Last weekend was a nice three day weekend for me, as far as rock collecting goes…after a photo shoot Saturday morning, Missy and I loaded up the truck and headed out to the secret spot to see if we could find anything good…we hadnt been there for a few weeks, and figured I would explore the pocket on the ridge some more, but things changed when I got there. We didnt encounter as much deep mud this time going in, but it was pretty sloppy in places, and when we arrived, I decided to walk through an area that had been graded by heavy equipment to see if any poker chip chunks had rolled out of the piles….

…I walked around for about twenty minutes and picked up a few single crystals here and there, and then in a couple of areas in this section, I spotted what appeared to be potentially more, so I dug down with the mini mattox and hand rake…

…and then dug down some more til I started seeing what appeared to be the top of either shale or druse plates…

…and a few crystals started popping up….so I kept digging down and within a few minutes, even more crystals started poppping up all over the place….

…and within a few minutes, I had exposed the base wall of the pocket and began to branch out and find even more.

I was in for a big surprise….but for now, the pocket did expand to the right side more….

and as it expanded and I kept digging around, a hole opened up….

…and its always been my experience, that when a hole opens up, it usually means leading to a nice pocket down under….and in this case it did again and again and again….

…and as you can see above, yet another base wall was exposed for me to explore…

….and within a few minutes, I had found even more nice poker chip crystals all over and under those plates….

…leading to the right and the promise of even more pockets, such as these next two….

…I know its kinda hard to see them…but there is a pocket under a ledge that opened up and led to a slew of discoveries inside the pocket as well as another pocket branching off in an entirely different direction…a little more clearly seen in the next photo, as well as the growing pile of crystals found so far….

while the next photo shows the pocket that branched off to the left…

and the next photo shows the twin crystal I pulled out….out of which one I can`t honestly remember at this point…I am going to have to start taking notes I guess…..

…and here is the twin up close for ya….

and then I pulled this big boy out next…..

…I was having a hard time reaching in under that ledge to see what I could pull out of the pocket under it, so I decided to knock some of the overhang down and see if that would help me out….the overhang snapped off in three separate large chunks…here is one of them…

..that created alot of room for me to reach back into the ledge pocket and also made it easier to work the new pocket opening on the left side too….and in so doing, the removal of the overhang also created another opening to the ledge pocket, further back to the right as well….

…now one would prob think at this point that I`m going to explore even further back along this ledge and further to the right looking for more pockets, but at this point, I decided to come back the next day and romove the top layer and peel this puppy back even further to see what more was inside and do the same with the pocket on the left, so I bagged up all the crystals I had found so far and then turned my attention to a hole that had opened up early on, that I haven`t mentioned yet, to the left side of this area and see what might be lurking inside it….

…I found a few crystals but the wall eroded quickly into a solid mass of poker chip crystals that couldn`t be removed except by brute force and by this time of the day, I was totally spent…so they are still there today….

…and while exploring this section, another hole opened up so I decided to explore it and see what laid behind it….

…and as you can see from the closeup of the hole, there are crystals right inside it…

well the hole led to a saddle of solid calcite with some poker chips embedded around and on top of it, and to the sides, and a few crystals tucked away inside the hole which was like a little caverns inside the saddle….

…and as you you can see above, another ledge opened up right behind the saddle….

and this ledge is filled with druse plates and crystals under it….

and the next photo shows how much the one pocket expanded into others….

…after moving the pile of crystals back, I removed as many of the base plates as I could, some nice druse with poker chips and a few of just druse alone…

…and found yet another pocket opening up and going, again, under the pile of crystals I had collected…seems like no matter where I start piling up crystals, the next pocket found goes in that direction…always one thing or the other….

…after cleaning this pocket out, I moved over to the far left ledge where another hole had opened up, to explore it and see if there was yet another deep pocket on that side….

…needless to say, it didn`t pan out too much…only collected a few druse plates and a few crystals from it before it ran out….

I took a short break and stretched my legs, looking around and found another couple of areas to look at the next day and see if they panned out into more pockets. I looked up to the west and saw some nice fluffy clouds forming up into a good sunset….

packed my bags so to speak with the wrapped goodies, and then started home….

 

Stay tuned for Part 2 and 3.