More Bladed Barite

Posted on April 23, 2012 by jwj

I no sooner returned from the second weekend in Kentucky with more fluorite after a successful sixth spring season, than Docia and I decided to return to the barite area and see if we could find some more pretty bladed barite. Since its a very open area and we could go through the week, we opted to meet down there again on Thursday…meaning this report is about two weeks old, thats how far behind I am. We both studied the maps a bit and decided to checkout that middle road and see if it would lead us to the red clearing that is on the map, that we had been looking at for weeks now. On our last trip down there, we had searched the roads on either side of the middle road, without finding this spot, so the middle road was our objective this trip. We had to do a little cleanup along the way down this road, since its so brushy down there, so it took a little longer to get down the road than we figured. Plus we had to cross that gully again in four wheel drive…

…with that barite ledge on the other side….I had Docia wait til I crossed it so I could photograph her coming across it….and as I crossed it, she photographed me….

…I was no sooner there than here came Docia across it….

…and she came across just fine….

….we parked here and walked down the middle road a little ways to see how brushy and rocky it might be. After a little bit of trimming, I went back and got my truck and started down the road…

…it looks good here…but believe me, it was a bit brushier in the next photo which is around the turn….

…and after another hour of walking and trimming, we finally came to the clearing we kept seeing on the map…an area of old tiff mines…

…we searched the entire old mining area and only found a few spots with some quartz and druse…this hillside being one of the main areas. We found that a little odd, since we were right up the hill above an area that we find it quite often and heavily….

…so we searched and dug a little here and pulled a few nice quartz druse pieces out…here is the area I was digging into….

After an hour here and not coming up with much, we decided to return to Docia`s blazer and then drive over to the bladed barite hill we found two weeks before and see if we could locate more barite around that side of the hill as well as surrounding areas. We had some friends coming up from Oklahoma that weekend that we were sure would love the bladed barite as much as we like it too. We found enough to fill two bags each and I found a couple of nice sized ones for my mom`s flower beds too. We also left quite a bit for our friends to find, too. Here are some of the pieces I found….

We crossed back over the gully and went north…..

We decided to check out a couple of other areas around there and see if we could locate more pretties, but after an hour of driving and looking, we came up empty handed, and decided to head over to the secret spot and see if we could find some nice druse there…thats the next story since its a different animal…

Mom`s New Rock Garden

Posted on April 18, 2012 by jwj

Wednesday afternoon last week, I woke up early and went over to my parents house to help them clear off an old flower garden and convert it to a rock garden with rose bushes and iris flowers. I had been gathering several medium to large druse crystals for it lately and put it all together by Wednesday evening. While we were out there arranging things and digging up older flowers to take out, I kept hearing wild turkeys chattering around the area, and finally spotted six of them deep in their neighbors backyard across the street…they were running all over the place and didnt seem to mind us out in the yard working…

…there appeared to be a couple of gobblers and four females…they almost looked like large geese, since a couple of them were pure white…anyway we finished the garden about suppertime…

…there is druse, Arkansas Quartz, Poker Chip Calcite Crystals, Bladed Barite, and Fluorite in the Garden now…with the knockout roses my Mom put in there too.

…and a few more I helped her create this past year as well….

Eureka Mine Fluorite, Easter 2012

Posted on April 12, 2012 by jwj

After preparing the Eureka Mine as best we could last weekend, we prepared for our group dig there over the Easter Holiday. The weather was going to be nice and much cooler, so I decided to take Missy with me on this trip. I had to work the night before, and after a three hour nap, we got up and took off. I had to stop off in south central Illinois on the way down Friday, to photograph some antique fire trucks owned by some good friends of mine, and after that I headed on down to Kuttawa to get checked in to the hotel.

I was meeting up with Pete Stoeckel and Nick Richard there, we had talked ahead of the dig about lodging and meals, they decided to stay at the same hotel I was staying at, the Days Inn, which is next door to the best steakhouse in the entire area, the Oasis Southwest Grill, which is where we all wanted to eat at as well. I texted Pete to let him know that we were leaving my shoot and on the way, and should arrive about 6:30 pm. He and Nick were driving in from the east, they had left eastern Pennsylvania about midnight Thursday night and drove down to Kentucky through Maryland and West Virginia. They took advantage of one of my tips on a good geode location in south central Kentucky, and stopped there after twelve hours on the road. Pete told me they had found several nice geodes there and then got back on the road and would be waiting for me at the hotel.

True to my word, we arrived at the Days Inn about 6:30 and got checked in fast…I was as hungry as they were I`m sure…fire truck shoots just wear me out mentally and physically. We walked over to the Oasys and ordered steak dinners…well I should say Nick and I ordered steaks and Pete ordered barbecue brisket…a few years ago the staff of the Oasys added on a barbecue menu and boy was it good…but I always order the grilled pork chops with a barbecue glaze…two large center cut chops that completely take up the space on the entire plate, big baked potato, and a big bowl of steamed broccoli….yummmmmyyyyyy. Pete and Nick are both connoseiurs of draft beer as well…and the Oasys didnt let them down…they always maintain a good selection of beers for guys like these two. We talked and caught up on rockhunting adventures since we last saw each other at the Eureka, and then headed off to our rooms for a good night of restful sleep.

Mike and Chrissy decided to come back down for the weekend dig as well, and for some reason I didnt notice, but they were parked right next to my truck when they arrived. I guess I was so tired, I didnt even see it. Nick and Pete and I had decided to get breakfast at the Marion Cafe the next morning before meeting everyone at the museum and registering for the dig. Nick told me that the cooks at the Cafe believe in feeding people very well for little cost. I stopped off at Miss Neda`s Donut Shop in Eddyville and got some donuts for later on….very good donuts at this little donut shop…and then Missy and I headed for the Marion Cafe. Its catecorner across from the new Marion Fire Station…beautiful brick building with three glass bay doors and a big time clock on the street side, has that old tyme firehouse look to it, charming but elegant…

Nick was right…I ordered two eggs,bacon and toast with grape jelly….I have never seen toasted bread that thick…Nick told me it was homemade bread. Pete had ordered French Toast and I couldnt believe how much was on his plate, there must have been half a loaf of toast on there…the equivalent of eight pancakes….and our cost was like $ 4.00 a plate…unreal…definitely alot of food for a little cost.

The lady that owns the Cafe showed us a nice chunk of fluorite that was on display there, it was quite exceptional in beauty and form. While they were talking to her about it, I slipped out the door and drove on over to the museum to verify that someone was there and found VJ there helping several earlybirds check in and register for the dig. I visited with him a few minutes, he is always very pleasant to talk to and work with on such events. Within the next hour, several more showed up to register and we were able to meet and talk a little bit until it was time to assemble outside to get ready to go. I introduced myself and we walked outside for a safety talk before driving on out to the mine. There were a few folks there, some with young children, who were somewhat new to rockhunting and definitely new to the Eureka Mine, so we talked a bit about safety and what to look for and where to look as well. We then drove on out to the mine and got ready to do some serious digging and prospecting.

