Three AMAZING Pockets at MFQ

Posted on January 27, 2013 by jwj

Earlier this week I was watching the weather forecast, thinking about making a drive to MFQ on Sunday, which is today, the 27th, with a new rockhounding friend joining me as he was off on Sunday and could go that day……however as the forecast began to change, it became obvious by Friday that I would be changing my plans to Saturday instead.

Originally they were talking about a cold Saturday and warm Sunday, but by Friday, the Sunday forecast started with freezing rain at daylight to rain all day after 9 am, so I opted for the cooler day to go hunting this weekend. As it turned out, it was alot warmer yesterday than they forecast, and after finding so many nice pockets full of gemmy material, it turned out to be a win-win day all around.

I had set my alarm clock to 6:15 am, figuring to be on the road by 7 and arriving about 9 am, but my fire dept pager went off about 5:30 so I opted to get up then and hit the road a little after 6 am. It was an ems call and our full time crew could handle it just fine. As Missy and I drove over to Mc Donalds to get an egg and sausage biscuit for breakfast, there was a nice full moon coming up in layers of pretty clouds…I shot these on the move so I apologize for the blurriness….

I arrived at the quarry a few minutes later, meeting no traffic until I climbed the hill just above it, and pulled down into the parking area below the west facing bluffs. It appeared to me that only about thirty feet of sloped loose rock had been removed since Ian and I were there last, and a subsequent trip after that as well….

I no sooner had my boots on and laced up, grabbed my mini mattox and bag, and started nosing around, when I spotted this number and took it back to the truck tailgate….chocolate brown poker chip triple….

…I remember thinking, as I walked back over to the loose rocks and began to look for more gems, that this might shape up to be a nice collecting day after all. I walked down the wall to the left first, seeing if I could locate any new pockets in between the ones already found, and while I found a few smaller pockets, they turned out to be shallow and only pulled a crystal or two out of each one. I then moved over to a chunk of solid rock wall, that nosed out a bit, with a crevice separating it from the rest of the wall, a crevice wide enough that a person could easily climb up into it and up between the two walls of separated rock, the nose of rock is seen below to the left of my blue bag….

As I climbed up into the crevice, I came up on the very large boulder that was there the last time, only farther up that crevice the last time I was there, it was even there when Ian was here visiting…the last time I was there though, it harbored several large poker chip crystals, some the size of the one now sitting on my tailgate, and some even larger than that, several that I was unable to pry out of the pile due to that large boulder and some that were attached to it. It was obvious that while it didnt appear that much of the pile had been disturbed and removed since I had last been there, after a close examination of that boulder and the area around it, much of those crystals were gone and removed, some possibly having slipped through a hole under the boulder and slid down the pile to the waiting jaws of the quarry front end loader and taken to the crusher, where their fate was sealed.

I was able to get down and look under and around the boulder this time, and was able to pry and chip a few crystals from the bottom of it as well as pluck a few out of that large hole under it where some crystals were lodging and laying there waiting to be found. I figured that is where the tailgate poker chip had come from as well. There was still a lot of material just sitting above that boulder, that I didnt want to take a chance on dislodging to slide down upon me…there would be no escape from it as there were no areas to jump over to out of the way from it, so I left it alone. I could see a few chips exposed on the right side of the boulder, but no where safe to stand and work them loose from.

By this time of morning, it had warmed up considerably, now likely around 50 degrees, so I removed my coat and placed it back in the truck. I then returned and turned my attention to the wall of the main bluff to my left, and after a little searching, found a few little pockets that I was able to get to and remove a few crystals from, enough to fill one bag anyway. I then moved around to the right side of the nose of rock and began finding smaller single crystals, and even a double crystal, that had rolled down from a pocket above, so I began searching along the left wall of this side…which by the way, was sloped alot less steep and easier to climb as well…..

…right above my blue bag, in the photo above, you can see where I found my first pocket….I was seeing evidence of crystals exposed along that wall…..and began pulling some loose rocks away and OILA…a pocket became exposed…and boy what a pocket it turned out to be !! There were two parts…a top part with a very pretty partially exposed golden brown poker chip laying sideways in it, and the bottom open area of the pocket revealed edges of another golden brown poker chip inside it….…you could only see the crevice shadow above of the bottom pocket, but the next photo shows the golden brown poker chip I saw in the top pocket, just beckoning to me like a lighthouse beacon….

…and the bottom pocket was just as inviting looking….

I decided to work the top pocket first, after bringing my bag up there with me, clearing off a nice level spot for it and placing a couple of towels above it, to set the crystals on it as I pulled them out. One of the very first ones I pulled out was a narrow two inch long piece of gemmy dolomite druse, brown on one end and bright yellow on the other with a poker chip attached, just glistened in the sunlight…I was just dumbfounded as to it`s sheer prettiness, and after looking back in the pocket, I decided I should go grab two more bags, full of wrapping cloths, and really get ready to work that pocket open. I took that gemmy little druse combo back to the truck with me and grabbed two more bags before returning to the pocket.

After pulling a few smaller crystals out, I latched on to that big one in the middle, the golden brown one and boy was it pretty when I got it out in the sunlight finally, had some real sparkly dolomite and calcite druse covering the base of it, just absolutely beautiful…..

Within moments, the pocket was open and more were waiting in the back to be removed as well….

…more like these crystals….

and this one….

…I then turned my attention to the bottom pocket, wanting to try and remove that facepiece first….

but had to remove alot of loose rock around it that was holding it in place….

…and after removing that facepiece, the slab of rock on the left side covering the pocket to protect it, I saw that I wouldnt be able to remove the pretty golden brown chip behind it, the one you see in the photos above, because it was embedded into the rock behind it, and there was no way to get around it and chip it out at all, without damaging it. I opted to leave it in the pocket and then turned my attention back to the top pocket again. After removing a few more crystals from the top pocket, I started working on removing the cluster…tried chipping it out and tried prying it out, but it seemed to be hung up on something bigger behind it, and I couldnt get a good angle in order to chip at it or pry on it, so I opted to leave it as well….

