Protected: Missouri Rockhounding, Nov 2021
Protected: Central Kentucky Labor Day Weekend 2021
Rockhounding Guide Services Available…
For the past year I have been taking several groups rockhounding to various locations in Washington County, Missouri, which is well known for collecting druse quartz and barite. A well known mineral dealer in the area, had been taking groups to a few locations so they could collect druse quartz and bladed barite, but he was growing weary of the activity and asked me to take over, and was instrumental in setting me up with some of the local agencies in the Potosi area that I would be interacting with for access to a couple of the locations.
He also set me up with a local landowner, Greg Coleman, who owns Haunted Ridge Druse Farm near Cadet…he had inspected Greg`s extensive farm property of 200 acres and found druse quartz in huge abundance there, in many forms, colors, shapes and sizes.
Greg was in need of some assistance in getting it off the ground and into operation, so I met with him one day and we hashed out a basic plan to get him going. I began by advertising his farm location and posting photos of the druse quartz found there, and then I began leading several clubs and small groups to collect there, eventually bringing in larger groups as word began to spread among rockhounding facebook page groups.
In addition to beautiful druse quartz on his property, Greg also has hillsides covered with multiple colors and sizes of Missouri Lace Agate, suitable for lapidarists and jewelry makers. He also has barite in at least three forms including some bladed barites, and iron in the form of limonite and hematite, can be found in various areas that include straws, raisins, blades, stars, and columns, sometimes attached to the druse quartz. The following photos show druse with hematite raisins and bars/straws attached….
Within six months, Greg had things down pat, was able to take early retirement from his workplace and begin to operate his farm on his own. He and his wife Judy, and their family crew, have made some great changes and additions to the basic operation that I started him off with, and they have made a great name for themselves in Customer Service related to Rockhounding.
From the get go, Greg created a large parking area behind his house, and placed a porta potty out there as well, He also began transporting rockhounds, six at a time in his four wheel drive razer, to various locations on his farm to surface collect and dig, and then would check back on them throughout the day, hour by hour, and then transport them and their filled and heavy buckets back to their vehicles for them. He and his crew also lift and load heavy, large yard rocks into their razors and transport them back to the rockhound`s vehicle as well, and assist in transferring the buckets and yard rocks to the vehicle, too. During the hot summer months, Greg also put several foam coolers out in various wooded areas, stocked full with iced down water bottles, to help rockhounds in those areas stay hydrated while collecting. He also sets extra buckets out in those areas in case rockhounds need extra buckets for the crystals they are collecting. During the height of the summer season, Greg hosted a Machine Dig at his farm and with bigger crowds attending, he had an extra porta pottie placed out in the wooded area near where the machine was digging at. Word has since spread across the country about his farm and the collecting opportunities there, as well as the great customer service that Greg and his family crew offer to rockhounds.
Recently, Greg and Johnboy, one of his brother in laws, were up at Geode Fest 2021 in Keokuk, Iowa, where they sold Druse Quartz and t shirts that he had printed up, at a booth there…they did so well they sold out a day early !!
Once Greg started operating his farm solo, I shifted my attention to another landowner that was referred to me, and met with him at his property one day. He took me for a tour on his razer and showed me the 400 acres that he was in the process of clearing off brush and some timber, to create pasture for his cattle. He had been told that some lead and barite mining had taken place there many years ago, but other than that, he wasn`t aware of what might be there. We stopped and walked some areas that he was familiar with, one a large dirt area fringing a large lake, this dirt area was extensive and I was finding alot of druse plates, big and small while walking it…he told me that there had been a deep trench there when they began clearing and the trench was backfilled with stumps first and then piles of dirt laced with druse quartz on both side of the trench, so that area alone is at least 50 feet deep in druse quartz….
This landowner decided since he is continuing to clear his land off to eventually graze cattle on, he would offer collecting to groups on certain weekends when he was available and I would set up the group digs on those available weekends, and lead the rockhounds by group to his farm. During the initial few weeks of setting up a basic plan of operation for him, I was able to bring some rockhounds in my group down to do some basic exploring to see what all we could find there.