We arrived to find Mike and Chrissy working on pumping out the water in the pit….

…and once everyone gathered up next to the pit, I pointed out the area of the vertical shaft that we wanted to avoid. For those new to collecting at the Eureka, I pointed out the two tailing pile areas that are known to be rich in tailing specimens, both areas that were producing nice small clusters of crystals last week, eroding from the dirt banks from past rains over the winter.

While most waited for the pit water level to be pumped down, the young family with the two little boys got busy and quickly started finding some nice crystals…soon we heard this little guy while digging with his mom, say ” look what I found Mom “……

…and his brother, digging nearby with Dad, found a large boulder in the dirt with crystals on it…they decided to try and dig it out together…..

…and pretty soon, rockhounds were digging all over the place while the pump was still lowering the water level in the pit….

…Nic had settled into the dirt bank on the north side of the pit to do some surface collecting while waiting and looks to have found a few nice enough pieces to get his wrapping paper out to wrap them up….

…and other rockhounds were in the same area, and digging in the dirt on the north side and began finding small clusters of crystals as well…

…some nice cubes with some pretty balls of calcite nestled in between the cubes….

…and while Mike and Bill tried to work the pump to fully pump out the water in the pit…..

…..Chrissy decided to dig out the side ledge area…

MAGS members Dave and Lenora decided to try and see what they could find down on the saddle bench while the pit was being pumped out as Li Liu, also with MAGS, is seen surface collecting in the background….

…much material was left laying around from the weekend before for others to find and take home if they wanted to.

Pete helped run the pump while Mike worked the strainer to get the pit down to the right level to work it…

…and once the pit was pumped down, several diggers got into the water and the mud and waged battle with the rock and pockets to produce some nice fluorite cubes and plates. Mike and Pete worked the saddle pockets and liberated several nice plates of cubes, even some with some beautiful areas of greenockite and sphalerite. Chrissy was joined by Dave Murray over on the side ledge area of the pit, an area that once produced some beautiful large specimens of fluorite with greenockite a few years ago. Once I had everyone finding some nice specimens, I joined Nick on the north side of the pit and helped him dig the mud layer back to expose the ledge on that side so he could work a few areas that I had worked the weekend before. He soon was finding some nice small clusters along with everyone else. However by 2 pm, several rockhounds had left the mine and the ones remaining were those digging in the pit area.

We were often visited by Bill Frazer and Ed Clements and his daughter Andrea, joined us later in the afternoon. We found out during Ed`s visit, just how tough and serious a rockhound Pete can be…at some point while pounding away on a chunk of rock with his four pound hammer and chisel, he missed the chisel and struck his right hand….breaking at least one bone in his hand….none of us became aware of it until dinner time much later….I still cringe when I think of it and can only imagine the pain he endured the next three hours as he continued pounding on the baserock, revealing pocket after pocket of beautiful cubes, and probably some exhilaration as well…I saw some of his finds and there were some absolutely beautiful plates that Pete found in that saddle.

We all ran out of steam around 6 pm and decided to go back and clean up and meet at the Oasys for dinner. Sunday morning dawned bright and early, with a few less people at the dig from the day before, but with a few new additions as well…Ian Merkel, a geologist friend from Colorado and Marty Meskill, a good rockhound friend from upper state New York, arrived at the hotel at 3 am, flying in to St Louis and then drove down to join us. They both planned to go over to south central Kentucky on Monday and continue their three day trip, but for Kentucky Agate this time….I was able to help arrange that part of their trip for them and put them in touch with Lamon Flynn, a well respected authority on Kentucky agate, in the Irvine area. I had the pleasure of meeting and hunting with Mr. Flynn back in September last year, joined by a small circle of rockhound friends from all over the country, and we enjoyed it immensely.

Soon after checking my email Sunday morning at the hotel lobby, Ian came around the corner of the building looking for my room and ran into Pete and Nick who were up and talking with me out in front. They all headed to breakfast and we met up later at the museum to sign in for the day. After everyone showed up and registered for the dig at the museum with Bill Frazer signing us in, we drove out to the mine…apparently losing one car and two rockhounds along the drive out…prompting a call to Bill who escorted them out to the mine a few minutes later. On our arrival, we found Chrissy and Mike busy pumping the pit down and giving everyone a chance to look around and see what needed to be done today….

Nick was walking around down at the edge of the north side of the pit looking right and left to figure out where he was going to start digging today….when I snapped this photo I was reminded of that old saying…decisions, decisions….lol….

…pretty soon everyone had chosen their spot and dug in…..

..Pete and Mike continued to work the saddle on the south side while Dave and Chrissy, who cannot be seen, continued their work on the left side of the north wall…Chrissy was burrowed into that wall….Marty dug into the center of the north bench, Nick sits on a bucket, and then Ian in the green shirt is seen working my pocket, and Mary continues to dig the east bank. Lenora is seen sitting on the high bank watching Dave dig.

In the next photo Ian can be seen playing in the mud above the vein and pulling small clusters of deep purple cubes out….

…and here is Chrissy, slowly working her way into the west wall and pulling small clusters out along the way….

…while Nick and Ian work the pockets that Nick and I followed the day before….

…and Dave continued to work that bench on the left as Marty started working a pocket dead center of the bench….

I wonder if anyone knows what a tough guy looks like…I can safely tell you that I saw a tough guy in action Sunday for the better part of the day…only captured him on film a few times but here he is in action…Pete Stoeckel…swinging away with a sledge hammer to bust out a boulder and uncover some pockets of deep purple fluorite cubes…all the while doing so with a broken right hand….

Nick and Ian continued to pull out some nice clusters of cubes in the pockets……I had filled a bag there on Saturday myself, so I knew there had to be more stuff there…and there was….

…and Mary continued to dig from the east bank of dirt, pulling out some nice clusters as well…its obvious that Bill was right, there was some virgin material underneath the mud there…

…here are a couple of boulders of fluorite that came from the dig last weekend….

About mid afternoon, Marty found a beautiful small cluster of stair step down cubes…one right after another in a domino fashion that was just spectacular to look at….definitely a rewarding pocket find…

…and here up close….

…by mid afternoon, Mike and Chrissy loaded up for their seven hour drive home and I left about an hour later….there were four left in the pit by this time and the pump was kicked on for a little more lowering of the water level to explore for more pockets…within a few minutes the big pit was drained dry and the smaller pit lowered to explore a pocket or two…I reached down into one of the smaller pit pockets and a large frog came jumping across my arm and hand and out of the pit….and naturally as startled as I was, I let out with a loud word or two and everyone looked up to see the frog flying through the air.

Here are some of the finds left behind for others to find, Tina and Bill had informed us that a college group would be there Wednesday and so we left behind some goodies for them to find, like these….

