Poker Chips in Limonite Pocket End of August

The heat wave that has dominated much of our summer weather this year, finally relented a bit and we were able to go rock hunting mid afternoon without encountering sweltering and dangerously hot temps for once.  I met my parents and my sisters family at Red Lobster last Saturday for lunch, to take my Dad out for his birthday, and then drove back to pick up Missy and go rock hunting…Docia was confined to mowing acres of grass while it was dry, so we went by ourselves, set to meet there the next morning cause it would be wet and she couldnt mow then.

Missy and I arrived around 2 pm and I immediately went up into the pile area to discover that the remaining pile was gone and they had cleaned if up right up to the wall on both sides, even scraping down into the floor a little bit…

1A More Stuff Gone

…and I looked to the left and the rest of the windrow on that side was gone too…the only thing left behind were the big boulders we couldn`t do anything with.

5 More Stuff Gone Here Too

I walked up to the corner and began looking around the newly cleared area for left behinds,  and not seeing anything definitive, I checked the floor and saw what appeared to be some seams and decided to start digging there…

6 Shallow Pocket Found

..it didn`t take long to find a shallow pocket of chips, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were covered in what appeared to be limonite…I wasn`t sure at first, cause it looked like clay, but it was solid rock and spotty in places and solid masses in other places, but the crystals themselves were gray or a yellowish green color and in clusters or combos…found out most of this later at home when I cleaned them up and was quite happy with them. I decided then to look for more the next morning when I returned to meet up with Docia…here is the pocket expanding and you can see more crystals in the bottom of the pocket…

7 Shallow Pocket with Ledges

..and here are some of them piled up…at this point you can see how they look coming out of the pocket and can prob understand why I wasn`t sure what exactly I had at this point, but I was clearly interested….

8 Poker Chip Clusters From Shallow Pocket

..and when you see this next one, you`ll prob really understand why I got excited when I pulled it out and looked close at it…

9 Nice Chip Cluster From Shallow Pocket

…through the muck covering it I can see I have a small cluster or triple at the very least and the crystals are a nice dark color…here is the other view of it…

10 Nice Chip Cluster Pulled From Pocket

 

After getting what I could out, I moved over to the wall and located another pocket fairly quickly…

13 Bluff Pocket Found

..and the first thing I pulled out of the pocket after clearing the loose stuff away, was this nice gray druse with a poker chip attached to one end of it…..

14 Gray Druse Combo Pulled

…and that left this hole in the pocket….

16 Chips and Druse in Bluff Pocket

..with a nice poker chip crystal front and slightly to the right of center, lol….I started clearing away the roll down material in front of me and came upon this small cluster in the rocks….

17 Chip Cluster Below Pocket

….and after cleaning all the loose material around the pocket away from it, here is now it looked….

18 Bluff Pocket Cleaned Up

…..and the next one that came out of the pocket was this nice combo….

20 Gray Druse Combo

…after that I removed a few small plates of druse and a few single crystals and that cleaned out the small pocket, so I moved on down the wall looking for more pockets…after ten minutes of further digging, the only discovery I made was this guy looking for a cool spot out of the heat….

21 Digging Along and Uncovered This Guy

…yes I admit, I jumped back a bit when the rocks uncovered him…it startled me because we have been rockhunting at this location for going  on a few years now and just in the past week, we have come across two small snakes. I dug a few more minutes at that location, a little farther away, and then moved to another location to search for more pockets. I found what appeared to be a promising seam of calcite about twenty feet away in the floor….

22 New Pocket in Depression Spot

…but only found a few crystals here and decided to call it a wrap…as Missy and I were leaving, we spotted this nice cloudy view….

28 Substation Clouds

…I got home and cleaned up a few of those crystals from the limonite pocket and really liked what I found…

30 Same as 10 Cleaned Up Now

…this is that pretty one that was covered in muck above….it sure cleaned up real pretty….here are a few more….

33 Poker Chip on Matrix

34 Poker Chip in Matrix

Docia met me over there the next day and we both found a couple of pockets apiece…she found a couple in the wall that I missed the day before, and I found a couple in the floor above and below…the floor below was in one of those depression areas again and this one had some large poker chips….

5 Poker Chip from Pocket

….and then off to the side of this pocket, I hit a spot of hematite attached to the poker chips and calcite…never have hit anything like that before…

11 Hematite Pocket

 

6 Small Poker Chip From Pocket9 Docia Works Bluff Pockets

 

 

An Amazing Pocket August 22nd

I hope we don`t run out of names for all the great pockets we are finding lately…the birthday pocket and the pocket found a few days after that one could have easily been named the amazing pocket as well…

I came home early from work on my short night Sunday with every intention of getting a few hours nap before getting up at 5 am to meet up with Docia at the secret spot and do some more hunting. My fire pager nixed that idea when it sounded a couple of hours early and we were toned our for a house fire on the south end of our fire district…suffice it to say thirty minutes later I was turning around and returning home after arriving to find a furnace problem only, no smoke showing as stated when the tones dropped. I tried to nap a bit but that didnt work well either, so just got up early and got ready to go instead….Docia emailed to tell me it might be 7 before she arrived and we decided to meet up on top of the hill and decide where to go from there.

