My wife and I are looking to retire in Las Vegas and some of the activities we want to pursue are riding quads and panning for gold. Are there many public access points for these and have people had much luck striking gold up in the hills?
Let’s start with panning for gold.
Very small amounts of fine placer gold (more like dust than pebbles) have been found in a few alluvial deposits around southern Nevada over the past 100-odd years. These include Eldorado Canyon around the ghost town of Nelson near the Colorado River; Gold Butte, 75 miles north on I-15, then another 40 or so miles into the hills from there; around Bunkerville and the Muddy River in the same general vicinity; and downstream from the Newberry Mountains around Searchlight, roughly 60 miles south of the city.
We wouldn’t call these easy or simple recreational panning opportunities, except perhaps after heavy rainfall when deposits might be washed down from the mountains and there’s enough water to run the sand, mud, and gravel over the edge of the pan, leaving "color" in the bottom.
To find these places, you’d have to do a fair amount of tramping around the mountains, hills, desert, and washes looking for indications, then returning with your equipment when conditions were promising. You’d also have to be cognizant of whose property you were on. If federal, you might need a permit, if any are available; if private, you might be trespassing on existing claims.
If you’re far enough off the beaten path, permits and permission might not matter, though they might. And if you’re old enough to retire, these aren’t the most accessible and hospitable places to visit, so you’d have to make a real science out of it — all for a little pinhead gold, if you're lucky.
If you’re still interested, you can read about the history and locations of southern Nevada alluvial gold in a 1973 U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin of the state.
As for quads, the opportunities here are much more available. If you have your own equipment and are just looking for places to ride, a number of websites list ATV and OHV trails in the area; the local Dunes and Trails ATV/UTV Club is a good place to start.
If you don’t have your own equipment, several tour companies can take you out to try your hand at off-roading in any number of desert vehicles.
Sun Buggy is representative.
This off-road-adventure tour company rents ATVs, Polaris RZRs, 3/4-scale Desert Racers, and actual dune buggies (special-purpose hand-built high-desert thrill machines) that seat 1, 2, 4, or 6 people. You can rent an ATV and explore on your own, take an off-road tour with an experienced guide, or engage in a high-speed chase.
Experiences include the mini Baja race by day ($100-$1,399) or night ($249 for one-seaters only), dune-buggy rentals ($399 two-seater up to $699 six-seater), buggy tour ($149 ride-along up to $599 six-seater), ATV tour ($99, one-seater), plus a trip out to Big Dune at Amargosa (just south of Beatty about 100 miles away, $499-$1,399).
"Your gold panning knowledge is sorely limited. A better answer, considering age of inquirer and ease of access would be to recommend contacting gold claim owners for permission to work their claim using the dry panning methods. Most owners would simply make a deal for a percentage of the find. Not to mention there are several easy access points to wet pan but only experienced prospectors would even consider them and would never reveal them."
