On a typically bright winter day — blue sky, light breeze and just enough warmth — 50 people spent a Sunday on their hands and knees, scouring dirt and rocks scattered across Stevens Shadow, a mining claim 50 miles west of Tucson. Their methods varied but their desire was the same: gold.
These are the Tucson Desert Gold Diggers, a 30-year-old club dedicated to recreational prospecting and the mining of claims throughout southeastern Arizona. Monthly outings take them to 24 claims, from the mines of Oracle to Las Guijas Mountains, where they share a hobby that will never make them rich.
Marion Vittetoe, a retired factory worker, hunched over a stack of 5-gallon buckets, with a 9 mm handgun strapped to his right hip and a 32 mm handgun holstered on his left side. The weapons weren’t to protect him from robbers; they were to defend against mountain lions, Gila monsters or snakes.
“This is not a place you come to without being armed,” said Vittetoe, who has been digging for gold since his retirement a year and a half ago.
He panned for gold using a bucket fitted with three layers of screens to filter the rocks and dirt. He shoveled a mound of dirt into the top screen, gripped the sides with his calloused hands and shook. He repeated the process three more times, his eyes scanning every inch of the grate.
After the final layer of dirt reached the bottom of the bucket, he transferred the grains to what looked like a deep cake pan. He scooped a handful of water into the pan and jiggled it until the dirt particles separated. Gently brushing aside some gravel, he pointed to a shiny flake, no bigger than a grain of salt.
Vittetoe had found a speck of gold. The tiny discovery was barely worth a dime. (An ounce of gold is worth around $1,600.)
He smiled, grabbed his pan and padded over to his truck.
Dean Queen, the outing director for the club, watched as Vittetoe safely put his gold into a pouch.
“We’ll spend all day doing that for one little piece,” Queen said.
The practice of gold mining spans centuries, but its popularity in Arizona can be traced to the Gold Rush of 1858, which started near the Gila River. Barbed wires now surround the remnants of an old mine shaft at Stevens Shadow. A rusty ladder leads straight down into the darkness, where gold deposits are buried within the earth.
“The old adage is: You go where gold has been found,” Queen said. “There’s still gold down there.”
He estimated that the mine is a couple of centuries old. The original prospectors didn’t have any special technology, so gold unable to be seen by the human eye was thrown aside in dirt piles.
“We’re basically digging through their trash,” Queen said, pointing to a large mound made by past prospectors. Diggers use metal detectors to find the gold the original miners missed. Advanced prospecting tools make modern searches easier, but they’re not something everyone takes advantage of.
“The majority of equipment here is handmade of household items,” Queen said. “The tools that they come up with are ingenious.”
The satisfaction of using a self-made mining tool and the excitement of searching for hidden treasure are worth more to some prospectors than the gold itself.
Glenn Snider, a retired General Motors supervisor, sat on a tiny folding chair, tucked away behind some trees on the grounds of Stevens Shadow. He smiled, mesmerized by the dirt that swirled through the grooves of his homemade electric sifter, a rotating green pan with a series of screens. Snider scanned the terrain, abundant with cactuses and shrubs, before zeroing in on the distant mountains.
“The search for gold brings me here, but the view …” he said, trailing off with a contented sigh.
Snider removed the pan from its spindle, sorted through the sifted dirt, then shook his head. He didn’t find anything. He reached for the small shovel to begin again.
“When you finally pick up a piece of gold, you’re the first person that’s seen it — ever,” he said.
One day, Snider, 65, won’t be around to reminisce about his panning adventures. He didn’t hesitate to predict that his two sons would cash in his gold after his death, even though it’s not enough to make them rich.
“I’ve never sold anything,” he said. “That’s not what matters to me. It’s being out in the open air and the thrill of hunting for it.”
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