Docia and I were talking online Monday morning, Martin Luther King`s Birthday, and talking about how she wished we could go down to the secret spot today and I told her I could meet her down there, so we opted to meet about 11:30 there and see what we could find. I called work and comped out two hours, which allowed me to go in two hrs later than usual. Missy and I loaded up the truck and headed out fairly soon after, arriving a few minutes ahead of Docia. While waiting, I raked around the big hole I had found to see if there were any back entrances to it, since the day before, I had been reaching back into it up to my shoulders. I checked two sides of it and didnt find any additional entrances, and she arrived about then. She grabbed her bags and tools and set about to checking for more pockets about ten feet away from me…

…and pretty soon she started finding some pockets of her own…which for a bit there, I thought might tie into the hole pocket as well, but they didn`t….I started checking out a small pocket back a few inches from the hole pocket and decided to see where it might lead…little did I know…

…it started going deeper and I thought I might have a back entrance to the hole pocket…since when I reached in, it seemed to wrap around behind me some…and there seemed to be alot of potential for it…lots of crystals and calcite everywhere around it…

…I kept pulling druse plates up and eventually another hole opened up revealing another pocket behind it and each time that happened, I thought I had discovered another entrance to the hole…

..this particular one had some nice crystals all around it….

…and pretty soon, after digging into it delicately, I deepened this initial pocket and discovered crystals laying in the dirt and clay mud all over the place…

..and here are but a few of my initial finds….

..I kept on digging and pulling crystals out of the mix of clay dirt and gravel, and the pocket just kept expanding back toward me and the crystal pile, which I also had to keep moving back…Docia was finding some nice druse plates and crystals in her pockets as well…

and the next photo shows one of the little bluff walls I came upon that had druse plates above hanging down and crystals all over under those plates….

..and we had def picked a nice day to go, 55 degrees, even though there was no sunshine and a slight threat of rain, we def had great weather….in the middle of January….

Well I kept digging and the pockets just kept on expanding, one after another in close proximity to each other and pretty soon I had a large area still near the hole pocket….

..and as it kept expanding, I had to keep moving the stack of crystals found, back to the left and I had to keep moving around as well, cause pretty soon, where I had originally started out sitting, the pocket was moving to….

…and then I had two new areas to work on, the little bluff opening in the upper left hand corner above and the area by my hand rake above…

both of them eventually expanding and deepening together to form one nice big pocket….

that produced the following crystals and plates…..

I apologize for the delay in getting this finished…Docia and I returned to the area yesterday, thinking we were going to be taking advantage of a 55 degree sunny day and while we did show up and find more pockets, some including some beautiful orange dogtooth crystals in all sizes, it was a rainy drizzle day at 40 degrees instead, but we made the best of it.

Continuing from above, as I was digging and expanding this area, another hole opened up…

I started digging down into the hole and exploring it and the first thing I pulled out was this nice twin….

and you can see the little bluff area to the right opening up as well, turned out to expand into a bigger area of little bluffs…where I find plates of druse hanging upside down and often single and twins and triples hidden underneath those plates…

and sometimes when you get those plates down and out of the way, you will find even more pockets of crystals behind that little bluff wall…in this case, it was a pocket of darker colored crystal, even some blue colored ones with dark gray or black dogtooth centers and tips….

like the two in the next photo on the left side….

I haven`t found a pocket of blue colored poker chip crystals with dark tips and centers like this since last year when I found a complete pocket of them about fifteen feet long and ten inches deep.

