better place to leave it than that. 37:58 [SPEAKER_01]: I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did, and if you're ever in a situation where you might try some gold panning, I'd encourage you to do it. 38:08 [SPEAKER_01]: You won't get rich, but you'll better understand the past. 38:13 [SPEAKER_01]: And at the end of the day, that's what history is all about.
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