Yup.
In all my trekking with no trails through the woods and kicking rocks with nose to ground over the years I now have two discovery sites.
One gold and one very fine transparent clear quartz which has some good value.
As soon as I get a good day before or after Christmas without freezing temps I'm going back to the gold site more prepared and with some help to do some picking and grid search metal detecting to determine how large of site this would be. Location is already GPS marked I'll have to hike in two miles extra now because of winter trail closures in USFS land.
If it looks worth it.. since it will require digging, the next step will be to find out if there are any older documented claims through USFS & BLM near or overlapping the gold site which currently has no visible markers any where in the area.
We've had lots of rain recently followed by temps down to 28 so the hillside location while not dangerous could be slippery to navigate the leafy pine needle slopes.
Discovery was made by chance and alertness while looking for an old miner trail which I'm still looking for.
So, yes I'm excited on this one as it is still easier access even without the nearest trail.
The quartz is very easy access with atv but not now because of locked winter gates, making it 6 miles up steep hills on foot.
Looking forward to filling out applications.