Gold panning with the kids

2010 Children’s Water Festival by Kyle Meredith

For club members who missed gold-panning at the Children’s Water Festival in April due to obligations with the Tour of the Gila, well, maybe next year. As usual we had a lot of fun with the local fifth-graders by the Gila River, teaching them how to pan for gold (using BBs as a substitute.)

The day couldn’t have started out better, but before the last session around 2:00 the wind was getting up to the point that it was dangerous to be walking under the cottonwoods as they lost some rather large branches. We hurried out of there and battled the wind home, crashing through a herd of tumbleweeds crossing the highway at Saddlerock Canyon.

I want to thank everyone who showed up to help, including Josh Reeves, Greg Conlin, Buzz Montgomery, and especially Roger Dombrowski who explained and demonstrated the panning technique to the kids. He also documented the day with these photos that show some of the fun we had.