This pocket of crystals turned out to be about half as big as that one was, traveling along this bluff wall about six to seven feet long….

and consisted of crystals loose in the dirt as well as embedded in the bluff line with druse plates….

and as you can see, they are in the length of this wall from one end to the other…

and while digging the crystals out of this wall, yet another pocket opened up in the wall….

and this one was just chock full of crystals as you can see….

including some larger poker chip crystals this time….

and a few nice large plates with poker chips attached like this one…

and then the pocket abruptly ended in this embedded wall….

what I call a pocket ending wall…and sometimes when digging down into a pocket, you`ll come up against it right way and know you have to dig out the other way to find the rest of the pocket….

and here is the stack of crystals from this small hole expanded to multi-pockets….

including these plates and crystals at the top of the prior photo…

well after going as far as I could with the small hole expansion above, I turned my attention to the hole pocket and began expanding it to the right side…and in so doing, opened up another pocket on the right side….

I had to pound a few plates out of the way to expand the opening, and here are a few of those plates which broke into a few smaller pieces in the process….

and a look at the opening on the right as well as some druse plates from it…some pretty gray bubbly druse with hematite balls sprinkled all over the bubbles….

and a close up of the pocket with crystals all over the place at the bottom of the right hand wall…

and I continued to dig out the crystals and and you cant see it in the next photo, but there is a huge druse plates above all those crystals, hanging upside down..folks I couldnt see it either and I was on top of it, even sitting on it a few times before I got to this point, but boy, once I turned it over…I was elated…so was Docia when she saw it….

and up close….

it was quite pretty and def something I really like finding in these pockets…one never knows when they pull them out what you are going to find, might just be druse and might be druse with hematite balls sprinkled all over, and then you find them like this, or even just a single crystal attached…yesterday we were even finding druse plates with dogtooth crystals attached….what a day that was.

I continued to dig back into the pocket on the right and was even more pleasantly surprised to find more dark colored crystals…another pocket of them….

and even more of them….

I decided I was too pooped to continue digging at this point, so I laid down and reached into the left side of the hole pocket to see how far the pockets went back…and was able to pull a few more nice crystal clusters out before calling it a day….

just a little side note here…I get asked all the time about some of the crystals and plates having damage to them….some are damaged prior to the time when we reach in and pull them out, possibly having fallen off the roof of the cavern they are formed inside, or something falling down on them……sometimes we cause the damage to the plates when pulling or hammering them out of the pocket. This next one, you`ll prob think has damage to it, and maybe it does, but it was done before I got to it, I assure you.

 People also ask me, how do you determine what you take home and what you leave behind….I cant always answer that, but go by one cardinal rule…if its pretty, it goes home with me. 🙂

Last weekend was a nice three day weekend for me, as far as rock collecting goes…after a photo shoot Saturday morning, Missy and I loaded up the truck and headed out to the secret spot to see if we could find anything good…we hadnt been there for a few weeks, and figured I would explore the pocket on the ridge some more, but things changed when I got there. We didnt encounter as much deep mud this time going in, but it was pretty sloppy in places, and when we arrived, I decided to walk through an area that had been graded by heavy equipment to see if any poker chip chunks had rolled out of the piles….

…I walked around for about twenty minutes and picked up a few single crystals here and there, and then in a couple of areas in this section, I spotted what appeared to be potentially more, so I dug down with the mini mattox and hand rake…

…and then dug down some more til I started seeing what appeared to be the top of either shale or druse plates…

…and a few crystals started popping up….so I kept digging down and within a few minutes, even more crystals started poppping up all over the place….

…and within a few minutes, I had exposed the base wall of the pocket and began to branch out and find even more.

I was in for a big surprise….but for now, the pocket did expand to the right side more….

and as it expanded and I kept digging around, a hole opened up….

…and its always been my experience, that when a hole opens up, it usually means leading to a nice pocket down under….and in this case it did again and again and again….

…and as you can see above, yet another base wall was exposed for me to explore…

….and within a few minutes, I had found even more nice poker chip crystals all over and under those plates….

…leading to the right and the promise of even more pockets, such as these next two….

…I know its kinda hard to see them…but there is a pocket under a ledge that opened up and led to a slew of discoveries inside the pocket as well as another pocket branching off in an entirely different direction…a little more clearly seen in the next photo, as well as the growing pile of crystals found so far….

while the next photo shows the pocket that branched off to the left…

and the next photo shows the twin crystal I pulled out….out of which one I can`t honestly remember at this point…I am going to have to start taking notes I guess…..