Once there, we decided to head to the lower area and see if we could find a few more pockets, and once down there, we found that some more material had been removed so we started checking out those areas first. I had intended to get my new digging tool out and resume my dig from last week, but actually never got to do that. After walking around and checking out the newly disturbed areas, I found a few nice little clusters and combos….

5 Some Finds Prior to Pocket

After that, I walked down along the wall and spotted some druse shining in a small opening in the wall and walked over to check it out…looking in, I could see some crystals inside and was able to pull one crystal out and found it attached to some bubbly gray druse. I saw even more crystals inside, but knew I would never be able remove them through the small opening, so I retrieved my hammer and chisel after taking a short water bottle break. Forgive me folks, I didn`t retrieve my camera as well, so will take a few photos of the finds from this small pocket tomorrow morning and post them later. I will say that after chiseling out and enlarging the opening, I was able to take some nice crystal combos out of there.

As I was taking those crystals over to the truck and get another bottle of water, I spotted alot of calcite chunks in the gravel and asked Docia if that was an area she had previously checked out…she said she wasn`t sure due to everything being changed around in the last few weeks with all the work going on, so I decided to grab my digging tool and check it out after another small water break. Docia decided to check out more openings along the wall.

Within a few minutes of raking around, I located an opening under a ledge and began pulling out poker chip crystals and a few small druse plates of yellow and green druse with hematite and limonite balls covering the druse…Docia was working on a small pocket in the wall when I let her know I had found a pocket…

1 Looking for Pockets Along Wall

2 Docia Finds A Small Pocket

….you can see the pocket in the lower right hand corner above while she is working on a pocket in the wall…and once I started pulling crystals and plates out, it didn`t take her long to pick up her bags and come see what I was finding…

3 Docia Heads To My New Pocket

…and here is the pocket up close with a crystal found sitting right in the opening…

6 Pocket Found Under Ledge

..and a little closer up…

7 Pocket Opens, Crystal Found Inside

…and the next photo shows the first few items removed…take a good close look at the dogtooth crystals in the photo, one attached to the druse plate and the other two are actually triplets…

8 Plate and Crystals Pulled Out First

Docia suggested I place them on one of my blue gloves to give them better contrast for ya…

9 Triples Pulled From Pocket

….and she was right….

10 Plate with Hematite Balls

….and here is a closeup on my glove of the next little dogtooth cluster that I pulled out…

11 Dogtooth Cluster Found

…..and then I pulled this larger cluster out…..

12 Another Dogtooth Cluster

By now I was reaching into the pocket up to my shoulder and pulling several dogtooth crystals out, as well as several poker chips, plates, and clusters…so I decided to chisel out the opening to the pocket to gain easier access to it…..

13 Pocket Widened

….the drusy plates coming out were mostly palm sized and green and yellow in color, with hematite balls all over the plates.  Here are some more photos of the crystals and clusters I pulled out after widening the opening…

14 Dogtooth Cluster and Points All Over

…and the next few reaches inside amounted to these chips, points, and a nice cluster…

15 Another Cluster and Several Points

..and here is a closeup of the cluster….

16 Large Dogtooth Cluster Pulled Out

I was setting everything behind me as I pulled it out, here are more in the pile behind me….

17 Several Points and Clusters

 

18 Points and Clusters

 

19 Ponts and Plates

20 Point Clusters

I reached back in and pulled out more crystals with the dogtooth exposed, poker chips, and plates….

22 More Crystals Coming Out

…again, I found myself reaching into the pocket and up to my shoulder, only to discover the pocket moving deeper straight back as well as to the left and right…so we decided to open the roof of the pocket even more to gain access to the crystals. The only problem with that, was that the roof of the pocket was about ten inches thick dolomite…I was growing tired, so Docia volunteered to pound the top of the roof with my four pound hammer and loosen it up for me…

23 Docia Helps Loosen Roof of Pocket24 Opening Pocket More

..I took a few crystals off the sides, some coming out intact and some didn`t, but I was trying to gain access to the hundreds of dogtooth crystals that were inside this pocket…yes I said hundreds…many of them were loose and just laying on the floor of the pocket from the beginning to the back of the pocket and there was even a little pocket inside the pocket with even more loose crystals inside it…this is why I refer to this as the AMAZING POCKET…by the sheer magnitude of the dogtooth crystals that were located inside it…all of them a deep yellow and some with a rainbow sheen to them as well…simply amazing…and once we had the roof of the pocket peeled back, Docia saw what I had been feeling with my hands inside and on the floor of the pocket…

25 Dogtooth Crysals Embedded

..dogtooth crysals spread out all over the floor of the pocket, some of them were quite sharp to the touch, too. Maybe I should have called it the OUCH pocket. Here is a close up of a few of the crystals on the floor of the pocket…

26 Dogtooth Crystals All Over27 Floor Covered Wtih Dogtooth Crystal Points

 

28 Some Points Were Sharp

…now you have an idea why I called it the AMAZING POCKET….I will post more photos tomorrow hopefully, of the finds all cleaned up.

here are some of our finds all cleaned up from the bluff wall pocket…

29 Gray Druse and Chip From Bluff Wall Pocket

30 Gray Druse Combo From Bluff Wall

31 Backside of 30

32 Small Druse and Chip Combo From Wall

37 Few More Combos Small

 

38 Another Gray Druse Combo

and then the dogtooth crystals from the AMAZING POCKET….