..and I`ll post some of my finds when I get a chance to clean them up…havent had a chance to do so yet and now we have five days of rain starting today, so no sunshine to photograph them in either.

I`ll leave you with one last photo of Colorado boy Ian, playing in the mud….

Annual Fluorite Dig 2012

Posted on April 3, 2012 by jwj

After months of planning and coordinating with Tina and Bill Frazer with the BE Clement Mineral Museum, I drove down to Marion, Kentucky on Friday morning, March 30th, to meet up with Mike Streeter and Bruce Skubon, to prepare for another dig at the Eureka Fluorite Mine. I decided to leave Missy with my parents for this trip, due to the forecast for possible rain and hot temps on Sunday, April 1st. I also decided to take a chance and drive down through Illinois hoping that ILDOT had all the road construction finished from the past two years, but as I discovered, they move slower than MODOT apparently when it comes to road reconstruction…what a mess, especially the five mile stretch right around Mount Vernon…and its bad enough you cant drive faster than a posted speed limit of 65 mph, but then when you hit those construction zones, they slow you down even more to 45 mph, for several miles a stretch with absolutely no activity on those long stretches, no less….aggravating to say the least.

Luckily I made good time though and had great weather, I didnt even have to turn the ac on til I reached I-24. I was taking a load of rocks down to the museum, a couple of buckets of grab bag material for them, and some druse quartz, bladed barite, and poker chip combos as well as some Arkansas quartz. I also had some extras for Tina, for her rock gardens at home. I had researched for the lower gas prices on gasbuddy.com and found Paducah to have the least expensive gas in the immediate area, so I stopped on the north side of town and filled up at the Pilot Truck Center before driving on down to Marion. All the way down through Illinois it was right at four dollars a gallon, but twenty cents a gallon cheaper in Kentucky and thirty cents a gallon cheaper where I live, so luckily I didnt have to stop in Illinois to gas up, and as it turned out, I was getting about 23 miles to the gallon as well, so I was quite happy with that.

As I drove north of Eddyville, I came upon the red barn on the left side, and noticed a beautiful white horse feeding between the pond and barn, and stopped to photograph the scene….

..its always a pretty scene on the west side of the road on Hwy 641 just north of Hwy 62, and this year with the dogwoods in full bloom, it was even prettier and I couldnt resist….

I arrived at the museum about thirty minutes ahead of Mike, who stopped at the hotel to check on his room. I visited with Tina and unloaded the buckets and goodies I had brought to her, she was quite delighted with everything and I let her decide what to take home and what to keep for herself. Mike arrived soon after and visited with Tina and brought her some goodies too. He received a call from Bruce Skubon shortly after, who indicated he was close by and would soon arrive and register for the weekend dig, then drive out to the mine and join us for the rest of the afternoon.

Mike and I drove on out to the mine with a key to the gate left at the museum with Tina, as we wanted to see what it looked like after the mild winter had taken its toll, and arrived to find it actually looking pretty good….

Bill had placed the pump and gas tank on the bank above the pit prior to our arrival. The trackhoe was on the north side of the main tailing pile, that we had created last year at our spring dig, and it looked like only minimal drainage had occurred from that pile down toward the pit. In October of 2011, Bill had Wayne come in with the trackhoe and dig out mud and rock on the north side of the pit, pulling it out about fifteen feet from where we had dug it out, anticipating a visit from some European rockhounds at the November dig, and then wound up with only a few diggers who didnt even touch that area.

While waiting for Bruce to arrive, Mike and I started the pump after checking the oil and gas levels, and began the task of draining the pond of accumulated water in the pit. There seemed to be a lot more algae in the water this year than we had noticed in years past….…while waiting for the water level to lower, I walked around the pit and checked for fluorite that naturally erodes out of the banks and tailing piles throughout the winter, and found some nice small clusters…..

…and plates…..

…and another small cluster sitting on top of the dirt….

…pretty soon the pit was pumped down about halfway and we were able to see some exposed areas to dig out the next day…we also discovered a huge chunk of rock that had apparently been dug out last fall for the November dig, and left up on top at the base of the tailing pile. We looked it over and found some areas of galena lead cubes on the backside of it, so Mike decided to see if he could cob it down and reveal some pockets on it….

After the pit drained down, we decided on our course of action for the next morning and headed out. On the way back to the motel, I stopped at a few places to photograph the sunbeams and setting sun. This was the first location, a church near Eddyville that had a pretty field full of yellow flowers….

…but it just seemed to lack something…so I drove back north on Hwy 641 a short distance to where I had noticed an abandoned farm just off the road…there was a neat old two story house built with yellow native stone and just past the house was a big beautiful barn and silo….

…I decided to stick around and shoot the sunbeams for a bit, since the sun was still up high in the sky…I pulled out a sunset filter to see what effect it would have on the clouds….

…it turned everything, including the road, to an orange color…which I didnt like too much…..in the next few minutes, the color of the clouds turned to a blue color and I liked that color alot better….

…the blue color enhanced the sunbeams and showed them better….

…but as the sun moved across those blue clouds, a little yellow color would creep in around the edges….

…and then the silver roof on the barn went blue…..

…and the last one I took before my stomach started talking to me…

We arrived the next morning and found the pit full of water once again, so just ahead of Wayne arriving to fire up his trackhoe, we started pumping water while he dug out a ramp to enable him to track down to the edge of the pit and remove volumes of mud……while waiting for the water level to recede, I did some more surface searching and found yet another nice small plate….

Bruce decided to lend a hand to Wayne and removed some of that icky soupy thick mud by hand shoveling some out in places Wayne would be able to reach with the bucket….

…and soon enough, Wayne was in position and started removing a big soupy mix of mud from the center of the pit so we could use it as a base sump for the pump…...he was placing the mud up on top of the pile and it was running down like Mount St Helens and looked like a lava flow….…Mike was washing off the bench with a garden hose while Wayne dug out the mud…

…and boy was he removing some mud….…he was also removing lots of water with each scoop and eventually the water level started dropping too…exposing some nice fluorite pockets to us….

and he also removed a few original mine timbers, which indicated we were near an old horizontal shaft, they were encased and perfectly preserved in the mud layers….Mike and Bruce took a few up to the road for anyone that wanted some later…

…Wayne was soon surrounded by the soupy mud, mainly due to the places he was placing it and it running back down toward the pit like lava….…a fact which would later lead to trouble for him, but for now he was doing a good job of removing the mud and revealing what turned out to be an old horizontal shaft from operations back in the 1920`s when the mine first operated….…eventually he started pulling out some huge boulders laced with fluorite cubes as well….

…which Mike cobbed down into smaller, more manageable chunks that could be carried out by one or two guys….

…soon thereafter tho, Wayne became stuck in the mud and we started draining the pit with the pump while he tried in vain to dig himself out……we were soon all at work in the pit finding what could be found….

…and we repeated the process on Sunday as well….

…and here is one of the finds from Saturday, that made the weekend worthwhile….