…and here is the twin up close for ya….

and then I pulled this big boy out next…..

…I was having a hard time reaching in under that ledge to see what I could pull out of the pocket under it, so I decided to knock some of the overhang down and see if that would help me out….the overhang snapped off in three separate large chunks…here is one of them…

..that created alot of room for me to reach back into the ledge pocket and also made it easier to work the new pocket opening on the left side too….and in so doing, the removal of the overhang also created another opening to the ledge pocket, further back to the right as well….

…now one would prob think at this point that I`m going to explore even further back along this ledge and further to the right looking for more pockets, but at this point, I decided to come back the next day and romove the top layer and peel this puppy back even further to see what more was inside and do the same with the pocket on the left, so I bagged up all the crystals I had found so far and then turned my attention to a hole that had opened up early on, that I haven`t mentioned yet, to the left side of this area and see what might be lurking inside it….

…I found a few crystals but the wall eroded quickly into a solid mass of poker chip crystals that couldn`t be removed except by brute force and by this time of the day, I was totally spent…so they are still there today….

…and while exploring this section, another hole opened up so I decided to explore it and see what laid behind it….

…and as you can see from the closeup of the hole, there are crystals right inside it…

well the hole led to a saddle of solid calcite with some poker chips embedded around and on top of it, and to the sides, and a few crystals tucked away inside the hole which was like a little caverns inside the saddle….

…and as you you can see above, another ledge opened up right behind the saddle….

and this ledge is filled with druse plates and crystals under it….

and the next photo shows how much the one pocket expanded into others….

…after moving the pile of crystals back, I removed as many of the base plates as I could, some nice druse with poker chips and a few of just druse alone…

…and found yet another pocket opening up and going, again, under the pile of crystals I had collected…seems like no matter where I start piling up crystals, the next pocket found goes in that direction…always one thing or the other….

…after cleaning this pocket out, I moved over to the far left ledge where another hole had opened up, to explore it and see if there was yet another deep pocket on that side….

…needless to say, it didn`t pan out too much…only collected a few druse plates and a few crystals from it before it ran out….

I took a short break and stretched my legs, looking around and found another couple of areas to look at the next day and see if they panned out into more pockets. I looked up to the west and saw some nice fluffy clouds forming up into a good sunset….

packed my bags so to speak with the wrapped goodies, and then started home….

Stay tuned for Part 2 and 3.

After ten days of being sick and confined to the house two weeks ago, when my weekend off finally showed up, I decided to get out of the house and head for the secret spot…if nothing else, just to stretch my legs and get some fresh air. Missy and I loaded up the truck and took off late Saturday morning last weekend and on the way, I said a short prayer…asking for a safe trip and said I didn`t care if I found any pockets…just wanted to have a little fun by stretching my legs and looking for some pretty stuff. I really could have cared less if I found anything, I just sooo wanted to get outside and do something different…I had returned to work last Wednesday after ten days confined to the house with a bad cold and sinus infection. We hadn`t been to the location in four weeks, having spent the last couple of trips at the Eminence Quarry and finding some beautiful stuff down there. The floor of my kitchen was literally still covered in Emience material, even though I had given quite a bit of it to local friends who enjoy pretty stuff as much as I do. I wasn`t quite sure where I would put more stuff, but we would figure that out when the time came, if I found anything on this trip.

We arrived a little after noon and while driving in, encountered some heavy soupy and sloppy mud, on top of the otherwise normally rocky solid roadway, so I had to shift into four wheel drive just to drive down the hill to the lower spot, something I have never had to do before. Once parked down at the lower spot, I looked back at my truck and noticed all the mud on the sides and snapped this photo….

I walked over to the area that I had dug into the last time there, back when Virgil and Larry were there, and found the two pockets I had worked, half full of crystal clear water with a muddy orange oxide bottom….