33 Dogtooth Crystals From Amazing Pocket

34 Same as 33 Different Angle

 

35 Amazing Pocket Crystal with Sheen

and…

36 Another Set of Dogtooths

 

Pretty amazing stuff, huh ???

 

 

New Digging Tool

I bought a new digging tool last week and took it to the secret spot last week to try it out…as I drove down toward the lower spot, I decided to try out a new road….

5 New Road Created

….and glad I did. I drove down and turned around and parked and left the windows open and Missy decided to stay in the truck…within a few minutes I started spotting some beautiful druse and poker chips that had been spread around on this road for stability from flooding I`m sure…I decided to drive around to the other side and see what could be found over there first, and within minutes of arriving on the other side, I had half the bed of my truck filled with combo chunks and clusters of every size….here are a few of them…

1 Peeking Out From Under Rock

…this one was peeking out from under this big rock…and here are some more that were just laying all over the place…

6 Chips all Over

..and I found these out there as well….

12 Yellow Chips and Druse Chunk13 This One Was Just Waiting On Me14 Chips On Bed of Druse15 Yellow Chips and Combo Found16 Smaller Ones Found

 

…after loading up the bed of my truck, I drove on down to the lower spot and tried out my new hand rake digging tool…I only found a few poker chips and druse combos down there, but was very happy with the new tool….

 



 

Another Cluster Pocket Found

A few days after we expanded the birthday pocket and after I found the neat deep pocket ten inches under solid rock, we returned and found yet another nice pocket, this one full of mainly nice large clusters of poker chips and druse/chip combos. After we parked, I told Docia that radar had showed a squall line about two hours away and some rain and storms behind it. So for the first two hours we dug in areas we thought there was potential for pockets. About 8 am,  Docia started raking the gravel back from the wall with her mini mattox, about three feet from the birthday pocket and next to the wall…..

2A Docia Finds Pocket 8 AM

….and I was up near the hole in the rock pocket, when I heard her yell out. I walked over to see what she found, and she was holding up two nice combos, with a pretty gray druse and large poker chips of a pale yellow color, sticking out of the druse all over each piece, both pieces nearly basketball sized. I told her to hold that thought while I retrieved my camera.

By the time I returned with my camera, she had put those two on the ground and had two more nice druse plates pulled out and they had poker chips attached to them as well….

3 First Finds

Well she went to get her mat and set it down for her knees so she could get ready to pull some more nice ones out…here is the pocket she was working…

4 Pocket Next To Bluff Wall

…and here is a photo of one of the gemmy poker chip / druse combos pulled out a few minutes before, with some other druse plates nearby….

5 First Plate Pulled from Pocket

..and this one came out right behind that one…also gemmy looking…

6 First Cluster Pulled

Within a few minutes, Docia pulled yet another large cluster out of the gravel pocket….here is one side of it….

7 Big Cluster Pulled Out8 Big Cluster Other Side

the first photo shows a solid cluster of poker chips on one side and the second photo shows gray druse and poker chips on the other side of the chunk….about this time, we looked up and saw the squall line coming up on us from the southwest and knew it would be storming soon….

10 Squall Line Coming In

…we were still pulling nice ones out when the rain caught up with us and started getting heavy…I grabbed my camera and headed to the truck and she soon followed…we sat it out in the truck for an hour, watching the lightning popping right and left, intense pink flashes lighting up the sky all around us, until the skies finally lightened up and the rain started to slow way down.

We got out and returned to the pocket and saw that the rain had washed off some of our pieces nicely, and we started digging once again, and again began to pull out some nice pieces, plus we soon hit the solid poker chip bottom of the pocket about eighteen inches down, and then found a pocket on the left near corner, and one on the right away corner. Docia decided to explore the pocket on the right and I took the pocket on the left. We explored our spur pockets for about twenty minutes before hitting solid rock and decided to stop there for the day, since it looked like more rain might move in. I didn`t have my camera with me for the latter part since it was still threatening to rain more, but I did take some photos of my bring home goodies….

11A Druse Chip Cluster

11 Druse Chip Cluster Found

 

11B Cluster On Other Side

….the three photos above show the one that Docia was holding up with two sides to it, solid cluster on one side as the third photo shows and druse / chip combo on the other side as the first two photos show.

12 Another Large Chip Druse Combo

..and here is another one, that has two sides, side A above and side B below…

12A All Chips This Side

..and here are a few more combos from the pocket….

16 Cluster on Druse16A Cluster on Druse

 

17 Another Cluster on Druse Plate

18 Another Cluster on Druse

19 Small Druse Chip Combo

..and one of the druse plates we found…sorry its a bit blurry….

20 Druse and Hematite Balls

…and yet another cluster that came out of the pocket…

21 Cluster21A Cluster

…and even more clusters and combos….

23 Druse and Chip Combo

24 Small Combo

27 Gray Druse With Chip

…and just so you don`t think that all we took out of this pocket were combos and clusters, here are some of the twins we found in there as well…

28 Twin Found30 Four In One32 Yellow Triple33 Another Twin36 Another Twin

Quite a nice haul for having to sit out an hour waiting for the storm to pass by….

