Secret Spot Pocket in May

Missy and I returned to the secret spot last weekend, a week after returning from Arkansas. I had taken off Sunday in anticipation of a photo shoot for a friend but when he didnt show up, I switched to plan B and we headed down there instead. It was mid day when we arrived and I discovered that more rock had been removed from the blast pile so I put on my boots and grabbed a bag and tools and headed over to climb around and see what could be found.

I climbed up through this gap and walked around the top of it for a few minutes….

…as I was climbing up through there, though, I noticed the sun really sparkling on this guy….

…so I picked him up and carried him over to my truck. I came back and started to climb up again, when I noticed this pretty one….

…but decided to leave it there…and continued to climb to the top…I looked around up there for a few minutes, then looked down to spot these two just sitting there patiently waiting for someone to come along and take them home….

..I walked down to take a closer look at them and then I saw more crystals above them….all over the place….yellow ones even….

…crystals all over up and down about a fifteen to twenty foot stretch above the two large clusters…figured there must be a pocket in there…

…so I decided to go get another bag and some wrapping cloths and as I turned to go back to the truck, I saw the corner of this one sticking up out of the dirt and rocks….

…and right above it, appeared to be more calcite poker chips sticking out of the dirt, so I figured there might be another pocket in there as well, this about 40 feet to the right and on another slope facing a different direction. I was happy now with two pockets to check out and three nice specimens without having even started to dig yet….

…so I decided to grab two more bags and lots of cloths for wrapping and returned to the first potential pocket. I sat the bags down and looked up to find this one looking right at me….

and right above it in this order…..

…so I began to pull what loose ones out that I could find, wrapped them up and bagged them, and then started sliding the loose rocks down on the left side of the pocket path. I wanted to clear out an area on the left, then concentrate my efforts on the pocket path to the right. There was an overhanging set of large rocks above the pocket path and I figured I would work the left side if that all came crashing down and covered up the pocket path.

…as I started working the pocket path, more crystals started popping up out of the dirt and rock, right and left….

…and pretty soon, it was apparent that I was on top of the main pocket, where all the loose crystals had originated from….

…this went on for a couple of hours…I would slide rocks down and pull out crystals and clusters and twins and triples, found very few single crystals at all….it was beginning to heat up and Missy had decided to camp out under my truck bed….

I took a break and got some water, then came back to start working this main pocket some more….

…here is what the main worry looked like above me….

…now I know what you are thinking…you are thinking those big rocks you see are to the left of the main pocket…but no, the main pocket is actually below them…that cleared off area to the right up above is another area I dug out after finding a nice plate.

Well I dug into the main pocket and found some nice crystals lurking under the dirt and gravel….

…and once I cleared everything out that I could find, I went ahead and triggered the rocks above to slide down….

…then moved over to the left side and kept on digging….

…and found yet another pocket on the left side…this one had a lot of crushed up chips and pieces of chips though….

…so after about four hours of digging out crystals, I decided to stretch my legs and walk around more of the pile to see if there were anymore pockets. I walked around the rest of the slopes and didnt find too much, then climbed up on top and found some nice plates of druse all over the place, including this huge plate of druse…

…it measures about 25 inches long and about 15 inches wide and has a lot of base rock on it, prob weighs about 125 lbs…it took me three trips but I finally made it back to the truck with it….had to slide and carry it down three slopes and decided to just set it in my lap and slide down each one til I got to the bottom, then carried it to the truck. I was tired from all the digging and so it was a little heavy. and you should see the one I left up there, with calcite crystals and bubbles of druse…I`m guessing it prob weighed about another 75 lbs…yeah, its still there. I gave this one to my mom for Mothers Day.

I finally got some of my finds cleaned up…here they are below….