Missy and I returned to the secret spot last weekend, a week after returning from Arkansas. I had taken off Sunday in anticipation of a photo shoot for a friend but when he didnt show up, I switched to plan B and we headed down there instead. It was mid day when we arrived and I discovered that more rock had been removed from the blast pile so I put on my boots and grabbed a bag and tools and headed over to climb around and see what could be found.

I climbed up through this gap and walked around the top of it for a few minutes….

…as I was climbing up through there, though, I noticed the sun really sparkling on this guy….

…so I picked him up and carried him over to my truck. I came back and started to climb up again, when I noticed this pretty one….

…but decided to leave it there…and continued to climb to the top…I looked around up there for a few minutes, then looked down to spot these two just sitting there patiently waiting for someone to come along and take them home….

..I walked down to take a closer look at them and then I saw more crystals above them….all over the place….yellow ones even….

…crystals all over up and down about a fifteen to twenty foot stretch above the two large clusters…figured there must be a pocket in there…

…so I decided to go get another bag and some wrapping cloths and as I turned to go back to the truck, I saw the corner of this one sticking up out of the dirt and rocks….

…and right above it, appeared to be more calcite poker chips sticking out of the dirt, so I figured there might be another pocket in there as well, this about 40 feet to the right and on another slope facing a different direction. I was happy now with two pockets to check out and three nice specimens without having even started to dig yet….

…so I decided to grab two more bags and lots of cloths for wrapping and returned to the first potential pocket. I sat the bags down and looked up to find this one looking right at me….

and right above it in this order…..

…so I began to pull what loose ones out that I could find, wrapped them up and bagged them, and then started sliding the loose rocks down on the left side of the pocket path. I wanted to clear out an area on the left, then concentrate my efforts on the pocket path to the right. There was an overhanging set of large rocks above the pocket path and I figured I would work the left side if that all came crashing down and covered up the pocket path.

…as I started working the pocket path, more crystals started popping up out of the dirt and rock, right and left….

…and pretty soon, it was apparent that I was on top of the main pocket, where all the loose crystals had originated from….

…this went on for a couple of hours…I would slide rocks down and pull out crystals and clusters and twins and triples, found very few single crystals at all….it was beginning to heat up and Missy had decided to camp out under my truck bed….

 I took a break and got some water, then came back to start working this main pocket some more….

 …here is what the main worry looked like above me….

…now I know what you are thinking…you are thinking those big rocks you see are to the left of the main pocket…but no, the main pocket is actually below them…that cleared off area to the right up above is another area I dug out after finding a nice plate.

Well I dug into the main pocket and found some nice crystals lurking under the dirt and gravel….

…and once I cleared everything out that I could find, I went ahead and triggered the rocks above to slide down….

…then moved over to the left side and kept on digging….

…and found yet another pocket on the left side…this one had a lot of crushed up chips and pieces of chips though….

…so after about four hours of digging out crystals, I decided to stretch my legs and walk around more of the pile to see if there were anymore pockets. I walked around the rest of the slopes and didnt find too much, then climbed up on top and found some nice plates of druse all over the place, including this huge plate of druse…

…it measures about 25 inches long and about 15 inches wide and has a lot of base rock on it, prob weighs about 125 lbs…it took me three trips but I finally made it back to the truck with it….had to slide and carry it down three slopes and decided to just set it in my lap and slide down each one til I got to the bottom, then carried it to the truck. I was tired from all the digging and so it was a little heavy. and you should see the one I left up there, with calcite crystals and bubbles of druse…I`m guessing it prob weighed about another 75 lbs…yeah, its still there. I gave this one to my mom for Mothers Day.