 

 

Expanding the Birthday Pocket….July 30th, 2011

Docia emailed me two days after she discovered the Birthday Pocket and asked when I could go back and join her to expand it even more, think that pocket really got her going. 🙂

I decided I could go again on the 30th and we decided to meet down there early morning once again, to avoid the heat and humidity, which was getting old really quick. By arriving at 6 am, though, we could get about four good hours digging time in before the heat and humidity would run you off. We arrived to find a nice cloudy sunrise and more material removed…..

4 Sunrise

…so while waiting for a little more light, we walked around the new area and found absolutely nothing. Docia grabbed her tools and headed for the pocket, I grabbed the heavy sledge and met her there. Here is the pocket as we left it the other day…

2 Docia`s Pocket Up Closer

Using my heavy sledge hammer, I gave the roof of the pocket a few good whacks and then she was able to chip some material off the top with her three pound hammer and chisel…I repeated the heavy whacks a few times and then set off to see if I could find another pocket or two. I moved up the wall about twenty feet away and soon enough, I had found a promising spot….

5 New Pocket

..with this druse combo coming up and out pretty quickly from the handrake scratching…

6 Druse Chip Combo Found in New Pocket

..I came up against these walls pretty quickly and plates and crystals started popping up all over the place soon after…

7 Small Pocket Found

I looked over to see how Docia was doing and could see she was making progress on her pocket opening…almost had her shoulders inside it now…

8 Docia Expands Her Pocket

In the meantime, my pocket started moving to the right and as I was clearing off loose gravel and dirt to the right, I began praying that the pocket didn`t try to go under either of the two huge rocks to the right, as both were probably five hundred pounders and I knew we wouldn`t stand a chance of moving either one…..

9 Small Pocket Located Betw Big Rocks

…luckily for me, another prayer answered, cause the pocket stopped just short of the big rocks and I was able to pull out more plates and crystals from the pocket walls…

10 Plates and Chips

I kept scratching around and the next thing that popped out was this beautiful poker chip twin….

12 Large Twin Found

…and pretty soon the search led to this ledge and small hole in the corner….

13 Pocket Leads To Hole in Ledge

I looked over to check on Docia after getting up to stretch my legs and rest my knees, and saw her still expanding and filling up at least one bag so far….

16 Docia Expands Pocket More

Returning to my ledge pocket, the hole in the corner of the ledge led to a few pieces of druse and then it turned into a dead end fast. I loaded up half a bag of crystals from this pocket and moved further to the right, on the other side of those big rocks, and started scratching around with the hand rake once again. It didn`t take long to find yet another lucrative pocket area….

18 Another Pocket to the Right

..and pretty soon, signs of calcite were popping up all over…

19 Signs of More Crystals

….and then plates and crystals started popping up as well….

20 Plates and Chips

…like the plate above and this crystal shown close up below…

21 Chip Combo Turned Over

By this time, I`m wondering if I have hit yet another small pocket like the one before…when I come across this pretty palm sized plate of druse with hematite balls on it….

23 Druse Plate Up Close

..and I`m thinking I really like the color in it and the hematite balls are a plus as well. I didn`t see alot of pretty druse like this in the last pocket so this is looking better every minute…then I turn over this little number next….

24 Sweet Combo Found

..a nice little combo with the same pretty druse and hematite balls and two pretty yellow orange colored poker chips on it…

24A Sweet Combo Found

…and now I`m excited…like what I`m seeing and showed it to Docia and she liked it too….then I realize there is a ledge on both sides and I begin to dread that maybe this will be another shortlived pocket again…

28 Ledge on Both Sides of Pocket

..the next thing I pull out, from an area between the two ledges and somewhat in the middle, is this little dogtooth crystal perched on a small plate of pretty druse…

29 Dogtooth Chip Perched on Druse Plate

…and a small hole opens up under it….

30 Hole Opens Under Poker Chip

..I stood up to take a break, and get some water, and here are the crystals so far collected in relation to the ledges and pocket….

33 More Plates and Combos

With a bottle of water down, I decided to check out this new hole that opened up under that pretty little poker chip perched on the plate, and after deciding I couldn`t get my hand down into it, and determining that the hole was fairly deep, I decided to chisel out some maneuvering room….

34 Widened The Hole

..and then put the lens down into the hole and shot this photo of what was inside…

35 Plates Upside Down and Chips Fill Hole

I reached down into the hole and pulled what I could reach from it…

36 More Chips and Plates From Hole

….and the stack kept growing…I took a close look around the hole and decided it was solid calcite ringing around it, so I chipped through it and widened it out some more…

37 Hole Made Wider

..and pulled these nice chips and plates from the hole….

39 Chips and Plates from Hole

…and within a few minutes, pulled all of these crystals and plates out of the hole….

41 Wide Variety

..and this little dogtooth crystal guy….

43 Dogtooth Crystal

..and then every time I reached in, I was going down with my arm and then reaching back practically underneath me, feeling for the edges of the hole and it felt like the pocket was about eighteen inches deep and a couple of feet back…that was the extent of how far I could reach back if I laid down on my stomach and reached in there…having cleaned out the center of the pocket with single chips and plates, the edges of the pocket within reach were producing nice plate and chip combos like these….

46 Chips and Duse With Hematite

 

and….

49 Yellow Chip on Druse

…figuring I had pulled as much material as I could reach with my hand, I decided to put the camera down into the hole and see what else might be down in it…this is the first flash illuminated photo inside the pocket….