…when you see what all I pulled out of there, later on when I get them all cleaned up…you`ll see it was no problem for me to leave that bottom crystal and top cluster in there and walk away. I started scraping around the face of the rock with my mattox and lo and behold, another pocket opened up about a foot to the right of this one !! At first, I pulled out a few shards of limestone sitting at angles and then behind it, a few chunks of dolomite druse….

…then after clearing them away, I was rewarded with the sight of yet more poker chips nestled in the druse…

..prime and ripe for the plucking…..

…so after cleaning out AMAZING pocket number two, I wrapped up the crystals and took those three bags to the truck, returning with yet another couple of bags and more wrapping cloths, just in case I stumbled upon yet another nice pocket…I was feeling good and lucky by now. I climbed on up the slope, but didnt see anymore crystal signs, so as I was returning to the bottom, I caught a glimpse of some exposed crystals on the side of the rock wall near the base. I decided to scrape and see if anything was loose, and all of a sudden, the rock wall just collapsed inward, exposing dolomite druse and a few poker chips along the upper edges, surrounding a large chunk of rock that was loose on three sides that I could see. I stuck the mini mattox in and pried back on one end of it and it came back to me very easily, so I grabbed both sides of it and pulled it out of the pocket it was protecting, and turned it over to see the pocket side completely covered in sparkly dolomite druse, with some hematite balls mixed in, and three poker chips attached at various spots, one on the top end had a nice partially exposed dogtooth crystal even…it was fabulous looking….

As you can see in the first of these four photos above, this third pocket was in a direct line below the other AMAZING pockets above, and I was about to find out just how AMAZING this pocket was going to turn out to be, surpassing the other two pockets combined !!

I looked inside the pocket after removing the big chunk, and there were poker chips laying around inside it all over the place !!

Or at least, I thought many were single chips, but once I started poking around inside there with my fingers, I soon discovered that many of them were small clusters, and after pulling about ten small clusters out of there….

this large one the first one I pulled out….

….I decided two bags were not going to be enough, so I grabbed the big one and headed to the truck with it, returning with more wrapping cloths and more bags…..so I brought back two more bags stuffed full of wrapping cloths, and wrapped up what I had pulled out so far…..

then reached in and began pulling more crystals and clusters from the third pocket….

….after pulling the crystals out that were showing, I reached back in and saw several laying just out of sight under a thin layer of dirt and rock dust….

…these were clusters in the floor of the pocket near me…and the photo below shows how it looked like at the back edge of the pocket….

….including that gemmy little chip by itself in the middle near the back edge, or at least I thought it was the back edge…..

…but we`ll get to that part of the story in a few minutes….I pulled a couple of druse chunks out, one with a gemmy little crystal attached to the end of it….

…and after about thirty minutes of pulling out crystals and clusters and setting them on the white cloths again, this is what I had accumulated….

…pay close attention to the upper left hand side of the pile above…one of the crystals I pulled out had two small dogtooth crystals embedded in it, almost looked like fangs….

…and a few more of the clusters I pulled out this time as well…

…after wrapping these beauties up and taking that bag to the truck, I returned with another bag, filled with the last of the wrapping cloths I had, and pulled even more clusters out of the pocket….

…including this nice little cluster that had a dogtooth crystal poking out from one side…

It soon became obvious to me that I would have to chip out a couple of bigger clusters …so I retrieved my hammer and chisel from the truck and began lightly tapping and soon removed a couple of nice large clusters as well as a few more small clusters….

…and some druse pieces that appeared to contain some of the red colored dolomite druse I had seen from there before…

…as I was pulling this lasst bigger chunk of crystals out, I looked back into the pocket and saw that the remaining clusters were locked into the floor of the pocket and would require a hammer and chisel to remove the rock holding them in below the floor, so I set about chipping the sideplates and bottom rock plates….

…in doing so, I came upon yet another pocket…and it turned out to be mainly dolomite druse, which often accompanies poker chip pockets or surrounds them….

…after removing that plate above that is plain looking on this side, I could see inside the pocket better…..

…by chipping this side of the rock out, I was able to remove clusters from the left side of the pocket floor, shown in the next photo….

After cleaning out the left side of the pocket, I turned my attention to the large plate at the bottom right side of the pocket. I had scraped out a few plates of dolomite druse on the right side of that large plate and discovered it was hollow in the center spot at the bottom of it, and once I had pried it out, discovered it was pockmarked with little pockets of druse throughout the other side of it….which you can see some at the bottom of it in the next photo….

…and once I removed it, I discovered yet another pocket lurking behind and below it…this one full of nothing but druse plates and chunks, most of them rather drab and not pretty at all…this pocket seemed to tunnel back a bit further into the rock as well, and the further it went, the material was even less appealing. Its been my experience hunting there, that quite the opposite is usually true, the further into the rock you tunnel, the prettier the crystals and plates become…..but not in this case….

I also removed several small and large clusters after removing the large plate….

..including these two centerpieces that were on the center column holding the two sides together….

…by this time, I was fast approaching exhaustment…I took a break, carried two bags over to the truck and grabbed a can of Arizona tea, then grabbed as much wrapping material as I could find, having to utilize walmart bags and old t shirts to finish up my wrapping. I then added those last two bags to the truck, wrapped up the bigger chunks and clusters and placed them in the bed of the truck, loaded Missy and headed north. It was now 2 pm and I had just finished six hours of digging, hammering, and wrapping…I was tired but elated at what I had found, and decided to stop off and check out the new druse spot to see if anything new could be found.

I stopped off at the Viburnum fire station to check on a large cloud of smoke in the area of the airport, and see if they were in need of any help…Bill the dispatcher there, told me that it was a few acres on fire and they would have it under control shortly, burning up the hill near the airport runway. I visited with him a few minutes, he is related to one of our firefighters here as well. I then drove on north a few miles to the druse spot and checked it out, spotted a beach ball sized chunk of smokey colored druse and loaded it up in the truck and then headed home with it. All in all, it had been a very nice day to hunt and I was very happy with my finds.

