Gold Pan

[Kerry Wilson]

A black plastic gold pan can do more than entertain you with a little panning, get one with the ridges on the sides designed to help separate the gold from the sand:

1. Wash basin…a little hot water and it makes a great personal wash up pan
2. Dish pan….wash your cook gear
3. Emergency rain or sun hat..fold up a shirt or something, stuff it in the bottom for a pad, invert and strap it on. You may look like a rice planter, but could keep the frozen stuff off your head
4. Washing machine. Use those little side ridges to help scrub the goobers out of your undies and socks….
5. Solar oven? Wanna raise some dough, or rehydrate some goodies in warm water? dig a small hole, put your container inside, and invert the black gold pan over the top put a rock on it to hold it down. let the sun do its magic and it will create a nice warm space for anything you want keep a little warm and protected…

Can anyone else think of ideas for justifying a few ounces of gold pan on the pack?? Get creative and let me know what you are thinking…I like to pack one myself when I am on a leisure trip not trying to get ultralight to bang out the miles….

[Kerry Wilson]

OK, guess a gold pan isn't high on anybody else's list, but another good use for it would be to fly it like a frisbee and snap a few photos of an alien encounter.

How about a warm water soak for dead feet?

Mix pancake batter for a crowd of 20 or so….

Berry picking bucket…

Man these things are useful…. I might just have to start carrying two.

[Josiah]

put it in the dog pack 0oz

[Jim S]

If you trade in your plastic pan for a metal one (they weigh hardly any more – the combined weight of a cooking pot and plastic gold pan would be more than a metal pan) you can use it for a billy/saucepan/bowl. The wider base will distribute heat efficiently and might even boil your water faster.

[Terran Terran]

Emergency babtisms.

[Mark Ries]

A bed pan 8^)

[David Thomas]

Makes a great dog dish for water or dog food.

Emergency snow or sand scoop.

Short of a bucket, you could move more water for dousing a campfire or (very small) wildfire with a gold pan than a BP pot.

Bailing a canoe or packraft?

I think they're HPDE. Just went out to the garage to check mine. Doesn't have a recycle stamp on it, but it sure seems like HDPE. So it should take more than 212F easier. Therefore, it would make a great pot lid for a wide variety of pots, especially larger ones. Any condensed steam would drip down back into the pot.

Oh! Oh! this is for real: when snow camping, you need to gather snow to melt anyway (and it would be great at that) and as a pot lid, it would pre-melt snow left in the pan on top of a pot of boiling water.

While I was in the garage, I measured and weighed them (because that's what we do, right?)

Small: 4.1 ounce weight and 6 inch diameter at the base, 10" at the top, 2" deep

Large: 9.6 ounces 6 inch diameter at the base, 13.5" at the top, 2.5" deep

If you've forgotten the formula for a truncated cone, that's 1.7 liters in the small one and 3.2 liters in the large one.

Our local Ace Hardware puts a bunch of loss-leader stuff up each month and plastic gold pans are in the rotation, coming up every 3 months or so. For cheap. Like $2.75 for the smaller ones and maybe $3.95 for the large ones.

[Dave P]

My grandfather carried that everywhere with him.

He used it for everything: as a hat, for keeping his baitfish and worms, keeping his trout cold, laundry, bailing out his canoe, transporting gasoline from his truck to his boat's motor, snow shovel, basin, a lid for his baking pan, distilling water, as a seat and probably many more.

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