When you make it to Erwin, be sure to have your pan. The Nolichucky River has gold, especially up in the gorge. I've carried my backpacking sluice up there more than once.
Not being a hater or judged but if you're panning you ain't thru-hiking, just saying.
I bumped into some tourists panning near Standing Indian Campground, though I think they were looking more for emeralds and other stones. Carrying panning equipment NOBO might be fun at first, but I can see that equipment being shipped home pretty quickly after Jacob's Ladder...
AT 2000 miler: 2011-2014 (via section hikes)
Camino de Santiago -- April/May 2016 (Camino Frances from Saint Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela)
CDT New Mexico sections next???
Just to clarify and confirm, LNT doesn't apply to people panning for minerals and precious metals?
When I stayed in Stratton there were two guys staying at the hostel who were panning and they showed me about half a vial of gold.
Pain is a by-product of a good time.
Or you could just go to your local sewage plant...
http://news.yahoo.com/feces-contains...224632128.html
Excerpt:
"Human feces contains gold and other precious metals that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, experts say.
Now the trick is how to retrieve them -- a potential windfall that could also help save the planet.
"The gold we found was at the level of a minimal mineral deposit," said Kathleen Smith, of the US Geological Survey, after her team discovered metals such as platinum, silver and gold in treated waste."