I finally got some of my finds cleaned up…here they are below….

so all in all, Sunday the 13th worked out well in my favor. 🙂

Last weekend, my good friend Virgil was up from Oklahoma with a friend of his named Larry, and they stayed Saturday night, after digging for poker chip crystals with me at the secret spot. Sunday morning they headed to MFQ when they decided the weather might clear enough for them to look around down there, before heading home. I didn`t hear back from Virgil til the next day, when he sent me a long and detailed email about what they found…lets just say, I should have driven down there with them. Looking at my work schedule, there was no way I could get down there weekend wise til a week and a half, and after reading his emails, I didn`t want to wait that long, so since I was off Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving Day, I decided I was going down there one of those days. I checked with Docia to see if she also had time to go and we decided on Thanksgiving Eve…I had to work the night before but was able to get a short nap and then Missy and I took off about mid morning and headed down there. Since I hadn`t had anything to eat since midnight, I stopped and grabbed a few snacks. Once I got to the quarry, I never even opened the bag, lol. I arrived to find Docia already poking around the piles on the lower right side as you enter….

..so we began looking at the pile immediately to my right and I only found a few limonite chunks containing a few poker chip crystals…we then moved to the lower pile on the left side, in the photo below…

and this next photo shows a continuation of that pile to the north…

we found several poker chips right below the surface of the gravel of the quarry floor at the base of the pile, several of which were nice looking clusters on their own, and then we climbed up on the rubble pile and found some even nicer ones….Docia was digging out some singles in a particular spot halfway up the pile that she located some nice ones on top, while I climbed around the pile about a third of the way up. I then looked up and spotted a beautiful poker chip perched on the edge at the top of the pile…yes my camera was in the truck at the time, so I didn`t get a photo of it then…I climbed up to the top and when I got up there, I stopped in my tracks, stunned by what I saw…not one crystal, but three…of the same color…and texture…and formation…and shape… I told Docia they looked like one that had broke into three or four pieces…

…in the photo above, you see the one I spotted on the right side…the piece on the left is one I saw near it, as well as the one in the photo below…

…I went back to my bag and retrieved a few white cloth towels to wrap them up with…I didnt want anything to happen to these three crystals…from there we walked around looking for more crystals and boy were there plenty to be found…as long as you were willing to look and dig, and we were…Docia found a spot up on top and started digging down to find more…and as I was returning with the towels, I found a big boulder with a crystal face on it made up of big poker chip crystals…

…and was able to chip two separate sections off the boulder…the section on the right in the photo above, now looks like this cleaned up…

While walking around, I also found this large boulder …

…and as I stepped around it and looked down, I saw several crystals on the front side of it, including some dogtooth crystals….

and saw some loose crystals in the sandy gravel below the boulder, lots of potential for more goodies broke off and hanging around down under…so I called Docia over to help me dig it out….she had finished up her pocket and came right over….

…and while we were digging them out…Virgil called to see how our progress was coming along and we told him we were finding nice stuff all over the top of the lower pile so far….as I talked to him Docia kept digging and finding crystals….

..including this nice crystal piece that Docia unearthed from the gravel below the boulder while I was talking to Virgil…

…and saw these crystal faces poking out of the dirt to let us know we weren`t quite finished digging yet…..

…she also chipped a few of the crystal faces off that I had seen at first on the front of the boulder, several of them contained dogtooth crystals like this one…

…and here you can see several of the smaller crystals that we found under the boulder, sitting on top now, including the two larger ones at the right side of the photo….

…and needless to say, we filled a couple of bags from it alone…from here we drove over to the south wall and decided to check it out due to having some information on it having some good stuff in it….

..and then walked up to the upper area to check it out…Virgil had told us that he and Larry located alot of great stuff up above, some different looking calcite chunks, some massive green chunks of calcite, some chunks weighing an estimated five hundred pounds each…and some nice pockets along the wall too…so we took a stroll to the top bench and at the edge of the bench where the rubble pile started, we saw the massive chunks of calcite that Virgil was talking about….

…this one above, looked alot like cave type formation calcite…to the right of it, I saw the ones Virgil had described to me by email…etched and with black organic stuff on them….

…and he was right, they were weird looking, formation wise…some had some wispy looking formations on them….

…..and the one below you can see still has some black on it, but also has some pretty yellow and green crystals too…

I decided to see what else might be there, so I left my bags there, and Docia decided to stay down on that ground level and see what she could find. I climbed on up with my rake and poked around the back side…here is the view looking back the way I came up….

…and looking the other way….