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

A….Holly…Jolly…Dogtooth Day

Posted on January 14, 2013 by jwj

What a nice day it was for rock collecting Saturday, January 12th…couldn`t ask for a better day in the middle of January, one of our coldest months normally, and I was feeling better after a week of a nasty cold, so Missy and I loaded up and headed south to meet up with Docia about 9 am at the secret spot. It was around 55 degrees when we started down there, and even though it didn`t warm up much more than that, we were just fine with it…the forecast was a cold front pushing through around noon and rain developing between noon and 2 pm for that area, so we had about four hours of dry weather ahead of us. What was coming in later that evening wasn`t very good either…. it was gonna go from nice to nasty in the next twelve hours, so we would enjoy it while we had it.

Missy and I arrived about 8:30 am, ahead of Docia, who said she would arrive nearer to 9 am, and we set about to seeing what we could find. The back side of the pile had been removed, leaving us with two new walls to inspect for pockets down near the ground floor level….

I started looking at the fractured areas of the east wall first…wanted to look at the north wall due to great success there the past few weeks, but there was too much debris to dig through down below, where the east and south walls were clear and easier to check on. It soon began to warm up and I took my jacket off and hung it on a nearby boulder, and took a closer look at the pockets to the left of my jacket…

…and about midway between you see a small hole above…as I approached it, it was obvious to me that a pocket was lurking behind it just waiting to be discovered…

…and lurking inside this pocket, was a beautiful yellow poker chip crystal, attached to bubbly gray druse….

…and off to the side about two feet was an exposed area of the wall, appeared to be half of a pocket, with a nice big poker chip attached to the druse bubbles of the left over pocket….real pretty but hard to remove from the wall….

…and off on the other side a couple of feet away…I found a nice pocket that contained several orange dogtooth crystals in plain sight…a good sign of things to come from inside the pocket….

Docia arrived soon after I grabbed another couple of bags from my truck. I took this next photo to show several pockets in a direct line with each other…

…and closer up, showing several crystals, combos of poker chips and druse, sitting on the front edges of each pocket, just waiting to be plucked out….

…and more waiting inside to be removed as well….

…after cleaning out each pocket, I moved to the next…this next one had a combo and cluster sitting side by side on the front edge…

…here is the cluster out of the pocket and up close….

…and the combo removed and up closer….

…and the very next one I pulled out from the mouth of the pocket was this cute little combo….

As I was working on these pockets, Docia started out way down the wall to my left looking for more pockets and then moved down to the right of my jacket and toward the south wall. After finishing up these two pockets, I moved left about three feet and discovered two more pockets in the fractured section of the east wall….

…the fractured, broken up area in the middle above, only produced a few small combos, turning out to be a very shallow pocket….

…while the pocket on the right, actually opened up into two openings and produced quite a few palm sized combos and several single poker chips….

After cleaning this one out as much as possible, I checked up and down the wall, but didnt find any more pockets to check, and moved down the wall toward the south wall, where Docia was busy pulling out beautiful dogtooth crystals from a pocket she found ten minutes prior…..

I walked down and asked her if there was room for two up there and she said sure, and pointed to a pocket she hadnt been able to get to yet and told me to feel free to check it out. I walked over toward it and as I started to climb up the loose slope, I looked down and saw this pretty piece of bubbly druse with a big yellow dogtooth crystal attached to one end of it…

It has obviously rolled down from a pocket above, but I wasnt sure if it was the pocket Docia was talking about or another one up there nearby, possibly located between that one and the one she was working on now, so I climbed up and checked the area in between but didnt find anything substantial, so I then looked up at the pocket she had pointed out to me…from her higher vantage point, she could see some dogtooth crystals up high inside the pocket, where I could only see a few smaller orange crystals sticking out of the muck below…

…and just as I climbed up and created a spot for my bag, she yelled over and said, hey look at this….one she just pulled out of the pocket she was working on about ten feet to my right….

As soon as I got comfy, I began carefully working my way into the pocket, and soon began pulling some beautiful orange dogtooths out from the much, covered over and out of sight, working my way up to the higher points that she had been able to see before, that I could now see as well…

….within moments, I pulled free a couple of larger chunks of crystals with dogtooth points sticking out all around them…she called over and told me that I should give her one of them since she graciously allowed me to check out the pocket…I climbed down with this one, to my other two bags below…not wanting to merely place it in my bag above…and told her she could have it since it was the one she asked for…..

I turned around to climb back up the loose slope, and didnt take two steps and looked down to see this nice chunk of druse and yellow poker chips at my feet….picked it up and turned around to set it by my bags before climbing back up to the pocket….

…and I no sooner got back up there, then I started pulling one dogtooth after another out of the pocket…didnt take long before I had one bag completely full. Docia climbed down to take one of her bags back to her suv, and on her return, handed me another bag to fill as well. She also wrapped up the one I gave her and then climbed back up to see if she could find more pockets. Soon after, it began to rain on us, a light sprinkle at first, that turned into a light steady rain, a little after 1 pm. Since we were finding some nice pockets now, we decided to stick it out a bit longer.

Not long after the rain started, she told me that she had found yet another nice pocket, and pretty soon I could hear Docia talking to herself…a few minutes later, she let out a loud whoop……she had found a very nice chunk of calcite covered on at least three sides by big beautiful orange dogtooth crystals….

…I looked over and she was so excited by it, she was actually shaking…she said later it may have been a combination of excitement from the crystals and cold from the rain and cooling temperatures. She decided she had enough excitement for the day and began wrapping up her goodies and preparing to leave. I decided to stick it out a little longer and see what else I could find. I moved over to her pocket and pulled a few goodies out while she was still there, and then after she left, I pulled even more out. I will get some photos taken of them as soon as I get them cleaned up later this week.

Well it`s Wednesday and I was finally able to get those pretty dogtooth crystals all cleaned up and photographed…I first had to do a little re-organizing and clearing out some room in my kitchen floor and sunroom, before I could even get to the sink to wash off the dust and dirt….here is the before photos….

…of the kitchen floor above, and the sunroom below is the before….

….and now there is much more room in the sunroom as shown below, Missy has much more suntannin room now to stretch out during the sunny days….

…and the kitchen floor is still a work in progress, we`ll just say. I did clean out the shelves on both sides of the sink before I started, giving me more drying off room for the dogtooths…speaking of which, here is what I now have cleaned up from last weekend…..