51 Inside the Hole Itself52 Clusters Inside The Hole

…and the second one appears to be a cluster of poker chip crystals covered with wet clay…well soon after this, it started warming up fast and we decided to pack it in and we were both pretty happy with our finds from our pockets. The following photos show some of mine cleaned up….

53 Sweet Chip Perched on Druse54 Yellow Chip on Druse With Hematite57 Yellow Chip on Druse With Hematite59 Twins and Clusters60 Triple Poker Chip61 Another Triple62 Another Triple65 More Dogtooths

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birthday Pocket…July 26th, 2011

I normally have to work on my birthday and this year was no different…I had checked at work to see about taking the day off, as it fell on a weekend this year, but one of my co-workers had taken a week of vacation and it was one of his vacation days, so then I looked into taking Sunday off, but another co-worker had taken it off to head south on a week of vacation, so I just waited til Tuesday instead.

Missy and I met up with Docia at 5:30 am at our secret hunting spot and were greeted by a pretty sunrise on arrival…

1 Beautiful Sunrise

Since we arrived so early and the sky was a bit cloudy, we had to wait an extra thirty minutes for good light to even illuminate our hunting area well enough to spot any pocket indicators. We both set out to check the area and quickly discovered even more material had been removed, so we walked around it first to check and see if there was anything left behind…we found a few small odds and ends, and one the size of a bowling ball that had one chip on it sticking out, but that was about it.

38 More Material Removed

After walking around and checking a few areas with the rakes and getting a good workout, the only thing I had found of any substance, was a blue colored poker chip twin with a dark gray interior, reminiscent of the blue hole I had found last fall….

50 Blue Poker Chip Double

Docia soon called me over to where she had found what appeared to be some nice indicators of a promising pocket nearby…

3 Docia Starts Working The Pocket

..to the left of her boots, you can see scratchings in the gravel where she began searching and found a few odds and ends, single crystals and some chunks, and moved up the hill to where she is seen sitting, and then started digging out some nice big orange colored crystals…

4 Docia Finds Some Big Crystals

….these guys sunlit here….

6 Pine Cones Sunlit

…and while sitting there, as I returned with my camera, she pulled out this pretty little druse plate in front of me…

5 A Pretty Druse Plate

…..and as she picked up her whisk broom and started cleaning up the area she was digging in, more big crystals started popping up out of the dirt right in front of our eyes, and the only words that were coming out of our mouths were  WOW, WOW, WOW….

7 Big Ones Coming Out All Over

…and within seconds the pocket had expanded about eighteen inches across and started moving to the right, with crystals popping up all over this dirt field…

8 Pocket Moving To The Right

….and as you can see in the two prior photos, there are crystals and plates all over the place, like the ones in the next photo…

9 Sunlit Poker Chips

…two photos back you can see a big rock where the pocket was moving to the right…it stopped at that rock, or so we thought, til we discovered it was loose and pulling it out and turning it over, discovered this as well…

11 Large Druse Anchor

…a big druse plate acting as one of two anchors for the extensive pocket…and as soon as I pulled this anchor plate out, I pulled this beautiful combo plate out that was positioned underneath it….

10 Beautiful Plate

….and again, more WOWS and our minds just amazed at the beauty that we kept finding and pulling out of the dirt and gravel in front of us…I was so glad at this point that Docia had invited me to join her in digging and exploring this pocket…the next photo shows the remaining anchor druse before I pulled it out of the way…

12 One Anchor To Go

..and more crystals seen in the dirt as well as many we have already pulled out and placed up on the ledge and now backlit by the rising sun….

13 Big and Medium Sized Ones

..Docia decided to put her 2.5 lb hammer up there to give you an idea of their size and perspective…

14 Big Ones and Plate Sunlit

With the two large anchor druse plates out of the way, we discovered a ledge behind with some poker chip inclusions embedded in it and even more loose crystals in the dirt…

15 Anchors Out of the Way

..and the next suprise to pop out of the dirt was this beautiful  plate with chips attached…

16 Crystal Plate Found

..and we soon came to the start of the roof of the main pocket, and began to dig down deeper…

17 Pocket Deepens

….and this ledge is what was hiding behind the anchor druse plates…

18 Original Wall of Pocket

..we cleared the pieces of rock out of the way to the right and started seeing indicators of more crystals and plates very quickly…

19 Plates All Over

…so we carefully began removing those…I was reaching in and pulling them out and handing them back to Docia and she was placing crystals on the ledge with the others, plates on the plate area, and chunks were tossed down the hill…within a few minutes I could see plates hanging upside down all over and crystals underneath all over…

20 Crystals All Over Now

..including this bright yellow colored crystal…..

21 Crystals All Over

..that actually turned out to be a two or three color crystal, the bright yellow just one of the shades of it…and as I removed more goodies, there were still more to take their place…

22 Plates

…and more plates of some of the prettiest druse we had ever seen, coming out of this pocket, some visibly hanging upside down and some only visible from the backsides…

24 Plates and Crystals

25 Crystals and Plates Removed

..and it was about this point in time that we began to notice some of the crystals coming out were exposed at the very top of the point in a dogtooth formation in a bright yellow color, some showed signs of erosion by the poker chip forrmation surrounding the inner dogtooth crystal…check out this one on the ledge right above the hammer in the center of the photo…

 

26 Amazing Poler Chips

…and we were pulling out these colorful druse plates too….

