Secret Spot with a Rock Saw This Time

Since Saturday was predicted to be the bright spot this weekend, I decided to return to the secret spot and one of my good friends from Oklahoma, Virgil Richards, decided to come up and go with me…Virgil brought a good friend of his along, Larry, who is a police officer in that area and likes to collect rocks and minerals in his spare time too.

I decided to rent a rock saw and see if I could get into that deep pocket this time as well…the pocket that Docia photographed me laying on my stomach and reaching wayyyyy back into the recesses, to pull out what loose crystals I could do so, a few weeks back. I had covered it back up until I could return and work it with for a day, and Saturday was just such a day. We were supposed to have sunny skies and 64 degrees according to the weaher forecasters….we did manage to finally get up to around 64 by the end of the day, but we never did see the sunny skies, and I sure don`t remember them telling us how windy it was going to be….normally we are well protected from the wind down there, but not Saturday. I suppose it was alot less windy down at the lower area where we were at, but it was still pretty breezy down there.

Virgil and Larry decided to see if they could locate some pockets on the walls….

…while I carried the rock saw up to the back wall, where the pocket was waiting on me…

…I began by making a few test cuts to see how the saw blade was going to do…its a Stihl saw and I picked up two masonry blades…I had been told by my good friend Mike Streeter, who is a geologist in North Carolina, that I shouldn`t have any problem cutting the dolomite host rock surrounding the pocket…and boy was he right…this thing sliced right down into the rock pretty easily…I was glad since the saw had a little weight to it. I was only able to cut down four and a half inches at a time, so made three slices out and then two across, and then chipped it out….

and I then reached down into the hole and decided that maybe I needed to go to the right more with the cuts…

and while down in the pocket, I pulled out these two loose crystals right near the backside of the opening….they are a bit dust covered, thanks to the saw….

…and so after cutting the first four and a half inches of rock down, I started working on the second layer, and again, easily slicing down thru the rock as well….and then had to chisel the rest of the way into the opening and enlarged it as the saw just didn`t fit into the narrower opening as I moved downward…my mistake was not backing off more and enlarging the area around the hole more….I would have given myself more room to work that way….maybe next time if I get another chance to work it…

…and believe me, there was still alot of chipping and hammering despite having the saw there, but it sure saved alot of time too…there was actually more rock above that pocket than I had imagined….prob at least 12 to 15 inches of rock above certain parts of the pocket….as soon as I broke the top layer free and enlarged the opening with the chisel and hammer, I removed these crystals, which were part of that top layer….

…and as I did that and enlarged the opening, I discovered a stash of crystals hiding on the backside walls of the opening….

so after a little more exploring, I was able to pull a few out and found a very large plate attached at both sides of the opening walls….

and as carefully as I could be, I removed it fairly intact as well…I don`t have a photo of it just yet but will soon…you can see part of it in the photo above partially covered by the loose debris….within a few minutes after removing it, I was reaching back as far as I could and found that the pockets I had discovered a few weeks ago were extending even farther back into the rock. I was able to pull out a few extra nice crystals, though, including this nice twin poker chip….

…that you can see more clearly in this next photo….

…by this time, Larry and Virgil had driven up to the upper area to look for druse plates and were finding several up there…Virgil had wandered over to the edge and was looking down at me and listening to me straining to reach those twins, and of course, making fun of me…I think he even photographed me doing all three. 🙂

After cleaning out the opening plates and crystals, what I could reach that is, the opening and bottom of the pocket near the opening looked like this….

A little while later, Larry and Virgil drove back down to the lower area and I decided to take a break and move to the front side pockets…they had each loaded up about three buckets worth of druse plates from above and even found a few yard rocks to take home with them.

I showed them the front area pockets we had been locating and how to look for them, and Virgil removed a long pry bar from his truck and began tamping around looking for hollow sounding pockets….

I worked the pocket I had last worked there while they were working a couple of pockets off to my right…and I was able to open up one of the pockets and remove a few more goodies…and then after another short break, I found yet another new pocket at the base of the ridge…it was a small pocket and had just a couple of pretty druse and poker chip pieces in it…these two among them….