…a mess of dogtooth singles above, this is just a few of the many singles I pulled from that last pocket that Docia turned over to me, below are a few more….

I actually pulled a few singles out the first few times, but then while feeling around the edges, I snagged a much larger treasure and this is what I pulled out next….

…and here is the other side of this beautiful dogtooth combo that I pulled from the pocket….

…so I stuck my hand back inside and I`m moving around the edges again, and pulled out several more singles, and then latched on to a larger piece that was in the middle…could feel the one end and it felt like bubbles of druse on the one end I had ahold of… and once I worked it loose, this is what came out….

….and below is the view from the other side of it….

…Docia was still there when I pulled these out, but she was wrapping up hers and trying to get out of there before she got soaked, so not sure if she saw them good or not. Plus they were covered with a fine coating of dust, too. I really like the colors in the druse as well as the dogtooth crystals attached. After pulling two nice sized pieces from the pocket, the next couple of combos that came out, were quite a bit smaller, but very, VERY nice…like this nice little chunk of bubbly druse with attached twin, double terminated dogtooth crystals attached to each other and attached to one end of the druse bubbles….

…and then to top it all off, wouldnt you know…the NEXT one that came out felt like a single crystal all by itself, but when I got it out in the light, IT was DOUBLE TERMINATED also !!!!

So here they are side by side….

….I was like WHOA…..and stopped to do some wrapping before I placed either one in the bag…and grabbed a few more bags too…then reached into the grab bag once again and came out with this little guy…..

…well by this time, Docia was driving off and I reached back into the pocket and rummaging around inside, snagged up on another large one, could feel several points and after working it loose from the middle once again, pulled this one out of the pocket…

……and another view of it below….

…I pulled alot more singles out again and then snagged yet another larger one inside the pocket and pulled this fourth combo out….

…and the other side of it here….

…I was having a hard time getting them out, scratching my arm up a bit on the boulder, and catching my sleeve by this time on a dogtooth attached to a plate on the left wall at the entrance to the pocket, so I started wiggling the front end of this plate and finally worked it loose…it turned out to be L shaped, which meant I was going to have to twist it a bit to get it out, and then wound up having to chip a bit of rock out of the way to make it easier, and then finally got it out of the pocket, and essentially, out of my way as well…

…and by this time, I was becoming wetter due to the rain picking up once again, and the temps were still falling, so I was getting a bit chilled. I decided I would reach into the grab bag one more time and see if I could find a good sized chunk, and that would be that…and after rummaging around inside for a few seconds, I located a loose one and pulled this last combo out….

…I was quite happy with what all we had found, but after a week of cabin fever, ingesting all the zirtec and cough syrup, and not getting my workouts and exercising in, I was a bit tired and was ready for a little nap. Once home, I postponed dinner and jumped in the hot tub to warm up, then took a nice little nap, which helped the recovery process alot. Tomorrow I hope to clean up a few more crystals. 🙂

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Cleaned Up More Dogtooths From Christmas Day

Posted on January 9, 2013 by jwj

I`ve been down with a bad cold for the past five days, courtesy of one of my co-workers at work, who decided to come to work sick and share it with everyone there. I relieve him on fire dispatch at work and the least he could have done was let me know to wipe everything down due to it, but he didnt even have enough common courtesy to do that, so as a result, I didnt get to go rockhunting on Sunday, which I had taken off just for that reason, using a holiday that I was in jeopardy of losing if I didnt use it…therefore, I`m not too happy with my co-worker since he violated two major pet peeves of mine about the workplace.

I really love my job, but my workplace could use some improvements…I`m sure most fall under that as well, but since we are provided with good sick leave benefits, I think it should be mandatory that we as employees, should place the welfare of others, like our co-workers for one, above our own discomfort and stay home when sick, in order to recover without affecting others in close proximity. One would think COMMON SENSE would prevail here and it wouldnt have to be a rule, but apparently some people just dont have the ability to think clearly sometimes and think about the welfare of others. My second peeve closely follows the first…if you are too STUPID to stay home when sick, then by gosh have the COMMON COURTESY to at the very least, inform your co-workers, as well as anyone else you come into close contact with, that you are not feeling well and suggest that they wipe everything down that you came into contact with…once again, common sense should prevail, but if you are so stupid that you come to work sick, then its obviously apparent to me that you have NO common sense at all. Nuff said.

Now I know what people mean when they say they have a ” stupid cold “….it`s a cold they got from stupid people….while home recovering, I did get some of my larger plates of crystals cleaned up from the pocket I worked on Christmas Day, so I`m adding those photos below…some were covered in clay mud so after a thorough cleaning, I uncovered some very pretty yellow dogtooth crystals on a few of the larger plates.

This is the first one I worked on cleaning up…its a solid chunk of druse at the base, with alot of calcite crystals on top, many of them a honey brown color of dogtooth crystals, and the rest are frosted over in lighter shades of brown and dark yellow…the honey brown dogtooths are more yellow at the tips of the crystals…there are even smaller yellow/orange dogtooth crystals embedded in the druse bubbles near the base….

…and here is a photo of the other side, showing the druse base with embedded dogtooth crystals…. I have rolled it over a bit more to show more of the druse base, and you can see it has black hematite balls all over the druse as well….

I also pulled a large plate out of the pocket that day that was coated on one side with the multicolored bubbles of druse, with a few large honey brown dogtooth crystals encased in the frosted poker chip formation with the tips of the crystals exposed, nestled on top of the druse bubbles…

….and the entire other side of the thick plate was coated with a pretty whitish gray colored druse that has tiny little needles all over the druse….

….very pretty when it sparkles in the sunlight, which we have had little of the last few days.

I also found several large plates of bubbly druse in different colors inside the pocket and brought a few of them home with me, two are shown here….

And another nice surprise was this chunk of calcite crowned by several yellow and orange dogtooth crystals….

MFQ Once Again

Posted on January 4, 2013 by jwj

I didnt have anything better to do on the 30th, so Missy and I loaded up the truck and headed to MFQ. Snow had fallen on Christmas night and then again Friday night, and was deep an hour south of me, which is my traditional route there. I had called a friend who has a weekend cabin not far from the quarry and he let me know that they had a light snow Friday night and most of it had melted on Saturday, however the roads between me and the quarry, along my traditional routes, were ice and snowpacked and covered, hence my decision to take an alternate route instead.

