After returning from the Eureka Fluorite Mine on Sunday, June 3rd, I had a hankering to get back down to the secret spot and see if I could find some more poker chip pockets, so Missy and I waited til 3 pm Wednesday afternoon and then headed down for a few hours of exploration. We arrived about 5 pm and I walked over to the last pocket I had located, next to the waterhole and started scratching around closer to the pile of rocks nearby. Something just called to me and sure enough, within a few minutes, I found something worth exploring further….

 

 

…I had no sooner started digging down when it appeared that I was in the right place at the right time….

…first thing I pulled out are these two druse plates….always a good sign of a pocket nearby….

…not that I needed any guidance in that respect, with previously dug pockets only mere inches away from me….I dug down some more and started finding crystals and plates….

…and pretty soon after, yet another hole opens up….my day is becoming more interesting by the minute…..

…and pretty soon plates and crystals were popping up all over the place…

…but before I could get really excited….yet another pocket opened up just about eight inches away….

…so I started working it as well….

…and it started producing crystals and plates too….

…pretty soon a top plate was exposed and clearly there was a pocket underneath it…so I decided to explore more there….

….pretty soon the pockets were joined together and expanding even more….

…and pretty soon yet another hole opened up on me…..

…and this pocket opened up with a seam of calcite apparent…..

…and after working this hole a while, it lead me to the side and to yet another shallow pocket of crystals….

…or at least, what I thought was going to be a shallow pocket….as it turned out, it was a deep pocket initially and had to be chipped into to access it….

…I grabbed my four pound hammer and chisel and dug in, and opened up a nice opening pretty quickly…..

….a couple of really pretty druse plates popped out first…..

…and this nice pocket opened up behind the druse plates….

…I reached in and the first thing I pulled out was this beautiful poker chip combo….

 

…and behind it was this nice pocket full of poker chip crystals seen inside…..

…and the pocket widened out a bit…..

…and pretty soon it was apparent that I had a lot of potential for pockets to open up all over the small space I was working in….

…however, I was running out of energy and light, so I decided after bagging up this pile of crystals, to go upstairs and see if I could find some more druse plates before my sunlight ran out….

…so I grabbed a couple of extra bags and my mattox and headed across to the claybed road going up to the druse plates area….

…as I got to another waterhole area, that had dried up from the droughty heat in the past couple of weeks, I noticed some tall weeds that appeared to have deep roots going into a rocky dome area…I stopped to check it and it sounded hollow, so I returned to my truck to get my hammer and chisel. I returned to the hollow sounding dome and started chiseling my way in….

…pretty soon I had found a hole that led to a deeper hole and possible pocket…I reached down inside the deeper hole and pulled out some poker chip crystals….

..it was obvious, after reaching deep down, it was going to take a lot more energy to excavate my way into this pocket from the hole, so I decided to see if I could find a back way in from the top with my hammer and chisel….

…pretty soon I had found a soft spot and started digging down….

 

…and looking inside, I spotted what appeared to be a poker chip crystal underneath….

…and pulled out to be what was no ordinary poker chip crystal….

…I decided after exploring a little further and coming up with nothing more, to leave it for yet another trip. Missy and I packed up and left as the sun was setting most beautifully…..

…and got better on the way home….