We began to find small barite plates with tiny blades on them, many were in a curved formation and some were attached to druse, found at two different spots on the property. I showed them to Greg Coleman at one point and he told me they were called Turtleback barites, that is what the older miners called them, and they were crushed up right along with the ugly massive barite. This is what they look like…two attached to druse and one by itself…
One thing was certain, a large mining operation had taken place there back in the 40`s and 50`s, as evidenced by several hand dug and machine dug exploration holes dotted all over the wooded area hillsides surrounding the cleared off areas. I did some research online and discovered not just one mine in that area, but another mine had operated in that same area as well, and the larger of the two constructed a smelter and a milling operation there as well.
As I continued to go there and scout the land as it was cleared off, I made even more discoveries of beautiful crystals there…and informed the rockhounds coming to the farm so they were able to collect more than druse quartz….soon I was finding crystalline blue barite plates in various areas of the property, usually in piles of deer red rich clay.
Many of the turtleback barites have been found in big pockets on the hillside above the new pond, which the landowner had dug out by the dozer operator on the west side of the property…over there we have also extensively walked and explored the hillside all around the new pond and found white quartz, clear quartz, green quartz and smoky quartz, much of it with the turtleback barites attached…mainly down by the water`s edge as well, and the barite there is color influenced by the clay dirt, so it will either look red, yellow, or orange, however rockhounds can often clean it by soaking in Iron Out and that will bring the true color back to a white. Most do not clean it off completely as the various color shades reveal the tiny blades on the turtlebacks much better than white does.
Recently we have found some Missouri Lace Agates here and there across the property, some with black lace colors involved, which is a new one for most collectors, no one seems to remember finding that color anywhere else in Washington County at least.
I also discovered some purple druse quartz in huge piles of red rich clay piled up on either side of the lower dam of the big lake. The landowner created a breach in the north side of the lower dam to drain the lake down so he could make repairs to a leak in the middle of the dam…on both sides of the breach area are the huge piles of rich red clay dirt and the purple druse was found on the lake side of the breach…
On the other side of the breach, the water flows down and creates a large waterfall, and that water continues to flow down the hill to a large scenic creek that flows through the middle of the farm…
Druse plates can be found in the breach area as well as the waterfall….
..and in the huge piles between the dam and the waterfall, large plates of druse have been pulled out….
This year is without a doubt, one of the busiest I have been, taking many groups rockhunting to both of the druse farms in Washington County and some groups to other locations I have access to, including a couple of quarries…so if anyone is interested, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com
Arkansas November Fall Trip 2020
My apologies for the delay on this trip story…I usually have the story in here within two weeks of my return from Arkansas, but in December, I began helping the landowner of Haunted Ridge Druse Farm near Potosi, kickstart the opening of his farm to rockhounds from all over the state of Missouri at first, Mineral Clubs and then after the first of the new years, we made the farm available to rockhounds across the country…the initial hangup being the liability waiver…at first it was created for clubs only and he had his attorney draw one up for individual rockhounds instead. I am now working with a second landowner and getting him set up with groups and clubs as well at a more relaxed pace.
At any rate, we had a pretty good time quartz crystal collecting once again in the Hot Springs and Mount Ida areas, with a couple of snags thrown in that kept us on our toes and changed our schedule just a wee bit. Slade made it down for the fun this time around again as did Chris Bryant and his son, and David Bruce. I took most of the photos with my phone this time around, mainly because our weather was a bit wet at times when we were out digging for crystals.
The first snag for Onyx and I was the inability to stay at my friend`s condo on Lake Hamilton this time around. Due to the Covid Sham early last year, the Condo owners could not find anyone to stay at their rentals, so they rented them instead, to people looking for a condo to stay at for months at a time instead. Cant blame them, but sure did inconvenience a lot of us tourists and makes one wonder if they will get back to allowing tourists to stay there or not. I booked a small suite at La Quinta Inn and Suites for a week instead this year and they put us up on the 3rd floor and right over the front door with a nice view of the car lot next door and the sunrise each morning. I had bigger windows than any other room or suite in the hotel…think they were about ten foot high and six feet wide !! Slade had stayed there on his previous trip a few years ago and liked it so well he stayed there again this time, too.
Onyx and I got on the way down there fairly early in the morning, intending to stop off at Justin`s with a load of flats and some larger druse plates, that he was in need of for his online store. He always has some nice and neat stuff, so I purchased a nice calcite from Mexico from him…pretty neat looking material….