…and about fifty feet to the left, the pockets that Virgil and Larry had worked on….

…and after locating the small pocket I had found prior to leaving there that day, I decided to start raking down the area around it in an effort to locate other pockets nearby…..

…within thirty minutes of raking, I located a couple of soft spots and a hole appeared about five feet away….

…the shallow spot on the right side of the photo above near the end of the handle of the mini mattox, and the hole at the end of the handle of the hand rake on the left side of the photo above….the shallow trench produced this combo crystal below….

…and it also produced a pocket of gray druse plates in the initial pocket, however I found no poker chip crystals at all….

…I decided to get up and stretch my legs after all the digging, so I walked over to the former pocket now filled with water….

…and I was glad to see that many of the clusters were still intact as well as the arch cluster….

…so after a few minutes of walking around and resting up…I walked back over and started raking around again, and following the trench which started leading me toward the ridge, right over to the base of it….and pretty soon I was finding some poker chip crystals that appeared to have either rolled down the ridge to the floor below or were coming out of a pocket at the base of the ridge…

…so for the next thirty minutes, I explored the area at the base of the ridge and attempted to find a pocket opening, specially after finding this little jewel….nice poker chip and druse combo….

…I started moving big rocks around and out of my way that were sliding down the hill to the floor. I wasnt able to find a pocket opening in the floor where it intersected the hillside, but I was still seeing single poker chips on the hillside mixed in with the ugly rocks, so I decided to work my way up the ridge hillside and see if I could locate a pocket further up, as it appeared to me that the crystals were possibly originating from up higher on the hillside. Within another thirty minutes, I located a hole that appeared to drop down into a pocket, down below a large dome of heavy dolomite rock….

…the hole located in the right hand side in the middle of the photo above…I decided to see if I could rake around and find yet another entrance to this possible pocket, perhaps one easier to access, as I wasnt looking forward to moving alot of heavy rock around to get in if I didnt have to. As you can see in the photo above, I raked to the left and above about ten feet and then hit another soft spot and stopped where my gloves are, to explore further.

In that depression above my gloves in the photo above, I pulled some pretty druse plates out and set them up above, then started working my way down that little embankment toward my gloves, and then hit another soft spot and dug it out to reveal a bluff line….

…and here are the druse chunks and ball plates I pulled out of the dirt above the bluff line….

….and continued to rake down the bluff line til I came to this large plate…..

….and when I turned it over, I not only had a pretty plate of bubbly gray druse, but a few openings indicating a deep pocket below….

…and as you can see in the next photo, there were several indicators of poker chip crystals and druse plates under the gray bubbly druse plate I turned over….

…so after digging a few crystals out and pulling a few smaller plates of druse out, the top of the pocket soon revealed itself more clearly…

…I didn`t realize it at the time, but the hole on the right side was the start of yet another pocket, leading to a second cavern type pocket…but I concentrated on exploring the pocket in front of me first….I took a photo of the opening of the pocket first….

…and then began removing some of the loose crystals in the pocket under those roof plates….the first one I pulled out was this nifty little poker chip and druse combo……

…and decided to clear some of the bigger rocks off the top of the pocket and away from the entrance so that it would be easier to remove the roof plates later…..

…as you can see, there are some big rocks sitting right on top of the roof plates and off to the side, a small rockslide just waiting to happen. I set the crystals and plates I had already found up on top of the pocket,  and eventually had to move them back away from the edge, too…..

…I then began removing the roof plates of druse…not sure if they were just druse or not…..

..and was pleasantly surprised when I pulled this first roof plate out to reveal….

…and allowed me to look inside and see even more plates with nice poker chips attached to them waiting inside the deep pocket….

…so naturally I removed as many plates as I could and then looked inside again to see even more pocket waiting for me to explore….

….and after getting as much material out as I could, I then turned my attention to that hole on the right side of the calcite face above, and soon after, discovered pocket number two…..