There was a light dusting of snow in places on the rocks as I pulled down into the quarry parking lot…I slowed to check out the little bluff on the right as you enter, the area that Ian and I had worked for a couple of hours when he was here, and located multiple pockets inside it…it was covered with more snow than anywhere else so I decided to drive on over to the newer area and see what I could find there. The sloped pile there was halfway removed, and I no sooner got out of my truck than I discovered a very large chunk of matrix with a large green and chocolate brown colored poker chip crystal sticking out of it, sitting on the ground at the foot of the sloped pile. Before I could even get my boots on and laced up, I walked over and picked it up, using my legs instead of my back due to the weight of it, and walked it back to the bed of my truck. I dont have a photo of it yet, as it`s still in the bed of my truck…I left it there Sunday night as weight for the snow storm that was coming in on Monday mornng. I`m glad I did, because it was good weight and ballast for the bed of my lightweight truck. +

After lacing up my boots and grabbing some tools and a couple of bags, I walked down along the foot of the slope and then down the new wall…it looked like no one had been there since Ian and I had been there a few weeks prior. I was picking up some nice poker chips that had obviously rolled down from above somewhere. I looked up on the pile and saw a few potentials to check out when I got back from the wall walk, and made mental notes of their locations for my return. I even left one of my blue bags in place to mark the spot.

I had no sooner walked about ten feet down the wall from the edge of the pile, than I spotted a small palm sized plate containing bright orange dogtooth crystals…I was like, HOLIE COW…mainly because it was just sitting on top of a flat boulder like someone had left it there. While stunned beyond belief, I`m also not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I pulled out a wrapping cloth, wrapped it up, and then walked it to my truck for safekeeping…and no, I haven`t photographed it yet, but I will soon. I found several small poker chips down along the wall, some appeared to have fallen from way up, there were obviously some pockets about twenty feet up the wall that were entirely inaccessible, and within about ten minutes, I had completed my walk, and returned to the blue bag marking my return spot, with one bag filled with crystals.

I started climbing up the pile and hadnt made it very far up from the floor, before I found this beautiful green colored poker chip cluster….

…and after getting my footing after wrapping this one up, I started a little higher up and soon started seeing crystals all over the place, including this beauty…one that I had spotted earlier and was making my way up to…it suddenly dislodged above me and slid right down the slope into my waiting hands, and what had appeared to be a chocolate brown colored poker chip twin, actually turned out to be a triple….

…while it doesn`t look very chocolatey colored in the photo above, believe me it is….and I no sooner had it wrapped and placed in one of the blue bags, when I started finding chocolate colored dogtooth crystals all over the place up on that loose rock pile….

…within minutes, I had yet another bag filled up and I wasn`t yet halfway up the pile, so I slid down and took the full bag to the truck and returned with another empty one. I climbed back up the pile, checking out a couple of pockets in the wall on my left side as I did so, and then, after creating a couple of footholds with my mattox, I climbed on up to a very large boulder that had signs of crystals on both sides of it. The footing was more secure on the left side of this boulder, between it and the wall, so I climbed up on that side first and then nosed around with my mattox. Unfortunately, I knocked a few loose crystals down into a hole that opened up behind this huge boulder, and even more unfortunate, the hole was so deep I couldn`t even reach down into it to retrieve the crystals…and after cleaning off some of the loose material above and around the boulder, I discovered that there was a line of crystals, some small and loose, and some big and attached to solid stuff, all the way across the face and top of the boulder and extending about three feet on both sides of it. I soon found out, much to my disappointment, that I could not dislodge the bigger crystals from what they were attached firmly to. They were very pretty, some dark gray colored, some chocolate brown colored, and some were a bright green color.

I probably could have hammered and chiseled them out, but I probably would have still been there had I done that, buried at the bottom of the mass of boulders above me, too. Since I really preferred that not happen, I gathered up what I could in my bags and after carrying them to the truck, I grabbed two more empty bags and climbed up on the pile to walk up to the top and see what could be found up there. It seemed very likely to me that some of the crystals I had picked up on the pile, had rolled down from the top of the pile, so I wanted to walk up and check out that theory as well. I soon found that climbing up on that pile was not going to be easy…like when Ian was there, only now more difficult because I was a bit more tired now…I had to literally throw my bag and tools up on the ledge, then grab onto a rock that was partially buried in the muck above, and pull myself up on to the ledge…all while doing this, the lip of the ledge was giving way and disintegrating from the edge and rolling down to the floor below…fun, right ?? NOTTTTT….I was really exhausted now, once I got up there, I just laid there for a few minutes to get my strength and breath back…where was that Gatorade when I needed it….shoulda packed one in my bag for just such a deal….maybe I can remember to do that the next time.

So soon after I hiked up to the top where Ian and I had worked several poker chip and dolomite crystal pockets before…there was a guy there that day that went up to the top to see what else he could find after we finished working those pockets. I no sooner got to the top in that area, then I started spotting little clusters and twins and triples just laying around up there…I thought to myself…whoever left this gorgeous stuff here is even pickier than Docia and me combined…worse than Mike Streeter even….stuff like this one just laying there on top….

…and here are a few more of the nice ones I found that afternoon while there, some up above and a few on the pile down below….

…after filling up a bag full of the crystals I found on top and left laying around, and then prying a couple of larger clusters from the pocket, I wrapped those two up and placed them in the top of the bags and then carefully made my way back down to the edge of the pile. I decided to slide down the loose stuff on my butt from the edge, and boy let me tell you, that was some ride down the slide….with my hands and arms full no less….I dont think I will do that again with both arms full that is…gotta be able to steer….

