Boulders and large stones rolled down the length of the trommel and onto a conveyor belt that carried them up the stacker, dropping them behind the dredge. Gravel, sand, and gold were washed through the trommel perforations into the distributor box underneath and from there flowed onto the sluice tables. The sluice tables are long troughs with coconut matting and steel riffles on the bottom. A constant flow of water keeps all the material moving down the sluices. The heavier gold stays behind.
Many dredges have digging ladders with enormous buckets that feed the gravel into the dump box.
During the winter, the dragline stripped down the high bank and bulldozers levelled it down. Very large boulders are worked aside onto the bank by the dragline. Those small enough to be handled in the bucket, but too large to pass through the grizzly are allowed to accumulate on the grizzly and are dragged back into the pond by the dragline. Water is piped and ditched from the Park City branch of the South Platte River, a distance of seven miles. Several other dredges worked in the Fairplay vicinity.