28 Plates Up Close

..and by now, the pocket has deepened even more into a small caverns, big enough almost, to crawl into…

29 Pocket Expands and Deepens

..and we began pulling even more plates out….

30 Plates From Pocket

..and we were taking turns reaching back to our shoulders to reach them and anything else we could remove, although not without great effort one way or another…

31 Docia Tries To Get More

..and pretty soon, Docia was telling me about a large plate that she could barely reach and was loose, but something was holding it in there…so she got her hammer and chisel out and began working the front of that cavern roofline back so she could reach in there more easily, and within just a few moments, pulled this beautiful large druse plate out…

32 Druse Plate with Marcasite

…one we discovered a few seconds later, has some marcasite embedded in it because it was sparkling multiple colors in the sunlight…something we hadn`t seen in this location til today….she also started pulling out multiples of dogtooth crystals as well….

37 Dogtooth From Above Plate

…one that you could look down into from the top with a unique view…

35 Dogtooth From Above Plate

..by this time, we were both tired and it was beginning to get very hot outside, and so we decided to call it a day, but not before Docia attempted to crawl back into the caverns pocket and pull a few more dogtooth crystals out…

39 Docia Crawls Into Pocket

…she has been telling me for weeks now, how she would like to find a pocket big enough to walk or crawl into and she came very close to getting her wish today.

The next few photos show some of my picks from this pocket, all cleaned up…

44 Druse and Chip Combo

47 Druse and Chip Combo

49 Blue Poker Chip Double

…..and some of the poker chips with the tips exposed…

51 Triple Chip Tips Exposed

..and another triple chip with the tips exposed in the next one…

52 Triple With Tips Exposed

..focus is slightly off on some of these, but you get the idea I`m sure..

 

55 Dogtooth Crystals58 More Dogtooth Crystals

 

 

 

Another Pocket The Next Day

Last week after Docia and I found a few pockets in some different areas, I decided to come back the next morning and see if I could find another one. I had absolutely nothing better to do, so Missy and I got up early and returned to the secret spot and had a good few hours of digging. I decided to check out the area to the right of where Docia had dug out the nice pocket and see if the loose crystals I was seeing on top were part of a pocket underneath or just crystals she didnt like and tossed over there.

Before I started on the right side tho, I raked an extensive area to the left just a few small crystals…

2A Looking to Left For Pockets

….and then started seeing massive crystalization in the floor area…

3 Looking Left

….and then found a saddle that popped up and out of the ground with a cluster on one side…

4 Found This Cluster and More

…..so after only finding this, I walked over to the right and started seeing crystals in the gravel to the right of Docia`s extensive pocket from the day before…..

6 Raked to Right

…..finding these indicators after just a little bit of raking…

7 Indicators After Raking

…and found a small pocket that quickly unearthed these three guys…

9A Found These in Small Pocket

 Backing off, you can see the small short ledge, where they came from…

10 Main Pocket Front of 2nd Glove

….in front of my glove on the right, and even though I had found a few nice single crystals and these three combos, a few more nice ones popped up quickly from that brown colored ledge to the right of the other ledge, like this little cluster…

11 Small Cluster Pops Up

..and this nice little combo…

12 Small Combo Pops Out

..so I dug down and a little more into the shelf, but didn`t find much more…

13 Quality Pocket

Below are some of the finds the couple of trips, all cleaned up…the first one is a nice plate Docia found the day before…

14 Druse Plate Docia Found

..and a couple of clusters found on the pile…

15 Cluster Found16 Cluster Found on Pile

..and the large druse with chip combo found up in the washout area…

17 Found In Washout Fill

…here are two photos of first plates and combos found the last few digs…

18 Finds Last Few Weeks

 

20 More From Yesterday

 

 

 

More Pockets and a Surprise

Docia and I decided to beat the heat once again and return to the lower level secret spot and see if we could find a few more pockets last week. I knew how early I could get up and get down there, but checked with Docia to see what time she wanted to get up and go, and decided we would meet there about 6 am and get as cool a start as we could on digging and exploring. While it was probably around 77 degrees when we arrived, it was obvious it had rained recently when we got there, which makes digging alot easier.

We started digging and clearing off areas near the pockets we had located a few days before, studying the low spots and root areas and digging in those areas, but didnt find much. After about an hour of clearing and finding little to show for it, I decided to take a break and check downhill in a mudhole depression that was even with the blue pocket I had found last fall. I grabbed my mattox and hand rake and a bag and started walking that way…walked about fifty feet and looked down toward the blue pocket hole and stopped dead in my tracks…astonished….speechless for a minute…and then turned around to Docia who was still digging in her spot and said…hey does it look like to you that there are some rocks missing ?

She got up and walked over and we both stood there in total amazement….

12B New Area of Activity

….that big pile of rocks in the middle was new to us, so was that big hole in front of it…and that pile of smaller rocks on the far left side used to continue up to the ridge on the right in varying slopes and degrees….while we were somewhat elated that we had some new areas to explore…I was a little down because the blue pocket was GONE…eradicated and completely gone….I was down for a few days earlier this week and I think it was because the blue pocket was missing…no longer could I go just even look at it and dream of what might lie under the surface and no more could I think of what might possibly be within my grasp if I simply exerted a little more effort at extracting some more crystals…for a few hours each day I couldn`t even think straight…I was walking around in a daze….I even told Docia, if I could just find out where they took that load, and go there to look through it, I would be much happier.