One of the nice things about working down at the Eureka Mine, is that Bill Frazer comes to check on you on a regular basis and takes really good care of you….here he is on one of his regular checkup trips to the mine….

Thanks Bill for being such a great Host !!!

Secret Spot After Barite

Posted on March 30, 2012 by jwj

As Docia drove home from searching for bladed barite and druse, I drove to the secret spot where Missy and I took advantage of the four hours of remaining light and found yet another pocket to look through for goodies. I say another pocket, yet it was one of those ever expanding pockets, expanding from one to five pockets in the same immediate digging area…we arrived around 3 pm with beautiful cloudy skies….

…and I decided to do a short walk around and just see if I could spot anything laying around that would indicate a pocket nearby…I walked over to the pile and spotted a pleasant surprise…a brown dogtooth calcite crystal with some poker chip formation deteriorated away from it, exposing the top of the crystal….

…and just laying in the loose gravel and dirt near where I had found a pocket several weeks prior….I walked over to the area where we had dug out the trench pocket the week before, seems it has been covered up big time now by a line of big rocks connecting the pile to the boulder line over by the west wall….

…oh well, still a lot of area to search for pockets remaining there…so I sat about to find one, walking over to the area where they removed the rock for this new wall and finding evidence of a pocket real fast…and sat about digging it out….

…figuring if they could dig there, so could I…and finding a few plates of druse and poker chips right away…which is usually a very good sign of a good pocket nearby….this one started trenching almost immediately on me…another good sign of things to come….

…then I started finding plates of druse upside down in the dirt and then after pulling several out, this little bluff pocket opened up….

…so I began clearing off around it and under it to find out how large it would expand to….…and it soon became apparent that another pocket was going to open up on the right side of the expansion….…I kept digging and expanding back toward where I was sitting, and the next thing I knew, a hole opened up right at my feet. I had been sitting on top of one all along and didnt even realize it….

I got up to stretch my legs at this point, having been sitting, kinda, for the past hour…my feet were cramping up…guess I didnt have enough banannas in my concrete the night before…and when I got up to stretch, I noticed what a beautiful day it was in the skies once again….

…and Missy stretched out next to my pockets….

….and now I`m about to hammer out the roof of the pocket here…

…and decided to clear off the pocket roof so I wasn`t hammering dirt and rock as well as the top layer of that pocket roof….when I started brushing it back, another hole appeared and I figured I had found a back entrance to the pocket…...but no, it turned out to be yet another pocket…

..and within seconds, pulled out a couple of nice druse plates from this new pocket that opened up, while cleaning out the front of it….

….and then I hammered out the roof of that middle pocket as well and pulled a few chips from it, too. I then started back to the hole near where I was sitting before my break and started cleaning out around it and a few seconds later, yet another hole opened up….…for a brief minute of working this new hole, I got a bit excited…as I was moving rocks and dirt around, some of the rocks fell into the hole and went into water, and it was a loud ” kerplunk ” indicating a deep hole of water…so I cleaned the hole opening some more…only to discover a drill hole and water about thirty inches down…so I filled the water hole up with more loose rocks and filled it completely up….and started working on the pocket a few inches away on the other side of that area where the first hole had opened up….

…and this pocket was truly something to get excited about…as you look at it up close you`ll see why I say and think that….

…and took a minute to step back and look at the progress made so far…

…and then started working that south pocket, pulling crystals and plates out….

…man, this thing was chock full of crystals…just the way I like to see and find them….

…and once I had it halfway cleaned out, I looked back inside and you could see this big poker chip attached to a druse plate hanging upside down from the roof of the pocket….…I got my chisel and four pound hammer from the truck, and drove that chisel into the roof of the pocket about eight inches back from the opening and the poker chip plate and another plate, split off from each other and dropped down into a couple of bags I had stuffed into the opening of the pocket…just in case that happened…….shortly after that…I gave out…I had four bags full of chips and two bags full of combos and I figured I had enough….I filled in the holes and wrapped up my goodies, and Missy and I took off….we stopped for this pretty scene tho….

…sure was a pretty scene…this is one of the prettiest spring seasons we have ever had….sure was a pretty day

Bladed Barite and Druse

Posted on March 26, 2012 by jwj

Saturday morning Missy and I headed out to meet up with Docia down in the National Forest west of Potosi and since I had filled the gas tank on Friday, I decided to go down the backroads to reach the meeting spot. I was able to drive down some roads I hadn`t been to in while, the last time when Potosi had a lumbermill fire and I drove a fire truck down to assist them with it and we sprayed water through a portable deck gun for about ten hours on a burning pile of lumber thirty feet high by 100 yards long. I drove right by that same lumberyard and found it now to be a three times bigger operation than it was back then. Sure hope they are more careful these days.

As I approached the meeting place I drove by a few old tiff mine workings that date back to the 40`s and 50`s…tiff is what the locals down here call barite, and most of the old pits are now filled with water and the tailings remain above the undergrowth and brush. We met up with Docia who was walking up the road I drove down on, looking in the ditchline for druse and barite. Missy and I stretched our legs for a few minutes and then we loaded back up and drove back up the same road, to check out the tiff pits.…we checked out a few older mining sites and pits and found absolutely nothing, so we decided to drive down to an old smelter site that Docia found the week before. We turned down a road that soon turned into some deep ruts of wash outs that a standard car would not be able to navigate….

…and all that remained of the old smelter were some foundation walls and steel rails…

…it was obvious the roads weren`t going to improve so soon we were four wheeling down the trail in search of druse and barite….

…I haven`t done any true four wheeling for quite a few years but it was alot of fun reliving the old days…about a quarter mile down we drove through a couple of large and wide mudholes and then came to a gully crossing…I got out and looked it over first as there was a drop off and then a short ditch crossing, then up the other side and over a small rocky ledge to the top…figured if I could clear the ledge than Docia could as well as her Blazer sits higher than my Colorado does...but as soon as you drop off into the gully, you cant see anything for a few seconds, til the nose of your vehicle catches up with the tires on the downhill slant….apparently that makes Docia a little nervous so when we reached the top on the other side…..

….above you can see the starting point on the other side and the edge of the rocky ledge at the top on this side…we parked at the intersection of three trails and she decided we should walk a while….so we walked down the trail leading to the right….

…bout a half mile down this trail til we started hearing gunfire down the hill below us and decided it wasn`t a good spot to be out walking in, so we returned to the trucks and walked a short ways down the middle trail, but decided it was a bit rough looking to drive down and then chose to try the left trail. I grabbed a bag in case we started finding some nice stuff.

Soon after heading down the left trail, we spotted a clay bank off to the left and down across a holler on the next hill over and decided to walk over and check it out for druse. While we didn`t find much druse on the near side where we first started, as we worked our way around the hill, we started finding more of it. Docia headed up the hill to check for some and I continued around the clay back to the northern face of the hill and soon started finding large specimens of druse and hematite and limonite in colors of orange, yellow, and purple……just past this chunk of hematite/limonite above, we started finding bladed barite and druse all over the face of the hillside…

…like this one nestled in the pine needles and leaves…..and then I found a chunk of it buried in a clay bank and broken up some, but some large pieces of it still intact and quite pretty….