Dogtooth Crystal Christmas Day

Posted on December 28, 2012 by jwj

Since my family celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, due to my work schedule and my sister`s family schedule, I didnt have anything planned and neither did Docia, so she met Missy and I at the secret spot about 10 am. It was alot colder than it has been, about 27 degrees when we arrived, but hey, a little cold weather doesnt stop the hardiest of rockhounds. I figured we would be sheltered from the wind as well, as we have in the past, but not this time…it was whipping around in there the whole time we were there. Missy and I arrived first and after getting my boots on and laced up, I headed over to a section of older wall where I could see what appeared to be a pocket that I hadnt noticed before. I was up there chipping around with my mini mattox when Docia arrived. I took a break and walked down to get a few dogtooths out of my truck for her from my last trip there, that I had found. She handed me a box that contained a gem tree for my supervisor, Patty….

…..a christmas gem tree for me…..

….and a pyrite sun on a stand.

After getting on her coveralls, she grabbed a bag and tools and headed over to the older wall near me. We moved up that wall, looking for pockets and then to the east wall where we finally found some pockets and sat down to work them. I decided to take another look at the druse/dogtooth wall I had found last week. After clearing away some more of the rubble, I located what appeared to be another pocket way back in the back section of it, which required me to really reach back to pull stuff out and then later, on the left side as well. Since it was so cold and windy, I left the camera in the truck and didnt take any photos til I got home and cleaned the specimens up.

One of the first few I pulled out of the very back pocket, was a nice double terminated dogtooth crystal stretched across a piece of druse matrix…here it is all cleaned up…

I was also pulling out a lot of pretty druse chunks, bubbly and lots of different colors on a primarily gray druse base….

…and every once in a while I would pull out some smaller dogtooth crystals as well, some wrapped inside a poker chip and exposed either at the tip or down along the body of the dogtooth formation somewhere….many of them in excellent condition…

…some of them were a honey brown color, some an orange color, and a few of them were a darker brown color. I kept on pulling several top and sidewall plates of the bubbly druse out, some of them with poker chips and some of them with dogtooth crystals attached to them, until I reached the back of the pocket. I put my mini mattox in there to make sure it was the back of the pocket, cause I was at the end of my stretch and reach and could no longer reach anything with even the tips of my fingers.

I then turned my attention to the left side wall and the first thing I pulled out after clearing some of the sideall plates there, was this nice single crystal attached to a small piece of gray bubbly druse, that had a very different look to it on both sides….

…above photo shows the pretty side of the crystal on the ugly bottom side of the druse matrix, where the next photo shows the other side of the crystal on that ugly bottom side of the druse, with some of the gray bubbles exposed on the other side….

….and the other side shows the pretty druse bubbles with the dogtooth showing as frosted over and only the tip of it exposed…

…I was also pulling out a few chunks of druse bubbles with some frosted dogtooth crystals attached to them….

…and closer up the dogtooths look like this….

…I filled three bags after wrapping up these and some of the single crystals, and took them to the truck…as I walked back toward the wall, I looked down where I was watching my steps over some loose boulders and saw some poker chip crystals laying at the bottom of the pile slope…so I looked up and spotted what appeared to be a large chunk of poker chips and druse exposed on one end near the top of the pile…so naturally, I climbed up there and started digging in to expose the entire thing, and before you knew it, several dogtooth orange crystals were found in what appeared to be a large pocket blasted down from the wall. I pulled a couple of large plates out and took them back to the truck, and brought back an extra bag with cloth wraps. Its a good thing I did, because an hour later, I had filled both bags and was returning to my truck for yet another one, when Docia came to tell me that she had froze out and had enough of the never ending wind.

Missy and I stuck around another 45 minutes, filled one more bag, and then took off for home too. It was supposed to possibly start snowing around 5 pm, and I decided to get out earlier than that, just in case. By this time I was cold as well and only the hot tub could thaw me out. 🙂

Frosted Orange Dogtooth Crystal Pocket

Posted on December 21, 2012 by jwj

A few days after Ian was here, I took the day off from work and returned to the secret spot to see if anything was left. Docia was out of state visiting and when I arrived, I could see a drilling rig set up on the bluff above, so it was obvious that more material was about to be blasted down soon. I figured I had better check the east wall for more pockets on this trip cause it was likely that wall would be gone by the time I returned. Since there was only a little bit of rock material left in the pile, it seemed logical to me that they may be blasting within the next week.

I didnt waste any time after arriving…switched to my boots and grabbed a couple of bags and tools, and walked over to the east wall and started looking around. In no time at all, I discovered what appeared to be a pocket full of gray druse chunks…but have discovered that poker chips like to lurk inside druse pockets alot…

….and vice versa as well…often we find druse in poker chip pockets too….I began clearing away the clutter and loose stuff and quickly found out this was not going to be an ordinary gray druse….it was gray bubbly druse with alot of different colors added to it….

…and there was so much dust covering many of the druse chunks, that I really had no idea until after I got home and began cleaning them off a few days later, what I really had found inside that pocket. Lets just say I`m examining things I pull out of pockets, a little closer these days…

…and after clearing away alot of the loose stuff up front, and looking closer into the pocket that was stuffed with chunks of druse, in between I could see what appeared to be some frosted poker chips...

…and before too long, I was also seeing some orange dogtooth crystals, small ones…like the ones Docia uses to create gemstone Christmas trees with…she uses them as ornaments on the trees….and this is usually a good sign that you have found a dogtooth crystal pocket and sometimes the small ones lead to bigger ones….

….if you scroll back up and look at that big chunk in the front of the pocket at the base of it, this is it up above, turned over and covered with bigger dogtooth crystal points….and here are some of the smaller ones I found before I found this one….

…and here is a close up of the larger one that was anchoring the front base of the pocket once again….

I pulled alot of little dogtooths out as well as a lot of druse plates and chunks…never seen so much druse that was twisty and turned and bubbled up like this stuff was…and lots of different colors all over…one side would be completely gray and bubbley and the other side might be yellow or orange or red or a combination of all three colors on gray….def pretty and different.

As I got closer to the back of the pocket, I found more plates waiting on me…

…and some more crystals lurking inside and between the plates and chunks as well….

…here is a photo of some of the crystals I pulled out of there…I was laying them down on these white cloths as I removed them from the pocket…

…and here is another plate that I pulled out of the back of the pocket that had frosted poker chips attached to it as well….

…and a couple of the pretty druse pieces that I pulled from this pocket full of druse and poker chips…

…and soon the pocket was all cleaned out….it took much of my afternoon hours to clean out though.