Even the depression mudhole I was going to check, is gone as well, left in its spot is a big depression of gravel and rock, which we explored as well as we could…it was filled with water so we didn`t explore much, but did find some massive calcite in it and a few crystals, possibly the bottom of a pocket left behind…after looking around the new area and finding a few clusters, I explored one of the ridges of this depressed area while walking back and forth to the truck and discovered an area of some loose crystals and decided to explore it more…

1 My Pocket in Floor

…and started seeing loose crystals just under the surface of the rock and gravel…

2 My Pocket Right Side

….and you can see the small pile of crystals uncovered on top and to the right there….

3 Few Finds So Far

..and the next photo shows crystals in the mix right under the surface…

5 Crystals Right Under Surface

..and even more indicators…

5A Crystals Right Under Surface

..and pretty soon I thought I was on top of a possible pocket, but alas, it was just not meant to me…Missy even came by to check on me and let me know how much she is enjoying her new hairdo…

7 Missy Comes By To Tell Me....

..and while I found some really nice singles, and doubles, and twins, and plates with crystals attached…

9 Pile Keeps Growing

..once I dug down to a certain level, I struck massive that soon went nowhere fast….sometimes you can hit massive and be really close to a pocket, but don`t think so this time. So after a few minutes of bagging up my finds and taking the nicer ones to the truck to wrap later, I walked over to check out a pocket that Docia was extensively working on…

13 Docia`s Pocket

..or I should say, Docia had worked on….quite a nice pocket that flowed into yet another pocket and another pocket…she was holding up some nice finds, some beautiful yellow druse plates with hematite balls attached to them…and when I walked over and saw the base of crystals in the pocket, I was stunned by the sheer beauty of them…

13A Docia`s Pocket

…I remember when she started at the bottom of the photo and it was just a few crystals popping up and she followed it up to the bigger pocket at the top of the photo where the big druse plates were hanging upside down….

14 Docia`s Pocket Up Close14A Docia`s Pocket Up Close

..with some beautifully colored crystals in the base of it…Docia took off right before I snapped these photos and I left shortly after…first I scooped up some crystals and plates she left behind for me.

Here are some of my finds….

15 Finds From Today16 Singles from Today17 Close Up of Finds

 

 

 

 

 

 

…all in all, a pretty nice day. 🙂

 

Follow Up Pocket Dig

Docia and I met at the secret spot last week to follow up on my pocket find at the lower level and see if we could find a few more pockets while there. We drove in early morning to beat the heat and no sooner did we arrive, did we start finding new pockets. I decided to see if the last two pockets I had found, would expand any….

2 My Pockets

…while she went to the left and found a couple of new ones right away.

3 Docia`s Pockets

…she first found a little ledge between us and then a drill hole and then she kept moving to the left and found an opening into what turned out to be a perfectly round pocket opening with a cluster of poker chips in the middle embedded into rock….

5 Docia Finds a Round Pocket

..and here are a few of her finds….

4 Docia`s Finds So Far

I decided to see if either of the two pockets I discovered last week, would open up more…one had been filled with water but now a week later was dried up…so I worked on it first…

6 One of My Pockets

…and removed as many loose crystals as I could from it, then worked on the face of the pocket and removed some more plates…

7 My Pocket Opening

and was able to pull these plates and crystals out…

9 My Finds

…once I had the pocket opening expanded, I was able to see some nice druse plates inside….

10 Druse Plates Inside

..and while trying to expand the pocket opening, I was able to chip a few plates like this one off…

11 Chip and Druse Combo

…as well as these plates and combos…

12 More Plates Found15 Poker Chip Combo

…I then moved over to the right to expand the other pocket as much as I could…

13 Both Pockets Expanded More

..and boy did it keep going back…and back…and finally I got to this point, above, and could reach in up to my shoulder and felt yet another pocket above and to the right…

16 Pocket Keeps Going

….and Docia expanded all of her pockets as well…

18 Her Pocket Really Expanded

..until we were both wore out after digging for four hours non stop….I was able to remove two bags of poker chips alone….

19 Bag Full of Chips

..including several poker chip twins…and several nice plates apiece…

20 Finds Between Us

 

 

