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Overview
Desert Lake Gold Mine is a mining location situated on the shore of a desert lake in the Crimson Desert region of Pywel. Sunlight reflecting off the water's surface makes the gold deposits gleam with even greater brilliance than those found in other mines.
Description
Positioned along the lakeshore, this gold mine offers a unique setting compared to the other desert mining operations. The interplay of water, sunlight, and gold creates a dazzling effect that sets it apart from the darker, enclosed mines found deeper in the Crimson Mountains.
Related Locations
Other gold mines in the Crimson Desert region include the Sandpeak Gold Mine, the Crimson Mountains Gold Mine, and the Cliffside Gold Mine.
Tips
The lakeside setting means you may encounter different environmental hazards compared to cave-based mines.
Keep an eye out for gatherable resources along the shoreline.
Gold Ore Mining
Desert Lake Gold Mine is one of the nine Gold Mines unlocked on the world map after consuming the Gold Vein Map dropped by Marni's Excavatron at Karin Quarry. A clean run pulls roughly 15 to 20 Gold Ore, in line with Anvil Hill Cave and the Pailune mines, with the deposits clustered in pockets along the lakeshore-facing rock walls.
Each gold node takes two to four strikes before it crumbles, so commit to the full break rather than tapping once and moving on. The Mining Knuckledrill is the dedicated tool here because its 10 percent bonus ore chance stacks with auto-pickup of most chunks the moment a node breaks. Until the Knuckledrill is unlocked, Bernor's Pickaxe covers the same role with a 20 percent base bonus that scales further with refinement, and a standard pickaxe still works for casual passes.
Prioritize the fully gold-coloured nodes over the half-stone, half-gold variants. Full nodes drop more ore per hit and tend to cluster on the lake-facing wall, which is where the daylight reflects off the water and makes the deposits easier to spot. After the main pass, sweep the cleared nodes a second time for chunks that the auto-pickup did not catch.
How to Reach
The mine sits in Varnia territory near a desert oasis, in the far northeast of the Crimson Desert region. Varnia is one of the last territories that opens up during normal progression, so a comfortable approach is to clear the Varnia main story beats first, unlock the Varnia Abyss Nexus under the local fast-travel pillar, and then ride south toward the oasis on horseback or with the Cloudcart mount.
The cave mouth is gated by a golden boulder, the same visual marker used at Anvil Hill Cave and the rest of the gold-mine network. Break it open with Force Palm before mining. Because Desert Lake Gold Mine is one of the most remote nodes in the rotation, it is best slotted into a regional desert circuit with the Tashkalp gold mines and the Cliffside Gold Mine rather than visited as a one-off, so a single mining day refills every desert deposit at once.
Gold Bar Crafting Connection
Gold Ore mined here feeds the same alchemy pipeline as the rest of the gold-mine network. After picking up the Alchemy Formula: Gold Bar from the Spire of Insight (or the alternative Pailune Witch's Hideout), three Gold Ore plus one Golden Apple combine at any Witch into a single Gold Bar worth 500 Silver at any bank. Combining a Desert Lake run with the standard hedgehog farms above Tinkerton typically nets several Gold Bars per loop and pairs neatly with desert-region Bloodstone gathering on the same trip.
Tool priority: Mining Knuckledrill > Bernor's Pickaxe > standard pickaxe.
Yield per visit: approximately 15 to 20 Gold Ore from a clean cave clear.
Access tier: late-game; reach Varnia, unlock its Abyss Nexus, then ride to the oasis.
Pair with: the Tashkalp gold mines, Cliffside Gold Mine, and any nearby Bloodstone nodes for a single-trip desert circuit.