…you can see a nice poker chip crystal laying in the dirt at the bottom of the photo above, as well as a nice druse plate upside down to the right and above the crystal…I started digging out the hole above the crystal and removed the plate and within thirty minutes, here is what the second pocket looked like next to the first pocket….

…and here is what the entrance looked like to the second pocket…

…I cleaned out the entrance crystals and pretty soon it was obvious at the back of the pocket that there was yet another cavern pocket behind the initial pocket, opening up….

…and if you look to the right side of the photo above, you can see alot of crystals under that orange looking roof plate…when I pulled them out, another pocket opened up under it….

…and one of the first crystals I pulled out from behind the mess of crystals and debris above, was this next one….

…this was one very big and beautiful crystal and right behind it I pulled two more out, one really big one….the next photo shows the pocket to the right that developed after I cleaned this pocket out, if you see that white calcite seam to the right side of the photo, there is a bowl depression there with a hole at the back, this was pocket number four….

…and up close…..

..and soon expanded wider….

…and pretty soon I was pulling crystals and plates from the bottom and sides of the expanded fourth pocket….

…including this nice large bubbly druse plate with a poker chip attached to it….

..I actually pulled three plates this size out of pocket four, and the third one I pulled out at the back of the pocket, opened up a hole that led to pocket five….

…and out of pocket five, I pulled out several smaller clusters and crystals and plates of druse, piled up in the next photo…..

…in the next hour I was working the ridge location, I soon discovered a pocket underneath me, this nest photo shows the spot I was sitting on, as well as the pockets in front that I had been working….

…by now it was about 4 pm and I had about 30 minutes of daylight left, so I took a short break and snapped a nice cloudy sky….very pretty day….

…and after a few minutes break time, I decided to stop for the day and return the next day and clean out the clusters.Here is what the pockets looked like when I finished for the day….

After wrapping up the beauties I had collected today and packing the truck, I headed out and noticed the clouds forming up for a nice sunset…I drove to a nearby lake and shot a few nice sunset photos before heading home for the day with a truckload of clusters and crystals and plates….

Sunday morning, after breakfast, Missy and I loaded up the truck and drove back down to the secret spot, this time we went in a different way and didnt encounter any mud. I put my boots on and grabbed my hammer and chisels and bags and walked over and started chipping out the clusters from the walls on the side of the hole….

….. look at that loose crystal in the middle of the photo above, I had started chipping on the sides of the big hole and worked my way around as much as I could, chipping out several smaller clusters and a few bigger ones…I finally got around all six sides and the only thing left was the area in the middle…so after a short break, I started brushing the loose dirt away from the middle clusters so I could get a better idea of what was there…when all of a sudden….

…I pulled a few chip crystals out and another pocket opened up underneath them. I wasn`t expecting another pocket at all, just figured I would come chip a few clusters out and then head home early….but decided to work the pocket and see what I could find…

..including these two chips and the next photo of plates and clusters…

…so after cleaning the floor pocket out, I again turned my attention to the massive cluster in the middle of the floor. I knew I wouldnt be able to remove it all in one piece, that would have been nice, but it was way too big to even imagine that happening. I was able to remove it in about six pieces….

…and by the time 4 pm rolled around, I was just wrapping things up when I decided to check out this square hole in the end wall of the large hole I was sitting in….I had briefly checked it out before I left the evening before, and it appeared to be heading down into a pocket below, possibly another cavern pocket farther underneath…you can see the tunnel hole in the photo above, right above the yellow end of the chisel and below my bags…there was a plate right above the hole and to the left side a bit…I figured if I removed it I might be able to get my hand in the tunnel hole and see if I could pull some crystals out….so I chipped it out of the way and when I did that, WOW, behind it…..

