"Wealth beyond your wildest imagination." Those were the words that were used to inform me of how much gold was in a paleo channel that exists beneath the present channel of the Similkameen River in the State of Washington; words that have echoed in my mind for the past sixteen years.It was 1996, and a friend, his wife and I had staked a placer claim, the "One-For-Us" beside the Similkameen River. A chance meeting with an elderly placer geologist had proved to be a life changing event. He told us that there was an ancient river channel—or to use the proper geologic term, "paleo channel"—on our claim that crossed to the north beneath the present river. He further explained that floods that had come down the present river over the years would have washed out the placer gold that ended up on the first corner down river; a place now known as "Rich Bar."
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