When I reached out to Tony about his Southfork Mine over the late summer months, I discovered that he had sold the mine to Dane, his good friend from San Diego that had moved to Arkansas, tired of the California politics, the year before, and then Dane helped Tony out the year before, when Tony threw his back out and couldnt come meet us at the gate to let us in. So I called Dane and set it up to go to his mine on Friday morning and dig all day, and he met us at the gate that morning. Dane`s wife drove down in her jeep and Chris` son liked the jeep so well, he rode on up to the mine in her jeep…
We had some new folks join us this trip from the Tulsa area, Darla and Bill Rogers, both new to rockhunting, but they got their initial start at one of the easiest mines to dig in and find stuff in. They both got a good workout in and had a blast finding nice crystals. Tony had done some digging on the left side of the pit of the lower mine and hit some nice quartz, and we were able to do some more hand digging to find even more.
Slade and David Hodge went up to the higher wall area of the lower pit mine, where John and others had had good success with large crystal points in years past…
Patty, Colby, and Gabriella worked the short wall the left side of the newer pit on the left side, at least they started out there and we were all looking for some signs of a crystal pocket…when we all spotted something, we simply dug in and worked to pull crystals out…Patty spotted some crystals in a small pocket up high on the rock and had to twist and contort herself so as to get her arm into the pocket to pull crystals out…she is a real trooper tho, she worked that pocket pretty much all day to harvest quite a haul in crystals…
Darla and Bill Rogers are working pockets on the far left side above…
That is Dane above on the right side…talking to me as I am photographing Patty up on the rock working the pocket…
..and that is Colby and Gabriella on the left side of the rocks as Patty is climbing and stretching to pull more crystals out of that narrow pocket…I prob wouldn`t have been able to move well the next day, had I contorted myself as she did that day.
Onyx and I found a nice pocket and settled in that morning to liberate quite a few nice crystals from it…
We worked the lower pit for awhile, and I took that bucket back to the truck, grabbed another one and then we walked up to the old mine at the top of the hill and after a bit, I found yet another pocket up there and liberated some more crystals and small clusters…
…this is the view at the top of the hill…
…the wind rustles through those pine trees and is music soothing to the ears let me tell ya…I could have stretched out on my tailgate and gone right off to a nice nap for sure…
Lots of history at that old mine on top of the hill, too…and the tailings up there produce year after year, beautiful small and large clusters can be found just by digging down into the soft clay dirt up there.
Here are a few of Patty`s finds from that pockets…she sent me these photos in December…
We headed back to our hotels by 4 pm, worn out and happy..Dane let us know if we ran out of places to go, we could always come back another day.
The next morning we were looking forward to going to a new mine just northwest of Mt Ida…I had contacted the owner, Tommy Wingfield, about it, the charge there was $ 25 per adult, but he had assured me that he was finding really nice quartz crystals and clusters there and occasionally pockets of green chloride quartz had been found there too.
A guy that Justin knows well, had been there and he verified to Justin that what he had found was truly a pocket of green chloride quartz, so we were stoked and amped to go and see what we could find. Saturday morning was threatening rain showers about 9 am, so we got there early, paid our fees and walked up to the top of the hill on the west side of the parking area, which is at the foot of the hill from both the east hill mine and west hill mine. Tommy told us in the parking lot that he would start us on the west side hill and see how we did, and let us dig on the east side hill the next day, said there was a pit on the far side of the west side hill that we were welcome to dig in as well. When Slade, Justin, and David Hodge got up there, all they found was a trench cut, no pit, and after digging around in the trench and finding very little for their efforts, we all started wondering if we had been taken.
The ground up there was not clay dirt at all, alot of multi colored shale and massive quartz laying all over the place…the rock in the trench cut was more of a wet muck, very rocky and difficult to dig into and see what you were looking at…icky is the word that came to my mind. Patty and Colby had dug into some tailing piles and the rest of us wandered around looking to the ground for sparkles…I saw none…no one else was finding anything either…Chris and his son were finding nothing as well. Tommy kept walking around telling us there were crystals to be found all over that hillside…we were wondering where they were if they were up there…and after two hours of digging all over up there, the heavens opened up and a deluge of rain began falling…we all picked up our buckets and tools and ran down the hill to our vehicles…waiting it out inside them…when the rains stopped, we all gathered together in the parking lot and decided we had had enough of this place and wanted to go somewhere else.