Protected: Rockhounding With Ian Merkel

Posted on December 3, 2012 by jwj

Thanksgiving Day 2012

Posted on November 27, 2012 by jwj

Docia emailed me earlier in the week and asked if I was doing anything the morning of Thanksgiving. I told her no, my family wasnt celebrating til supper and I was free til then, so we decided to meet at the secret spot about 10 am and see if we could harvest some more dogtooth crystals from the Holie Cow pocket and see what else we could find there. We arrived to find a huge trackhoe sitting there, signs that more material had likely been removed since Missy and I had been there a few days before. No matter though, that just means more material could be readily found.

Docia was up on top when Missy and I arrived, looking for rainbow druse plates she had found up there before…she came walking down the hill with a long face on and I knew that could only mean bad news for the rainbow plates..she confirmed it saying apparently the last blast had penetrated that pocket and there were no more to be found. After I handed her some clusters of Arkansas Quartz Crystals, she grabbed another bag and some tools and we headed up to the Holie Cow Pocket…

…and found that it had weathered the storm just fine, was still there…

…. Docia decided she really didnt want to climb up to where the dogtooth crystals were located in the pocket to dig them out, so she walked on up above me and sat down on a big rock and started looking for another pocket…finding one within about thirty minutes…

…being a vuggy looking wall, it was soon apparent to us that there were small pockets of druse and calcite all over it…even seams of calcite in some areas…soon she was pulling some nice stuff from this pocket…

…and there was even evidence of a pocket or two above this one in the wall….

..…I returned to the Holie Cow pocket and began liberating a few clusters on the sides of the pocket and even found a few up above it in another pocket….here are some of the goodies I found in the first hour there….

….deciding to leave the back wall as intact as I could for Ian`s visit this week, some of them were just too complicated looking to try and remove….

…I moved over to the right and found a few small pockets of gray druse and poker chips….and some sparkly gold colored stuff, too….

…..they would have looked alot better had the sun been shining so they could sparkle though….

…and here is a nice poker chip combo from one of those pockets….

I had to pry this big piece out of the way to access this next pocket

and as I did…. …this beautiful small poker chip was just perched there, waiting for me to come along and find it….

..I had just removed this plate, covering up yet another small pocket…covered in druse on the interior side in two colors….

…when Docia yelled at me to come see what she had just found on the opposite side…we had been working on the north wall and she had walked over to the south wall to look around...so I grabbed my camera and walked over to see what she had found….

…spotting her canvas bag full of poker chip crystals first…some of them very big ones…and then this pocket of soda straw druse plates hanging from the ceiling….she was going to try and remove them without breaking them next….

…even prettier up close….

…and one of the plates she had already removed….

…and sitting there holding one as well….

…and several she had already pulled out of the pocket….

…including these large single crystals, that we rarely see in one pocket…come across them occasionally, but not much. I began looking around the pocket she had pulled them out of, and saw several vuggy pockets nearby, including this one full of yellow colored druse….

…I decided to walk back over and clean out what I could from the pockets I was working on and then come back up here, climb up and see what I could find in this pocket as well. As I was walking back across to the north wall, I looked up and saw Docia even higher up, pecking away at another possible pocket….

I walked back up to the spot where Docia had last worked on a pocket, that started extending upward inside the wall….

…and set my camera inside the pocket looking upward toward that extension so you could see what all was inside that she was unable to reach…..

…pay close attention to the knobby looking rock on your left in that photo above…its going to look a whole lot better in a couple of seconds…I decided to try and remove it to get better access to this pocket, so I was hammering on the back of it, the side facing me, with my four pound hammer, when I heard something detach inside the pocket…I reached inside and pulled this beautiful cluster out of the pocket that had been attached to this knobby chunk as the facepiece….

…I carefully wrapped it up and the others as well, and took them to my truck…it required a couple of trips, I had so many of them…and then grabbed two more bags with wrapping cloths inside and headed over to the south wall….this was the view from up there…

…I then climbed up to the druse pocket I had seen up above Docia`s last pocket and pulled out the druse pieces I could see from below…

…when I finished cleaning out what I could, Docia called to me from above and told me to come up and look at yet another pocket she found, this one filled with druse and large fat poker chip crystals….so I climbed up another twenty feet and found the pocket she had been working on while I was climbing around on the wall….

….and I bent down to see these crystals and druse plates in the entrance to that pocket opening on the right side above….

…..she was walking away and down the top of the pile to see if she could find some plates of druse and tells me, you can have anything there that you want….so I set down and started pulling more crystals and druse plates out of this pocket, and soon had both of my bags completely full….she came back with a very long plate of druse soda straws in her hand, turned upside down and two smaller plates sitting on top of the back of that very big plate in her hands…said it was one of those plates she has been looking for all her life…and where was Floyd or Ed when she needed them to carry those down to the truck for her….told her to take her time and lots of rest stops in order to get it down there safely…which she did…and then I started carrying my two bags down as well, and I had to make a few rest stops along the way as well…coming upon a couple of nice druse plates along the way down and setting my bag next to them, then carrying the one bag and tools on over to the truck, and returning four times for the druse plates I found and the other bag….no one said rockhounding is easy all the time….and some of my rockhound friends have told me if you dont sweat or bleed, its not worth it….I was doing both at the moment, so guess it was totally worth it.

Here is a photo showing Docia with her thirty inch long plate of druse soda straws that she found up on top.

Protected: Return to the Holie Cow Pocket

Posted on November 27, 2012 by jwj

One of those HOLIE COW Pockets

Posted on November 20, 2012 by jwj

Saturday I didnt have anything better to do and after sleeping in til 8 am and having getting some fruit loops and frosted flakes down, Missy and I packed up and headed to the SSQ to do some digging and collecting. I had originally thought about going to MFQ again, but for some reason decided we were on the road too late for that trip, so we headed to the new druse spot and then the secret spot. I was sooooo glad later on, lol.

We turned the corner on one of the county roads and all of a sudden fifteen wild turkeys were crossing the road in front of me…before I could grab my camera, they were using the road like an airport runway and taking flight over the marsh ponds…

It had rained a few days before, so I wanted to see if any new bubble pieces had washed out.