Another Mother Lode of Pockets Found

well had the surprise of my life last week when I drove into the upper area entrance, my expression to Missy was ” Holie Cow”……cause there were about 25 head of cattle milling around, mostly white ones and a big black bull, in an area we have never seen or even imagined finding…. cattle…..
2 Two Cows in Drive
….well we drove on down to the lower area and searched around the pocket I found last week to see if we could find some more nice stuff….and below it to the left quite a ways.
4 Initial Search Around Pockets
I didn`t find any sign of another pocket at all, so after about 30 minutes and thinking I wasn`t going to find anything except a couple of drill holes , I started looking on the other side of the first pocket…and began looking at the depressed areas, areas that looked like they had some depth to them..and settled on the area of a big clay mudhole between the parking area and the ridge where we have been finding pockets.
5 Second Search Area
 I dug down and within just a few inches of muddy gravel, started finding plates of druse  embedded in this gravel upside down,  and within just a few minutes, the druse plates had poker chips attached to them…
7 Pocket Starts To Develop
..and then a few minutes later, poker chips were seen mixed in the gravel between the plates, all over the place…and then shortly after I found the first pocket which looked like a typical pocket.
9 Plates of Druse and Chips
..here are some of the plates that came out of the first pocket….
10 Plates of Druse and Chips
12 Druse Chip Combos From Pocket
…and in the photo above you can see some of the plates that are embedded in the soupy gravel mixture, that are upside down with the ugly side up…I started searching to the right and finding druse plates upside down and poker chips in amongst them…
13 Pocket Starts Moving Out
..and then came back to the first pocket to do some more exploring…
14 Plates Hanging Upside Down
…clearing away on the sides to see how much it would expand and open up…finding plates and crystals loose in the gravel on the bottom…like these in the next photos….
15 More Combos Coming Ut17 Combos Up Close
..moving to the right, I found and opened yet another pocket….
18 Second Pocket Opening Up to Right

and the first thing I pulled out after removing hanging plates, was a beautiful twin poker chip attached to a small druse plate…

19 Poker Chip Twin Combo

 

…as well as the following druse / chip combos…

20 Combos From Second Pocket

 

..including this unique flat crystal ….

22 Unique Flat Body Chip23 Unique Flat Body Chip

 

While clearing off what looked like a thin shelf above the first pocket, I found what turned out to be a second pocket of druse plates with poker chips attached…. most of them were just coming out with no chipping required…once I had them pulled out I was able to work on the first pocket plates even more and found an embedded poker chip cluster in the center, attached to the base of the pocket…

24 Embedded Cluster in 1st Pocket

 

..I decided to wait on it and moved to the right more to see if there was more crystals and plates to be found, and within just a few inches I found even more loose crystals and plates embedded upside down….

32 Pocket Xpands Across

 

Here is a single crystal, probably about four inches long and heavy, that was embedded in the gravel upside down in this hole…

25 Single Chip Pulled From This Hole33 Chips All Over Just Under Surface

 

 

I filled another bag with the crystals I removed from this area alone. I took a short break to stretch my legs and photograph my progress so far…

 

26 Two Pockets and Goodies28 Goodies 2

After the break, I went back….

35 Pocket Four Found Above 1st Pocket

and removed it as carefully as I could, and surprisingly it came out in pretty much one piece. You can also see the results of the pocket found above the first pocket, what I thought was a thin layer of rock turned out to be yet another productive pocket of plates with chips attached to druse….
36 Pocket Four Chips and Plates
..producing these two plates….
37 Druse and Chip Plates
…and the following singles and small ones….
40 Chips from Pocket Four
…so then I stepped back and studied the embedded cluster once more and decided I needed to see if I could safely remove it…it was calling to me to remove it….
44 Another Look at Cluster Pocket 1
…so I did carefully remove it…with the chisel mainly, prying back it just popped loose….
45 Cluster Removed
I moved toward the ridge again and found yet another pocket,  with these pockets hanging upside down on the ridge side, two feet to the left of pocket two…in the direction of the foliage….
47 Plate Upside Down
..which when turned over, revealed these plates guarding the new pocket…
48 Plates Open Up Pocket 549 Moving in Direction of Foliage
and in the middle I discovered several more loose crystals in the soupy gravel mixture…….
50 More Goodies Found in Middle
..enough to fill yet another bag….the new pocket began opening up…
46 Pocket Five Starts Opening Up
…and more plates began to emerge from the gravel like these….
55 Pocket Five Chips
 
..and then this nice cluster came from the new pocket….I was floored to say the
least….
59 Cluster Pocket 5 and More58 Cluster From Pocket Five
 
Within a few minutes though, this pocket dried up and so I followed the plates hanging upside down to the right and under them found a hole of water with plates hanging upside down inside it…..
61 Pocket Six
….close to pocket two….
62 Pocket Six Next to Pocket 2
…..and taking a closer look at pocket two, one can see what awaited me there too….
63 Pocket 2 Plates
..so while there, I decided to see what I could pull out….
65 Chips and Plates from 2
..and then returned to pocket six, and after feeling around in that pocket, which was several inches deep in water, mud and clay, and after pulling out several loose crystals including some twins and small clusters, I also felt a solid bottom of crystals and clusters. I was reaching in up to my shoulder and felt that pocket go quite a ways deeper inside, possibly the entire width of that clay mudhole…I uncovered the top layer of clay mud and decided that it will prob require either a lot of hard work and a big hammer  to open it up completely. I pulled these singles and doubles from the watery depths of pocket six….
67 Chips from Pocket Six
…enough to fill yet another bag as you can see. I grabbed my camera and shot this next overall photo of all the pockets…
68 All Pockets
…and the chips in the bag from pocket six alone….
70 Chips Out of Pocket Six Alone
..and more druse plates removed from some of the pockets….
71 More Druse Plates75 Druse and Chip Combos
After working for five and a half hours, I decided I  had enough and had pulled enough out as well,  and it was starting to heat up anyway. We headed home about 1 pm. on the way out, we saw the cows had relocated to the upper area and still milling around, looking like they were waiting on the food truck to show up.  All in all, another great morning of pockets and goodies.