…and after filling my bag about half full, we started back to the trucks…that barite is quite heavy, so after about a hundred yards, I decided to stop and high grade along a trail…we then walked on back to the truck. We had a spare hour, so decided to drive back over to the barite spot and collect some more before heading back to Viburnum….

…when we arrived back at the spot, I found some large bubbles of druse buried in the clay dirt and tried to dig them out…a few came out and a few were too big to come out….so we left them there for Mother Nature to take care of….here are a few of the photos of Docia`s nice bladed barite specimens that she found there….

…and a plate of druse with barite attached that she found….

…I will get some of mine cleaned up this week and posted for you to see as well…one last note…I did notice that even though Docia admitted to being a ” wus “, when it came to four wheeling, she sure had no problem charging into and through the mudholes down there…

Large Cavern Pocket

Posted on March 12, 2012 by jwj

I had planned to get down to the secret spot around 11 am on Saturday, but my fire department pager sounded off shortly after 9 am and my plans were suddenly thrown into chaos. We were paged out for a house fire and soon reports of heavy fire and smoke were coming in on the radio as I made my way to the scene with my camera. I intended to only stay a short time, take a few photos and then leave to go rockhunting, but once on the scene, I found myself helping fire crews by pulling hose and only after shooting about two hundred photos, did I leave and head south….this is how it looked on arrival…

…it turned out to be a mobile home trailer, a large steel shed behind the trailer, and a twenty feet long by six feet high pile of tires behind the shed, all on fire and well involved on our arrival…

…needless to say, our firefighters had their hands full on arrival, and more help was summoned to the scene once it was determined we had a large working fire. I decided not to leave until additional help was on scene.

I ran back home, and grabbed my tools and changed shirts, didn`t want to smell like a house fire all day, and then Missy and I headed south. On the way, I said a little prayer and asked for help in finding some nice crystals…we arrived a little after noon and I began looking around for pockets soon after.

I started digging where you see my blue bag below…in an area where we have found several pockets before, but this time I didn`t find any….

..I started around this bluff looking area…Docia and I had looked this very spot over a few times before and thought it looked promising…I did find a few crystals so I widened out the area….

…and then thought maybe there was a pocket under the rock faces….since I was pulling a few crystals and small druse plates out in front of the rock face….however there was no pocket behind the opening, just more rock…so I moved back toward the pile where there were a few depression looking areas and checked them out….

…where I found some calcite seams of massive and chunky calcite, but no crystals were found anytime soon….so I picked up and moved to yet another location, closer to the last pockets I found when Julie and Dave were here……I was at first encouraged when I found some plates of druse on top, yet after digging down and around for twenty minutes, I still had nothing to show for it and no sign of crystals…its possible I was on top of a pocket but just couldn`t locate an opening for it.

After taking a longer break, I decided to walk around and check out the walls a little bit more and then come back and check for another pocket, so I grabbed another blue bag with more cloths to wrap any wall pocket crystals up with, and headed in the direction of the wall…ten feet from the front of my truck I noticed a ridge of red dirt that seemed to connect to the rock face that I had originally started digging at on arrival…I decided to stop and dig a little ways down and just see if I could find something here…

I was really tired and approaching exhaustion quickly…thinking it was going to be a dry run today for calcite crystals but enough time in the day left to go up above to find some druse plates.

Within seconds of digging down, the bottom dropped out and a large hole appeared below…

looking like a large pocket opening…but having seen a few earlier, I was a little hesitant this time to believe this was going to be a pocket….I cleared off the area around it and then I knew I had something to work with….

…and I was totally amazed that this pocket was only a few feet in front of my truck and in a direct line with the first pocket attempt.

I reached in and first pulled out several handfuls of gravel and clay dirt and ugly dolomite chunks, the opening was a little tight….I stopped and drank a big bottle of water and then started expanding the hole so I could reach in easier to pull more stuff out…

….boy was I tired after digging the past few hours and finding nothing at all….I had about two hours left and wanted to make the most of it.I reached back in and cleared out more junk and then here is what I saw…my first confirmation of a working pocket…

…boy was I excited…I began clearing away more rock around, after looking down in the hole and seeing that it expanded to my right…luckily for me this surrounding rock was easy to move away…it was just heavy is all…

…and another opening appeared…so even more crystals and plates were pulled from the second opening as well…and the pile of crystals began to grow…..

..and since I had confirmation that the pocket was expanding to the right, I cleared off more area of heavy rock to the right again…and I cleared out this second opening more and found even more crystals underneath the clutter….

…including this nice big twin that I pulled out shortly after clearing the clutter away….

…and even better looking close up….

…and a few nice plates with poker chips attached to them were next to come out of the pocket….

…and here is a view of the crystals and plates inside the second pocket opening….

The next nice combo I pulled out was this beautiful crystal on pretty gray druse with some coloring to it…

The pocket took two more expansions before I finally ran out of steam and decided to stop….

I was going to have to clear more rock away first and I was just exhausted by then…I started wrapping up my nicer plates and crystals and bagged the rest….I did capture a nice sunset on the way home though…..

and….

…cant wait til the next time I can get down there and explore some more.

Dogtooth Calcite in March

Posted on March 6, 2012 by jwj

I had an interesting weekend this past week….starting Saturday March 3rd, I comped out a couple of hours and attended the annual awards banquet for my fire department, Sullivan Fire Department, hosted by the board of directors for Sullivan Fire Protection District, who provided us with a delicious, well cooked prime rib dinner catered once again by Rich and RuthAnn Lambing`s family, held at the St Anthony`s School Gymnasium. The Fire Department recognized my Dad for fifty years of service and Morris Scott, another member of the department, for fifty five years of service, amongst several other members for various awards accomplished throughout the previous year. It was a nice emotional night.

Then on Sunday morning, March 4th, I slept a few hours and then Missy and I drove down to the secret spot to meet up with Docia and Floyd, and their friends Dave and Julie, from Michigan, who stopped by this weekend to find some druse and calcite on their way to Arkansas for some quartz. My alarm clock didnt arm this morning when I set it for a two hour nap, so I arrived 90 minutes later than I intended to, so I decided to stay 90 minutes later in return. When I arrived at the lower area, I found Floyd helping Dave look for a pocket in the parking area….they had scraped and dug around, but hadnt found a good solid pocket just yet. In the meantime, Docia and Julie were searching the clay druse area for some druse plates. I switched to my boots and grabbed my tools and gloves and a bag and set off to help Floyd find a pocket for Dave. It was a beautiful cloudy day and the temps were quickly warming up to 55 degrees…

It took a few minutes, but we finally located a pocket to start with, and after digging out a few single poker chip crystals, Dave came over and helped me start expanding it, working at one end while I worked the other end. Floyd helped Dave at his end, performing the more destructive work on the thick rock cap to get to more crystals and plates. After working it about twenty minutes, it became apparent that we hadnt found a true pocket, but more of a seam of calcite with some crystals deposited in an area about ten inches wide and from Dave`s end to mine, two to three feet long.