I parked and left Missy in the truck, rolling the windows down so she had good natural air conditioning…she had dived into the mud the last time we were there and it took me thirty minutes just to wipe as much mud off her as I could before letting her back into my truck…another reason I take alot of towels with me, but it wasnt gonna happen this time if I could prevent it. I switched to my boots, grabbed a bag, gloves, and my mattox and set out to checking the usual areas…within minutes I was spotting small bubbles all over the place. Within about ten minutes, the first bag was full and I was starting to see football and softball sized pieces of bubbles all over the place on up ahead. I returned to the truck and grabbed two more bags, with some wrapping cloths. It was another good move on my part. I didnt get any farther than a hundred feet from the truck and within the hour, I had four bags full of bubbles of druse and had even walked a few beach ball sized chunks with bubbles all over three sides, back to the truck. It was at this time, that I decided to stop and head over to the secret spot.

We arrived there an hour later, and found things quite laid out quite differently than the last time I had been there two weeks earlier, actually alot smoother entrance to it and easier to walk around now…the path up to the blast pile was even ramped up and made for much easier walking around. I could see right away that I would be able to access at least two of the walls better, so I grabbed tools and a bag and headed to the cornered wall on the left side….

…it was obvious that they had removed alot of rock in the past two weeks, to where I don`t know yet…and deposited alot of Streeter boulders over on the right side where I normally park….

As I walked up to this new wall, I started seeing signs of calcite and pockets all over the place, so I returned to the truck and grabbed two more bags and my hammer and chisel, for just in case….

…within minutes, I had found some pretty druse pieces and a few with calcite attached to them on that lower bench area above where you see one of my gloves to the left of the blue bag…

…and yes, thats an orange dogtooth crystal laying on top of one of the pieces above….I then took a look up above that bench and saw alot of druse pockets and….

….this nice little poker chip attached to one of the druse pockets right in the center….

…and looking up about another six feet, I saw this spectacular sight…..I was like whoa….

hold on to your hats tho….things were about to get even better….I climbed up on a narrow ledge and saw this just above the lower bench area and below the mass of crystals, in a very accessible location for me….

…and this cluster perched right in front….

…I climbed up and found another ledge so I could have both feet up there and not be hanging on with just one foot firmly attached somewhere, and started pulling some loose crystals out and brushing away some loose dirt on the right side, and discovered another pocket on the side….

…and zooming in with the lens, I saw this at the opening of that side pocket….

…and started to get excited….I took a closer look at everything in front of me and started seeing crystals all over the place….

…and the next 2 photos show the top of the pocket, left side….

…so I sat my camera down and began pulling whatever was loose, out of the pockets, starting at the bottom and working my way to the sides and above slowly and carefully….within ten minutes, I had this pile accumulating already….

…and I began working in a circle around that big chunk you see up above in the middle of the pocket. Luckily I had a few flat ledges that I could lay crystals down on til I had amassed several and then would climb down and transfer them to the lower ledge. I continued to clean out around that big chunk to make room to bring it down as well….

Many crystals and combos were coming out of the loose dirt around the big chunk quite easily and I even removed some nice twins and big single crystals as well, some were four to six inches long and three to four inches wide even. I really liked this big cluster in the front though….

…and really wanted to get it out of there before I removed that big one hanging over it, to prevent any damage to it, plus there were still so many crystals just hanging around underneath that huge chunk, so I kept on removing crystals under and around it first….

…you wouldn`t believe what all was under that chunk alone…you can see several in the middle and the two medium sized chunks on the left and right were both nice bubbles of druse on the faces, the faces turned in toward the pocket itself and not visible to you or I, and poker chips attached to the faces and bubbles….I was amazed each time I climbed back up there to remove more….

…after climbing down and moving more crystals and combos and plates to the bench once again, I climbed back up and decided to see what all was in that pocket to the right and after clearing quite a few loose crystals embedded in the red dirt in front of it…this is what I saw up close….

…again, totally blown away and even more exited….then I pulled those two facing pieces out from under the big hanging chunk…another HOLIE COW moment…..

…and I climbed down and added them to the bench with the other accumulated goodies….like that cluster of crystals on the right side of the pile….

…seen here up closer…..

…I took a short break and returned to the truck for some gatorade, then came back and bit the bullet and removed that hanging chunk…it was loose and didnt require any effort to pry it away, just effort to keep it from falling down on that cluster below and damaging or even decimating it….once it was out of the way, you can imagine my surprise at what lay behind it….

….an even LARGER pocket opening….and just wait til you see what was inside there…. I then pulled some more loose material out of the way, and OILA !! there was a very large crystal cluster sitting loose inside all the other loose stuff….take a look at the next photo, you can see it just in front of the bubbly facing pieces…..and even bigger than the one still in front that I would have to chip out….

…and even bigger closer up….

…I continued to pull more loose stuff out of that front area, that the hanging chunk had been protecting well, alot of combos with bubbles of gray druse and poker chips attached as well as single crystals, in very pristine condition…was laying them on the small ledges as I pulled even more out….

I now had a view of more bubbles of druse plates attached to that big piece on the right side, and poker chips attached to it…

…and after removing more loose stuff just above the end of my mattox handle above, for reference, you`ll begin to see what I saw in the larger pocket opening above after I removed that large hanging chunk of rock that protected most of this pocket….

…and a closer up view reveals even more….

…and the next combo I removed from inside this pocket was absolutely stunning…no damage to it, pristine condition…I was just totally blown away….but as I said before, it gets better…..

…I removed some more of those hanging chunks above and some of the looser chunks on the left side of the pocket, which by the way were harboring some more loose crystals and combo plates, and this is the view I had inside the pocket showing the back wall of it….

and trying to get a closer view for ya….

…when sunlight hit the back wall, it lit up like a christmas tree…the druse is actually a silvery gray druse with alot of sparkles in each bubble and valley..and there are dogtooth crystals embedded in there as well…I immediately thought of Docia when I saw them, lol…more ornaments for her gem trees. 🙂
I`ll stop here and updated it tomorrow with the rest of the story. You might be like me, need a little extra time to digest it all before you see more. 🙂

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