Beach Gold #3

     After storms in the winter is the time to go panning for gold on beaches, the sand levels are at their lowest especially in February, which exposes gold traps like holes or any crevices. As in rivers, these will have rocks jammed in them, but that's good. My first real colors were recovered from a crevice just north of River Mouth, or as it's called now, Dog Beach which is the boundary between Del Mar and Solana Beach.
One day after a stormy week I was walking around there and noticed several crevices near an exposed rock sitting on bedrock. Unstable looking cliffs were only thirty or so feet away but they weren't too high. Atop this small bluff at the very end of Solana Beach sits the discovery site of Del Mar Man, which at one time was dated as 46,000 years old in the '70s, but refuted later as no older that other archaeological sites locally. I also enjoyed the "war" being fought on the 4th of July 1976 between the north sand south beaches from the advantage, and relative safety, of these small bluffs. After almost all the fireworks had been expended, many small fireworks were shot toward the others beach, we then were treated the our 200th Anniversary fireworks from the Del Mar Fair just over HWY 101 and RR tracks away. Some night that was, my first 4th living in North County, eight years later I was looking for gold just below these small bluffs.

     At this time beach restoration projects this winter may cover north county beaches when they would normally be low in sand. I'm not sure which beaches have been restored but shots of a beach near Solana Beach are very wide now, but even so, if the winter storms are strong, the sand could be removed as in the normal cycle of beach removal and natural restoration in the spring.