…a whole other pocket opened up, and this pocket is not the pocket I thought the hole led to cause looking in the tunnel hole, the path goes down, where this pocket that opened up after chipping out the plate, is up above the other one…however after removing a few plates and crystals, you could see an opening going down into a cavern so its prob the cavern pocket that the tunnel hole leads to as well….anyway, I reached down into this pocket and the first two things I pulled out where these two crystal combos….

…and in this other photo you can see more crystals hidden in the dirt and gravel right under the surface at the entrance to the pocket….and the roof plates of the pocket just hanging there waiting to be pulled out….

…I reached in again and pulled out two nice poker chip twins….

…I then worked on removing the roof plates and that was no easy task this time…maybe because I was getting tired after chipping out about forty clusters or maybe because these roof plates were in there pretty solid, or a combination of both factors…but I finally did remove a nice section of the roof plates with a beautiful poker chip attached to it….

…and the pocket above, after removing the long roof plate…and a pile of crystals removed from this pocket as well….

and here is a pile of combos that came from this pocket as well….

….and a look inside the pocket toward the back of the pocket at the crystals just waiting to be removed….

…and here is the pocket after working it over and opening it up…..

…and how I left it looking as well, as I was wore out by this time, so I took a photo of the clusters that I had chipped out of the hole in the past few hours…..

…and the entire hole as I finished working it today…..

…and same as the evening before, there was yet another beautful sunset on my way home….some pretty unusual clouds as well….

…hope you enjoyed it as much as I did….hope everyone has a Merry Christmas…

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….

…I call this one my five finger druse….and found this one first……

and this is what the five finger druse looks like on the back side….

and on its side….

and here are the twins all cleaned up…..

and the cluster of poker chips I pulled out early, all cleaned up….

It was sunset when we finally headed for home…and saw this beautiful sunset at the top of the hill on the way out….

Docia contacted me last week and said she needed more plates of druse for a fall project making gem trees for a youth organization, so we decided to meet up Sunday afternoon, October 30th,  and see what more we could find. I drove in the back way this time to see if there were any new rock deposits along the way, but didn`t see anything much under all the dust that had settled on top, and drove on down to the new diggs area to find Docia making room in the back of her suv. During the time she arrived and my arrival time, she had located a pocket of smokey quartz plates and had dug out enough to fill four bags already. She was making room for more when I arrived. and it was one beautiful cloudy day there….

I didn`t pull my camera out and shoot any photos up in the new diggs area, but I did manage to shoot a few yesterday after cleaning up some of my finds….

and this next set of plates has some pretty iron oxide coating on a few of the soda straws….

After three hours of digging for druse plates and filling three bags full myself, we moved over to the secret spot floor and looked for a few pockets of poker chips…I decided to check out the water pocket I found at the end of the day last weekend.

I decided to move over until I found a ledge and then feeling down in the water around the lip of the ledge, I discovered a small underwater pocket on one side, and then as I felt around the rest of the ledge, I found two more pockets…

…I pulled a few small plates of druse out as well as a few small chips of calcite and could feel poker chips on the roofs and the bottom of the pockets…so I knew I was in the right area….

..I then pulled this nice druse plate with a poker chip attached to the end of it….

I decided to bail out the water and see what more was down under the water and out of sight…I could feel quite a bit, but couldn`t see anything…and let me tell you, this was some of the coldest water I have ever had my hands in for an extended time period….

…and as you can see above, there was a nice plate, albeit upside down, in the pocket and actually positioned between a couple of pockets…the next photo shows where I began on the left and where I have progressed to on the right side….

..and after draining it down, I decided to tackle chipping out the upside down plate on the right side…

…which was no easy matter, it was firmly attached on the right side, and there was a whole lot of druse on the opposite side as well as a few poker chips….

..and once removed, I removed a few more crystals from the now expanded pocket, which was rapidly expanding even more….

I found the top rock to be growing thicker on the sides, so I decided to try and go further to the right, as the roof rock was thinner to the right…and I was able to chisel through….

and create a back entrance to the growing pocket….

and removed this big chunk of druse in the process….the one on the right side of the photo….