During this time, Docia and Julie came down from the mountain and started searching for pockets along the walls. A few minutes after coming over to visit with us briefly, Docia called for Floyd to come help her with a pocket that she had re-discovered along the west wall. Floyd walked over to help her dig it out and you could hear her whooping it up, so Dave decided to stretch his legs and go see what all the hoopla was about. I continued digging my end until the crystal train ran out, then grabbed my bag and went to find yet another pocket. As you can prob tell my now, I didn`t take my camera out of the truck early on.

Within moments of stretching my legs, I again located a promising area, finding a domed dolomite cap and figuring there had to be a way into it around the edge somewhere, after tapping it and hearing the solid cavity under it. After raking back dirt and gravel and rocks, I soon had my answer…a hole opened up under some loose shale and other shale layers breaking up under my mattox…and within about ten minutes I was digging out small druse plates and poker chips…after the hole expanded down to about ten inches deep, I started working the sides and then turned a large combo over and discovered a big chunk of druse with a couple of poker chips attached to it….EUREKA !!! I hollered over and asked Dave if he still wanted to work a nice pocket, and was promptly informed that he was busy working a wall pocket…so I kept on digging and expanding my newly found pocket.

After another ten minutes, I had added four more large combos to the growing pile of single crystals, some of them measuring about six to eight inches and quite a ways around in diameter as well. I also pulled out a few twins and small clusters. Here again, I apologize for not having my camera at this point either folks. I also need to remember to keep my gloves on more often, having lacerated a couple of finger tips yet again. I`m beginning to think they hurt more a couple of days later, than they actually do at the time of the injury itself. Sure am glad we have medications like neosporin, that helps boo boos heal faster these days.

By this time I had two separate piles of crystals and a few minutes later, Dave came over and started helping me with the pocket. I told him everything in the second pile was his to take home with him and we soon started pulling even more crystals out of the bottom, and then right before our eyes, a second pocket opened up behind the plates of the first one. Docia walked over to show me what she had found in the pocket along the wall, and I could quickly understand why she became so excited…..

…she told me this one was mine and left it on my tailgate for me…she said Floyd was still digging a few more out, the pocket was full of them, dogtooth poker chips on a pretty gray druse…and he had removed one that had about nine poker chip dogtooth crystals all over it.

Well Dave and I continued to expand the pocket and found yet another pocket behind the second one, but by this time Docia and Jule and Floyd were wearing out and it was coming up on 4 pm. Dave and Julie still needed to drive on down to Arkansas before stopping for the night, so they decided to head out and get some supper with Docia and Floyd, and I continued to dig a bit.

I expanded the pocket as much as I could, then took a break and wrapped up my nicer finds and took them to the truck. I grabbed another bag with some wrapping cloths in it and headed to the wall to see if I could find any pockets too. I started on the west wall, stopping to look at the pocket that Docia and Floyd had worked, and then continued to the south wall. I stopped and checked out another pocket that Floyd had worked a bit and then moved about thirty feet further east along the south wall, where I spotted a pocket about seven feet up…luckily for me, there was a nice large boulder sitting right under and off to the side of it maybe a foot, so I climbed up there and peered inside….if you look in the center of the photo below, right above the copyright symbol and slightly left, you`ll see the boulder and the pocket right above it….

…needless to say I was pleasantly surprised in what I saw inside the pocket…some beautiful gray druse with white poker chips nestled inside the bubbly waves of druse….I reached in and was able to pull some nice single crystals out first and then a couple of small druse and chip combos like these two……..

…and…..

…I stuffed the singles in my jeans pockets and then positioned both of the small combos just inside the top of the same pockets and looked back inside the wall pocket and saw this nice cluster sitting up about a foot inside the pocket….

…and of course, they always look better perched up in the pocket but believe me, I would not have been able to twist around and photograph them up in that pocket if I did have my camera with me, plus I had to be very careful getting up on that boulder and keep one hand free to hold on to the wall for balance…and once I pulled those clusters out, I had to move back to yet another boulder where I had my bag of wraps, to wrap the cluster and put it in the bag and then gingerly and carefully return to the boulder to get more awesome crystals out. The next time I looked inside, I saw this one attached to the wall and, using my rock hammer, chipped away some of the outside clutter to get to it…and then pulled it out without a scratch….

…and after removing it, this cluster came out next, sitting back behind it a few inches and attached to the other side of the pocket…

…and the next thing to roll out is this nice double….

Well I removed about half a dozen more clusters and twins, and then I decided to check out one more pocket before taking off…I was def wearing down and was ready to go, after seeing these beautiful pieces come out of this little pocket…something about that pretty druse and those poker chips just nestled in there….wow….plus the druse piece that Docia gave me earlier…I was happy with what I had.

The other pocket didn`t pan out so well so I headed back to the truck and wrapped up the nicer ones and stowed them away in the bed of the truck and then Missy and I loaded up and took off…driving up the hill to the road, I saw this beautiful cloudy sky forming up and the beginnings of a great sunset heading our way….

…and then shot a few sunset photos on the drive home…very pretty….

…I love it when the sun grazes the underside ridges of the fluffy clouds as it sets, and almost sets them on fire with an intense red color that just deepens as the sun goes down….

A great weekend and after a short second nap and great dinner at Cracker Barrel, followed up with a few tylenols, I headed into work late Sunday evening. I`m looking forward to next weekend and finding even more treasures.

Two More Hunts in February

Posted on March 1, 2012 by jwj

I forgot to mention a little roadtrip that Docia and I took a few weeks ago on a weekday I was off with nothing better to do. Or anything to do, for that matter, lol. We met up down at the roadcut we first started rockhunting together at, on Highway C in Washington County. Its a small roadcut and mainly a clay bank with a few small rock outcrops on a gentle curve with a wide shoulder to park on. Docia was already there when Missy and I arrived, and she showed me some beautiful quartz druse plates she was finding, some with barite on them, and covered with a pretty iron oxide coating as well.

We walked up and down that first set of small cuts and found a few plates here and there, enough to fill a couple of bags, and then we migrated up to the second cut and started seeing a few more pieces of pretty druse with larger crystals on them. I found a pocket fairly quickly after digging down a little ways into the clay dirt and called Docia over to join me…pretty soon I had two bags filled and went to get another bag. I was pulling out some really nice bubbles and plates with bubbles on them….a few shown here all cleaned up by Mother Nature a few days later…

After that, we decided to drive up to Viburnum and check out a location we go to often and find some beautiful druse plates at…we hadn`t been there since last year and thought we would see if the rains in the past year had washed out any new material. We split up on arrival and within about twenty minutes, Docia hit paydirt in a washed out area and came to get me. We drove back up to the spot and walked down into the wash and started finding big bubbly druse plates right away. She had found a couple that I helped lug back up the hill for her and then I went back down and lugged a couple up the hill to my truck. Here are a few of the ones I brought home with me….