…which is the direction I walked in from, and started finding some nice big chunks of crystals in that yellow stretch you see there on the left..that`s a section of limonite with crystals galore in it. Docia took some photos of me from down below, walking around on the upper bench….

…and here is the view I had from above looking down below…

I found a nice chunk about the size of a beach ball and had carried it back to my bags, but didn`t make it to the truck later…will tell you why in a bit…about twenty feet further and to the right, I discovered the pockets Virgil had worked in the wall….

…I started checking out the pockets and wow, was I amazed…just using my hands, I started pulling beautiful pieces of calcite druse and poker chips out of these small shallow pockets…the poker chips were rolling out of the pockets like marbles into my waiting hands…within about ten minutes, I was like, what a time not to have a bag with me….Docia came up behind me to check on me cause I was so quiet, and I asked her to get me a bag…but her back was hurting her so she wasn`t able to bring me one…so after filling my sweatshirt pocket and with my arms full of crystals, I finally stopped and climbed back over the pile to my bags…there was one pocket full of calcite druse that I wanted to get back to for sure…

…you can see them here in the middle with the red stains to them..there were a series of them in this one section and I pulled some absolutely beautiful plates and balls of druse out of them, finding out this morning while cleaning them that some of them had chalcopyrite inside them….as I finished cleaning them out, filling half a canvas bag with them…I looked to my right for more pockets and saw a chunk of stone sticking out…I reached over and pulled it out and turned it over and this is what greeted me….

…and I was like…wow I don`t know how much more of this I can take…I looked around and thought to myself…can it get any better than all of this ???? 

I mean, I was like WOW…. blown away so far by all the good stuff just rolling out at me…God was sure being good to me…I thought surely this is gonna be all I`m going to find up here, there won`t be anything more to top this…and all I can say…. is never say never….I looked to the right and didn`t see anymore pockets, so I looked left and down to the ground my eyes traveled, and quite literally, I couldn`t believe my eyes…I took four steps to my left to get a closer look..and there it was….a big very dark colored poker chip crystal….laying in the dirt, pictured here on my sink counter after cleaning up today….

…and not believing what I was seeing, I looked around and lo and behold, more to my amazement, there were even more poker chips laying all over and many were a dark chocolate color…I grabbed my bag and kneeled down to get a closer look and began picking them up and putting them in the bag…and started digging down and finding them all over the place in a four square foot area, at the base of a big boulder with a few crystals attached to the face of it…

…and closer up….

..I yelled out for Docia but didn`t hear her at all, so figured she was prob on the other end of the bench and just couldn`t hear me…finding out a few minutes later,  that she had walked back down to her truck to take a break for her back. I filled my bag as quickly as I could and tried to see if the boulder would move…it didn`t budge, it was solid, possibly attached to the wall, so I filled my bag with all the loose black and brown crystals I could find, and believe me, I searched all around to see if there were any others there, finding another large chunk loose in the dirt, but since it didn`t have anything more than massive calcite on it, I decided to leave it there…finally my bags were full and I decided to return to the truck with what I had…and boy, did I have a load of nice stuff….I got back to the original spot on the bench where another bag was waiting for me, and shifted the heavy bag to the other hand and started down the hill to the truck. It only took me four rest stops to get to the truck, the bags were so heavy, thankfully it was downhill. Once I got there, I showed Docia what I had found and she liked them as much as I did. We decided to head for home after a long and fruitful afternoon of digging. This morning I cleaned up most of the material that I brought home, and it was almost as much fun as finding them yesterday, mainly because when they are dirt covered, you arent completely sure of what you have, but once you wash the dirt off and see the beautiful crystals underneath, oh my gosh, the excitement comes right back to you….here is a sink full of crystals washed off that I found yesterday in that pocket of chocolate colored poker chip crystals at the base of the bench wall….

A few words to sum up the drive down…NOTHING SHORT OF AMAZING !!!

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….

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…

….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…

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

..and a little closer up…

…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…

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

….and she was right….

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

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

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…..

….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…

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

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

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

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

…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…

..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…

..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…

…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…

and then the dogtooth crystals from the AMAZING POCKET….

and…

Pretty amazing stuff, huh ???