Docia had already left and I had decided to stay and see what more I could find…Missy and I left after removing these crystals and when we hit the top of the hill, were greeted by this beautiful sunset…

Missy and I had nothing better to do the next day, October 23rd, so we drove back down to the secret spot and after looking around a little while, I decided to see if I could find another pocket in the front floor area…when we rolled up there were some fossil collectors looking around but they apparently had been there a little while and didn`t stick around when I started pulling crystals out…I could see I was going to need my hammer and chisel, so I went back to the truck and Missy found a shady spot and stretched out….

..I guess she thought I was coming back up on the hill to dig some more, because she was stretched out next to the pocket I worked the day before….

..but as it was, I decided to dig in front of the hill….

..and within moments of scratching around, started seeing signs of calcite….

..I picked up my mini mattox and started scraping with it and pretty soon the bit went down into a crack in the ground and a crevice opened up….

..I decided I need to clear some more rock and dirt back so I started raking a clear path all the way around the crevice….finding a nice little poker chip crystal along the way….and then removed a big chunk of rock from the crevice that was kind of in the way….

..I actually had to chip it out a little bit, cause it was firmly attached at the base end…and when I turned it over, this is what I saw….

..and after pulling a few more crystals and plates out, I had the beginnings of a nice pocket forming up…..I pulled still more plates and crystals out and the pocket just kept getting bigger and longer….

..and as I dug down to the bottom of the hole, I began seeing more crystals hanging around…

..and pretty soon more crystals were piling up….

 then I discovered another pocket at the opposite end that opened up….

..and I began pulling crystals out of the other pocket as well….

..including this nice little cluster of poker chip crystals…

and even closer up….

…I reached back down into the pocket and cleaned back gravel and clay slurry and came up against this wall, but the wall moved, so I reached down and gently rocked it loose and pulled this boulder out…

…and turned it over and set it up on top of the pile off to the right…

…and down below it were lots of crystals…...so I began removing even more crystals…

…and sat back to take another photo to show the size of the pockets and the pile of crystals expanding as well…

…I wore out at this point and stopped here for the day…and what a day it had been, very nice cloudy sunlight….

I did do a little exploratory raking behind me and located what appeared to be a soft spot with water….

..but I decided to leave it for another day….I did see some nice foliage on the way out though….

..and a beautiful sunset on the way home….

Docia emailed me last week and asked if I was doing anything last weekend, she was sooo ready to return to the secret spot and see what we could find. I had the weekend off and so we decided to meet about mid morning on Saturday and check out the new diggs and the lower spot as well.  We arrived at the new diggs to discover a new road entering the area, which has been leveled off and flattened somewhat….

…we parked and walked up into the area and nosed around, looking for sparkles…Docia was looking for plates for her gem trees and I was looking for smokey quartz druse…

…the pocket I had found a few weeks earlier was completely gone…heavy equipment having moved the wall another fifty feet to the east…so the wall I dug the last plates out of was completely gone…no telling where that pocket wound up.

After a couple of hours of digging some beautiful plates out, we decided to drive on over to the lower area and see what we could find…well I should say I did…Docia decided she was too exhausted to do much pocket digging after walking around looking at a few spots…I tried a couple of spots up front in the floor area….

…however, I didnt find much…..

…so I decided to check out an older pocket and see if I could liberate some of the clusters in front of the pocket….

..there are a few of those older pockets in the next level up, so I decided to try out this one first….

…and closer up….

…you can see the beds of clusters by my hand rake there….here they are closer up….

..the first thing I did though, was to look under the sidewalls and backwall to see if there were any crystals still waiting to be removed, and I saw signs under one sidewall….

…and under the backwall too….

…so I started at the backwall and began chipping some of the backwall off and found a few plates and crystals pretty fast….

Docia left soon after and I kept chipping off the top wall and took the following photo of the crystals and plates under the backwall….

…and closer up….