I asked David Hodge to call Wegners and see if we could go up to the Phantom Mine…so he did and found out there was a small group going soon and we were welcome to join them, so we jumped in our vehicles and headed that way. Patty and Colby had been there on Thursday and let us know they had great luck and found some great stuff there. She told me later that Tommy saw us all drive off and was disappointed we didnt stick around and try harder to find some good crystals…we all wondered what he was smoking !!
We arrived at Wegners with time to spare, paid our fee for the Phantom Mine, discovered Mike, an old friend, was our driver to the mine once again, and all of a sudden we were all stoked once again to go find some good stuff. We were confined to the tailing piles only but we had a good time and did wind up finding some nice stuff.
Above is Chris Bryant on the left, talking to Justin in the middle, and Chris` son on the right…and Onyx camped out next to Justin….
You pay for five hours of digging time and take home whatever you want from there. Mike had turned over the piles the day before we were there and did a pretty good job of it. I filled two buckets but purchased a couple of small plates of better stuff when we returned to the gift barn. Mike also took me down into the basement to see a few hundred clusters that he and a few other miners had harvested from pit pockets the week or two before we arrived…talk about CANDYLAND !!
I texted Dane to let him know of our dismal situation and he graciously offered his mine to us for sunday, so we drove back over there again and had another great time exploring and collecting there. Despite a few setbacks and one definite learning experience about a joke of a mine and mine owner, we still had a good time digging and collecting beautiful quartz crystals.
One sidenote, Shane texted me around Christmas and said he and Tony hoped to be able to offer us another good mine to dig at in the fall of 2021, their new mine near Jessieville and he also hinted at possibly another place as well. Looking forward to it.
Protected: Kentucky Central Trip 2020
Protected: New Mexico, Land of Enchantment and Rocks…
Protected: Roadcuts With Dolomite Crystals and….
New Quarry to Check Out
Walmart had me off for a few days in late January 2020, so David Hodge, Chuck Reed, and I drove down to southeast Missouri to check out a new quarry for pretty rock. I had been in touch with the owner by email a few weeks prior, and he let me know that his quarry was receptive to rockhounds in the past on Saturday mornings when they were not working. I asked if we could come check it out on the 25th and he said yes. I met both of them at the quarry office and we met the owner there…he turned out to be a very nice guy, but I already knew that since I had read about him on his FB page and the way he handled his work near his hometown, spoke volumes about him, all good stuff. He told us he had been farming and managing quarries all over the USA for many years before he moved back to his hometown and opened this quarry about 12 years ago, where they mined some different types of rock and produced some unique products that helped farmers and other industries as well, giving them a corner on the market that other quarries cannot compete with. He did warn us tho, that he had hosted other rockhounds there before, as well as mineral clubs, and no one had ever found anything pretty there. He showed us where inside his quarry we could check for pretty rocks, and turned us loose for a few hours. We drove down to the first of four pits and after about ten minutes of diligent searching, we started finding calcite crystals in small poker chip formations, perched on top of dolomite crystals in saddle formations and in orange, yellow, red, and pink colors !! Chuck discovered them first and began working on some small boulders..when David and I heard and saw him working on the boulders, we immediately walked over to that area to investigate and found him hard at work harvesting some nice plates and pieces….
…he said they rolled down from above, so we looked up above on the wall and discovered a whole section covered with all four flavors of the dolomite crystals…
..on this wall….
…and then we checked the boulders below…we liked what we found so much of, that we never left that pit to go check the others, we were there finding and wrapping for three hours….
…vugs full of dolomite crystals, pretty as you please. We drove back up to the office and let the owner know that we found some pretty crystals in his quarry and would love to come back some time and he said we would be welcome to return. 🙂
Update to this story…since we were there, the owner decided not to allow rockhounds to go and collect there anymore…he did not elaborate on the reason, so I would have to assume that someone went there and didn`t follow safety rules or he may have encountered trespassers, or both. Those are usually the reasons quarries become unavailable and one person or one group, can ruin it for everyone after.