After lugging a few up the hill, we were both too tired to do much else except call it a day and drive home.

Last weekend, I decided to drive back down to the secret spot and check out a few areas down there that I hadn`t checked in a while. I emailed Docia only to find out that she and Floyd were going to be busy cutting wood for their new Hardy stove…apparently it uses a lot more wood than they had originally figured it would, so they weren`t going to be able to meet up and rock hunt. Missy and I loaded up and headed that way Saturday morning, arriving shortly after 10 am. It was a little crisp then, but the wind wasn`t too bad…and I stopped at a few spots on the drive in to check out a few areas where I thought maybe some of the blue hole crystals might have been dumped at. I didn`t find much and drove on down to the lower spot and as I rounded the corner, found that a new area had been cleared off and ringed with boulders….

…and despite a bigger mudhole now, the entrance up to the clay druse pit was smoother looking as well…

I drove on up into the lower area and started looking around, decided to see if I could locate a pocket first and then while stretching my legs, I could always check out the pile or some wall pockets…

When I walked over to the pile, I noticed pretty fast that the pockets I had discovered the last time there, had already been covered back up…no big deal since I had cleaned them out pretty much and I didn`t intend to look there again, just wanted to use them as a reference point on finding another one. Oh well, no biggie, within moments I had discovered yet another area worth checking out…this time right in the corner and you see Missy walking toward it in the next photo….

and this one located around a few big boulders, one I was able to move out of my way and the other two I could roll out of my way when needed….

….I started to the left of that smaller square shaped rock, finding a narrow seam of calcite when I dug down next to a wall, but that didn`t pan out to be much so I moved to the other side of that rock and within minutes of digging down, I turned a nice druse chunk with poker chips over and decided to explore more….

…and within moments, I had found two large poker chip and druse combos…

…and the pocket started forming as a trench…

…and thankfully was cooperating by moving around that big boulder that I was only able to roll back about ten inches out of the way, to make things safer for me…as I dug down into it more, I hit a shallow pocket that looked like a spring welling up…….and the more I dug down into it, the deeper the water got and I could see it coming out from behind a few plates as well….

….so I got up and went to my truck and pulled out a water bowl for Missy and used it to bail out the hole, and after bailing water for a few minutes, I discovered there was a poker chip ledge under the water that circled around in a U shape, and within that open area, under the ledge, I found poker chip crystals in singles, twins, and triples, and several small soda straw druse plates with poker chip crystals attached….the only bad thing was that the water was extremely cold and I had to alternate my hands back and forth, pulling crystals out, no more than two minutes in that water at a time or my fingers became so numb I couldn`t feel a thing…but pretty soon I had a large pile of crystals from that one underwater pocket alone….

…and then I started removing the plates that were wedged in behind that spring, some of them just hanging upside down and large in size. I took as many out as I could safely remove…kept thinking that boulder might roll down on me if I kept digging out in that direction…

…so I removed as many plates and crystals as I could….

…and then lucky for me, the pocket shifted to the right and started moving to the right side….here you see the water pocket going back right under that huge boulder and the pocket of crystals seemingly going to the right…..

…and closer up….

…and even closer up, you can see a couple of big druse plates hanging at the entrance and a few crystals in the mix at the bottom…

..so I cleared out the crystals in the mix at the bottom and a little cave opened up….

and after about twenty minutes, I had yet another growing pile of crystals and plates stacking up behind me……and up close, even prettier looking….

…and the pocket continued to move to the right, opening up this area of bubbly druse plates…

…and after knocking down some of the top layers of rock, I opened up a little cavern full of poker chip crystals covered with a fine layer of clay mud….

…and plates packed in and around the crystals….

…and behind the initial crystals was a lot of tightly packed in crystals…...and after I removed the tightly packed in crystals, it opened up into another pocket of crystals as well….

…that was chock full of crystals too….I removed some more top rock and behold, yet another pocket opened up behind this one…

….by this time, five hours after my arrival, I was beginning to grow tired…this pocket was about four feet from the original starting point and I had changed sitting positions a few times by now, and had even laid down in the trench a few times to get into the crystal pockets…luckily for me, this turned out to be the last pocket I was able to get into….and again, filled with crystals top, bottom, and each side….

…I had to knock down some of the tops to get to the crystals and once I did that, leaving me with this opening, too tired to pound the hammer on the top plates any longer, I reached back and removed as many crystals as I could before calling it quits…..

…after a short break and cinching up my boot laces, I climbed around the pile again and found a few bubbly yellow druse plates, and then found a few wall pockets and worked them over fairly well, retrieving a few nice gray druse pieces with some beautiful poker chips perched on the druse as pretty as you please.

I then walked up to the clay druse area and found several nice smokey colored plates of soda straw druse and filled a bag before running out of steam and heading back to the truck. I was sooooo tired, it took a few rest stops just to walk back the last 200 feet to the truck. After wrapping up the nicer ones and securing them in the bed of my truck, and putting down towels for Missy in my truck seats. I finally had a chance to sit down in my nice comfy drivers side bucket seat and relax for s few minutes. I grabbed a couple of doans back pain pills before heading for home…and within twenty minutes my back was feeling much better. All in all, a very good day of collecting.

February Surprise

Posted on February 16, 2012 by jwj

Last Sunday, with nothing to better to do, I decided to drive down to the secret spot and see what I could find. I realize what that statement will provoke in the minds of those who know me well and have seen inside and outside my home, with all my rock gardens….their thoughts will most likely be in the line of…what else do you need…which makes me chuckle. Truth be told, though, I found myself with nothing to do and so I decided to drive down and even if I found nothing at all, I could at least just look around the new clay dig area and perhaps find some nice druse plates to take down to Tina at the BE Clement Mineral Museum in Marion, Kentucky. Tina seems to like Missouri druse plates as much as Docia and I do. Docia decided she needed to cut more firewood for her new Hardy stove last weekend so she stayed home and took care of that instead.

Missy and I had a nice breakfast with Mom and Dad and several friends at Du Kum Inn, and then headed down to the secret spot. As we drove into the upper area, I discovered heavy rock dumped on a section of the roadway that has seen some mild erosion in the past year, and then graded and tamped down.

We parked and got and decided to walk down the newly rocked road and see if I could spot any poker chips or druse and poker chip combo pieces in the mix…as it was, after walking down one side and back up the other, I did see some damaged poker chips and druse pieces, and figured there was only one spot that could have produced all this rock, but I wasn`t sure if it came from material already removed from the lower area or was fresh material. I looked across the upper area to the far side, but couldnt see the pile that used to be over there. However, there was no way that all of this material came from that one small pile either. I decided to drive on over to the far side and see what could be found over there…there had been some nice big stuff over there last year and if the work crews had reduced that pile, there was a chance I could find some nice stuff there now.

