Gold Panning on a Proven Gold Creek.

This tour is run in coordination with Monashee Mountain Gold Mining. Booking prior to the day of departure may be required.

Monashee Mountain Gold Mining Adventures and GeoQwest Excursions Ltd. have teamed up to provide an adventure within an adventure! Monashee operates a placer operation (gold in creek gravel) on the upper reaches of the Kettle River. Their extensive experience is past along to visitors who can learn and test their panning skills in a real gold creek environment. Various methods and trade secrets are shared in the use of a sluice box, rocker box or high-banker to try to fill vials with gold. They can even demonstrate electronic prospecting for hidden pockets of gold in river gravels.

GeoQwest clients travel a scenic backroads route over the Okanagan Highlands and through the Beaverdell Mountain range. This route passes through wonderful forests and ranchland before arriving at the gold creek.

The route passes through Kelowna and out of town on a backroad through orchards, estate homes and golf courses. Our climb from the valley passes through Gallagher Canyon and Layer Cake Mountain where successive pulses of volcanic action that resulted in the distinct layering seen best from this backroad.

We continue through mature stands of fir, pine and cedar to McCulloch Lake, an important reservoir in the irrigation and domestic water supply for Kelowna. McCulloch Lake Lodge is built beside the railbed of the Kettle Valley Railway. We travel the "201", a radio controlled logging highway that is the main artery for the Weyerhaeuser mill in Okanagan falls 60 kilometres to the south. This area hosts a variety of forest practices that can be seen from our route as it drops into the Beaverdell Valley at Carmi.

Gold was discovered in Carmi at roughly the same time as silver was found on Wallace Mountain above Beaverdell 10 kilometres to the south. Limited production just after the turn of the century continued sporadically until about 1918.

The tour continues eastward via the Beaverdell River through the Beaverdell Creek Ranch grazing land and continues through the precipitous slopes of Beaverdell Range. Depending on weather and road conditions we choose a route that takes us into the Christian Valley beside the Kettle River.

This isolated valley hosts a number of cattle ranches and hay farms and follows the Kettle River northward into the Monashee Mountains. Whitetail deer are abundant to the point of being pests to local farmers whose crops must be protected by high fencing. The area is popular in the fall with bowhunters as the valley hosts healthy populations of deer, moose and bears.

We continue through the dense forests of the Kettle Valley emerging at Highway 6 and cross over towards Keefer Lake and Monashee Gold Mining. On arrival to the gold creek, we are equipped for our task of finding the motherlode and to understand that although gold in creeks seems to be a simple licence to pick up money, there is hard work, a good eye and a bit o' luck involved.

Our return to Kelowna can involve a return via the highway through Vernon or a second backroad. This will be dependent on season, time, road conditions and client preference.