..the whole time I was chipping away, Missy was patiently waiting nearby….

…sittin pretty and being a very good girl…..

Well I removed that nice plate you saw, placed my glove down below it and then stuck the chisel in the rock and hammered it back into the rock to bring down quite a few pieces of dolomite with the plate…

…allowing the glove to provide a soft landing for the plate and any other crystals that decided to come down….and yes there were still more inside back behind it….

…and yes, more plates and crystals were eventually removed….

with the pocket expanding to this point….

…and here are a few of the nicer plates that I removed from the pocket….

..after removing these guys, it was obvious that there was no more pocket and so I turned my attention to a couple of clusters up in the front of the pocket…and luckily I was able to remove a couple of nice ones….

…this finished up about three hours of chipping and digging and Missy and I headed home for a good home cooked meal after removing these two….and decided to come back the next day for some more. 🙂

I took Sunday off from work to replace the day off earlier in the week that I sacrificed for training at work, got in from work Saturday night and napped four hours, then Missy and I headed south to the secret spot to see what we could find. I had made my normal request about finding something pretty, but truth be told, I would have been just as happy to just get away and look around, even if I didnt find anything. I was hoping Docia would be able to join us, but she was still down with a pinched nerve in her back and didnt make it Sunday.

The wind was nice and breezy and it was going to be a nice warm day, a high of 83, which was just perfect for rock hunting….as we drove down to the lower spot, I noticed a new road leading into the new diggs area…

I didnt even stop to look up in the new area, wanted to get on down and see if I could find another pocket or two first…and once down there, we got out and stretched our legs, Missy setting off to get a big drink of water from one of the watering holes and I grabbed my rake and gloves and digging tools and started walking around to see if I could locate some goodies.  I first took a look at a spot Docia had dug into two weeks earlier….she had told me she didnt find anything there, but it looked like such a prime area, that I thought I would look around it and see if anything else was nearby.  I started raking about three feet to the right and immediately hit some buckskin colored dirt, that looked similar to the limonite pocket I hit by the wall a few weeks prior…so I started digging down and sure enough, a few nice poker chips started appearing…

I pulled about a dozen single chips out and a couple of small clusters as well, which you can see above on my blue bag.

It was a small pocket, and I didnt find anything else nearby, so gathered up my tools and headed back to the area where I had found the nice pocket two weeks earlier and decided to see if I could scrape around and find another nice one.  I spent about an hour scraping and raking around without any luck, and then decided to stretch my legs and walked over to the bluff and see if I could locate any pockets there….looked up and down high and low and didnt find anything there either, so returned to my old pocket and explored a little more there, and in a few minutes located just a few more single crystals.

I moved off to the side to a conspicuous looking area and began raking around, finally hitting a small depression that appeared to be soft and started digging down into what appeared to be a drill hole…sometimes these amount to something but often times they dont…within a few minutes, the bottom dropped out and a hole appeared….

I went back to the truck to get my chisel and hammer so I could chip it out more, make it big enough to get my hand down into at least….left my flashlight at home unfortunately….

When I came back, I found Missy guarding the hole…and I began chipping the base and sides out so I could reach down in…..

I cleared out the muck at the bottom and put my camera down as far as I could and snapped this photo above…then reached down in and felt around…it felt like a small cavern down there and I could feel nice druse on the walls and roof and poker chips attached….the first thing I pulled out from the bottom was this nice triple poker chip….

and in the next thirty minutes, I pulled out the following crystals….

and this nice plate with a poker chip attached….

..well I pulled what I could out of this pocket and then decided I would come back at another time with a rock saw and see if I could enlarge the opening enabling me to pull some of the bigger feeling stuff out…

I moved over to another spot and found what appeared to be yet another pocket….

and pulled a few pieces and smaller crystals out…..

…pulling one of the crystals out led to a hole underneath that in turn led to pocket number three….

…which deadended at this point after removing a few more crystals and small plates…

…at this point…