It took me a while to get over there…even though the heavy rock had been tamped down by something heavy, most likely a bulldozer, it was still quite a rough ride across there, and even as I was moving along at a one mile per hour crawl, I still managed to hit bottom a few times on some rocks sticking up a little higher than I had thought they were. When I finally reached the other side and looked back, this is what it looked like…

It was across this now rough stretch of road, that Docia and I used to stop and find plates of druse on both sides, eroding out of the roadway and sand, but now it will be a while most likely, before we are able to find anything eroding out now…the heavy rock covers not only the top of the roadway but is also on both sides a few feet too.

I parked about midway down the pile and found it to be reduced down about halfway on one side….

….I removed my hammer and mini mattox from the truck and walked up into the pile and started looking around, the first nice one I found was this beautiful yellow bubbly druse plate…..

…and just a few minutes later, located a few nice sized small boulders covered with druse and poker chips. The druse on these smaller boulders were large quarter inch size quartz crystals of a bright gray color that just dazzled in the strong sunlight. I picked up about half a dozen smaller pieces that had obviously broke off something bigger when dumped in the pile last year….a few minutes later, I found the big boulder that they were broke off of, finding a few vugs with similar druse in the vugs. There were also a few poker chips on the medium sized boulder with druse that I decided to take home with me.

As I placed the medium sized boulder in my truck, I looked up and saw a new area where the work crews were obviously removing some clay dirt from a hilltop just east of my location…and I immediately thought of calling Docia to let her know, but I dont have a signal out there half the time, so figured I would just let her know later.

While it was obvious that there were a ways up access it, I decided not to try it out…one of the access roads was a stretch of the same heavy rock I had just driven slowly across and I didnt really want to go through that again so soon, and the other route to take was through soft sand, which I figured I could go through going down hill but the trip coming back up hill might be a different story. While I have faith in my good tires and four wheel drive, my truck doesnt sit all that high and one has to know their limitations. Besides, I really wanted to get on down to the lower area and see what more I could find in the pockets and druse plates. I took the new lower road down to the main road and continued on down to the lower area.

I drove down the steep hill and rounded the corner, and had quite a surprise waiting for me….

..finding a two story high pile of rock blasted down from the east and south side walls, and off to the right side, you can see where they went in and removed some of that rock for the entrance road in the upper area. Now we have two new areas to search through in addition to the other areas there. Wow, I was really excited now.

I let Missy out and she wandered over to the pile faster than I did, to check things out, finding out rather quickly that the pile of new rock was now covering up one of her favorite places where she normally stretches out and waits on me to finish….

…I decided to walk down to the other end and pulled out a few bags along with my rock hammer, hand rake, and mini mattox……as it was, I didn`t even get twenty feet from the truck and looked down at the floor, which had been graded again, and all of the pockets we had previously found in weeks past, were all covered up and filled in once again, and I spotted some signs of calcite, an obvious sign of a pocket nearby. Now I had to make a decision and while I was being influenced by the new blast pile to get up on it and check it out, I was also faced with obvious signs of a sure thing right at my feet….I chose the sure thing at my feet and knelt down and started digging in…rewarded shortly with a few poker chip crystals….

…now I know what some of you are thinking….are you crazy ?? you have a brand new blast pile right in front of you and you are going to sit there and dig for some pockets in the floor ???? have you lost your mind ???

I have to admit, I had those same thoughts, but my reasoning to myself was, the fact that we haven`t had a blast pile in so long to climb up and look around on, and have had to adapt to the other possible locations, namely the pockets, that they have just about become a sure thing to find crystals in…and not knowing how recent this rock was blasted down, and not having had any rain or snow lately, I knew it might be quite dirty and dusty up there and be hard to find anything nice. Prob lame excuses to some of you but with that, I decided to at least walk along the bottom of the blast pile and see if anything could be found. I stopped digging and walked over about midway on the pile and started walking down toward the tapered end of it….scanning the slanted slopes for any signs of poker chips or druse. I didn`t see anything in the pile slope, but at the floor level, a few signs of calcite again caught my eye, as well as obvious ledges, so I stopped and once again dug down into the floor area, albeit this time closer to the pile, and within moments, found another pocket with promise….

…you can see the ledge on the left up above and in the next photo as well, where within just a few minutes of digging down, I located a couple of nice poker chip crystals. My only worry at this point, was that I might merely be relocating a pocket that we had already found….

..but a few minutes later, crystals started popping up in the mix all over the place in front of me, so I was fairly sure then, that I had found a new pocket……and here are a few nicer crystals that popped up that turned out to be fairly large and pretty….

…and some plates that included druse and poker chips both….

Here is a photo of the initial ledge, and if you look close under it, you can see crystals popping up in the mix and what appears to be a pocket under the ledge, opening up as well…

…and the next photo shows the initial ledge in the upper right hand corner, and another ledge uncovered on the left side, as well as defined bluffs on the lower side of the photo….…and alot of crystals in between as well as plates and combos, including this nice combo that I turned over just below those first ledges….

…and you can see the hole it came from right there…it was quite a nice surprise as I turned it over….it was a BEAUTY !!!!

After I pulled it out, it opened up a few more nice little pockets of crystals and plates too….

…which produced even more crystals for my growing pile….

…I was pulling more and more combo plates out and crystals too, that were covered in permafrost…it was cold today but not as cold as the day before…I had wanted to go both days but everyone convinced me not to go the day before when the wind chills were down around freezing…the next photo shows a combo plate with the permafrost showing…

…while there today, the temps warmed up to nearly forty and I didn`t notice the wind too much…I normally don`t when I start finding pockets full of crystals though.

The pocket kept expanding, even though it was slow going, since everything was semi frozen down below….

…and then the pocket took a turn and started moving back toward where I was sitting….and a nice yellow poker chip turned up as well….

…and then the pocket turned again after I cleaned it out under me and turned toward the pile of crystals….

Well after cleaning out the crystals and plates, I decided to take a break and stretch my legs a bit, so I grabbed another bag and headed up the blast pile from the lower north end. As I suspected, the area up on top was covered with dirt and a thick layer of dust, making it tough to find anything laying around…I found a couple of chunks of solid green calcite and that was about all. I walked over to the east wall and found a few pockets and pulled a few pure white poker chips out of them…as I was making my way back to the edge of the pile to climb back down, I discovered a nice big plate of bubbly druse and some big poker chip crystals laying in between the bubbles. It took about everything I had to carry it down to the truck, but even with dust covering it, it sure looked pretty.

After climbing back down, I went back to the pockets and found a few more, but didnt have my camera with me so I`ll take some photos of the nice combos that I found after I get them cleaned up.

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