MFQ Yesterday….Nothing Short of AMAZING…

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….

3 Looking at South Wall

..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…

1 Started in Piles at Bottom

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

2 Looking North along East Wall

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…

3A Crystal At Top of Lower Rubble Pile

…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…

3B Crystal I Spotted Top of Lower Rubble PIle

…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…

13A Chipped These Crystals Off Boulder

…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…

4 Crystal Chipped From Boulder

While walking around, I also found this large boulder …

5 Found This Boulder

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

6 This Boulder Face Covered in 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….

7 Docia Helped Me Dig It Out

…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….

8 Crystals Pulled Out Under Boulder

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

10 Crystal Chunk Dug Out

 

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

12 Crystals Being Dug Out Under Boulder

…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…

12A Docia Chipped This Piece Off With Dogtooth Crystals

…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….

13 Poker Chips Found Under Boulder So Far

…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….

14 Checking the South Wall

..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….

16 Cavelike Calcite Chunks Found

…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….

17 Etched Calcite Virgil Found

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

Funny Looking Calcite

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

17A Black and Green Etched Chunk

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….

18 Upper Bench Pile Looking South

…and looking the other way….

19 Upper Bench Pile Looking North

…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….

Me Walking Around on Top of Rubble Bench 2

Me Walking Around on Top of Rubble Bench 1

Me Walking Around on Top of Rubble Bench

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

15 View From Upper Bench

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….

20 Pockets Along Upper Bench 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…

21 Pockets on Upper Bench Wall Close up

…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….

21A This Plate From the Wall Pockets

…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….

22B Black Poker Chip Found

…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…

22 Boulder of Chocolate Poker Chips

…and closer up….

23 Boulder of Chocolate Poker Chips Close 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….

22A Black and Brown Poker Chips Found

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

 

 

 

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….

1 Virgil and Larry Search Wall For Pockets

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

2 Working My Deep Pocket

…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….

3 First Set of Cuts

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

5 Hole Below 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….

5 Two Came Out Early

…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…

8 Hole Enlarged with Chisel

…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….

9 Up Close Removed by Hand

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

11 Pocket Behind 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….

12 Pocket Behind the Opening

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….

13 Nice Large Twins

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

14 Twins and Crystals

…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….

15 Opening Without Big One

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….

16 Virgil Tamping For a Hollow Spot

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….

22 Five Finger Druse

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

21 Druse with Chip Attached

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

23 Five Finger Druse Flipped

and on its side….

24 Five Finger Druse On Side

and here are the twins all cleaned up…..

20 The Twins

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

18 Cluster of Poker Chips Found

19 Cluster of Poker Chips Found

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

17 Sunset on the Way Out

 

 

 

 

Arkansas Quartz 2011

Well its been a week since I returned from my fall Arkansas trip, so guess I better get this story in there or I`ll get behind again and I hate falling behind.  I think its this dreary weather that makes me do that…Missy and I always have a good time down there no matter what, and this year, Kyle, one of my gymnastic models, decided to join us cause he loves to go rock hunting too. Kyle hasnt had a vacation yet this year so this was a double bonus for him.  We got up early Wednesday morning and picked up my mom, she rides with me as far as Fort Smith, Arkansas, and I always drop her off at the home of my Uncle Harley and Aunt Dorcas, to visit with while we are down near Hot Springs doing our rockhunting and photo shoots….she goes shopping with the gals, some of my aunts and cousins, and then meets us at the family farm for a small reunion on Sunday before we drive back home.

We started down 44 and boy was it windy, a strong wind out of the northwest made driving to Joplin a real picnic….couldnt make over 18 miles to the gallon even, normally I can get from 23 to 25 miles to the gallon with my Colorado, but not today. When we finally turned south on Hwy 71 at Joplin, though, my mileage drastically improved with the tailwind behind us and we made better time as well, arriving in Fort Smith around noon.  After helping Mom with her bags inside and visiting with Uncle Harley and Aunt Dorcas a bit, Kyle and I headed on south on Hwy 71. We stopped in Y City for a few minutes to check out color along the Fouche LaFave River there…there are some little waterfalls there that I photographed Kyle in two years ago…doing his favorite pose…handstands.  There was a young couple there from Louisiana that had stopped to check out the color as well, they were northbound to the Springdale area and we talked with them a bit while I snapped a few photos of the color there…

 

1 Fouche LaFave River Y City

…spotty color all the way down from Missouri is what we saw…even in Springfield on I-44, we saw maples still in bloom, and several places in Arkansas south of Fort Smith we were seeing maples half in color and the other half still green leaves.

I had several things on my agenda this trip, some photo work to do the first couple of days for a private client at Lake Ouachita where we stayed at Mountain Harbor Resort, before we could even do any rock collecting. Saturday morning, we got up early and by 7:45 we were pulling into Miller Mountain Mine west of Jessieville, on the northeast corner of Lake Ouachita.

Entrance

For the first two hours we had the place to ourselves…a few people that had camped the night before pulled out as we were getting ready to dig…after talking with Faith for a few minutes and registering, we started a surface check to see what we could find.  I put on my old boots because the dark clay was very muddy and soupy looking, it was extra nasty looking today…Bill was turning piles from the day before, over and mixing things up a bit as we climbed around on the side of the dirt hill….

 

Bill Turns Piles Over

I didn`t know it at the time, but shortly after Bill turned the piles over, I came down from my surface hunt and looked at each pile til I found one with the peanut butter and then began digging into it…within a few minutes I spotted a few nice crystals poking out of the clay mud and pulled out a ball of clay with this one embedded in it…

Quartz Cluster Found

…I say I didn`t know til later, like yesterday, when I cleaned off the mud and this is what emerged from the clay mud. Here is another beauty I cleaned up yesterday that I wasn`t sure what I had….

Small Cluster Found

..found in the same peanut butter as the big cluster I found earlier.

Within twenty minutes, about twenty cub scouts descended upon the mine with a few adult scoutmasters….

Cub Scouts Take Over

…and pretty soon there were kids all over the place…Kyle had already stopped searching due to the cool wind chilling his fingers. After a few times of unsupervised kids nearly stepping on my pile of crystals next to my bags, which I had pointed out several times and asked them to be careful where they were walking, and a few that ventured over to chip and hack at anything nearby, I decided to call it quits as well….I told Kyle I was going to take a walk up to the far end and just see if I could find anything else surface collecting before leaving. I walked along the edge and found this little beauty just perched up on the dirt….

Blk Coating on Small Cluster

 

…..it was dirt up above and pure nasty mud down below…..and while up there, I also spotted a sandstone plate turned upside down…I reached over and turned it over and was greeted by a beautiful plate of smokey colored quartz crystals with just a little bit of damage…I was so happy by then, I decided to stop right then and there…another five carloads of cub scouts had shown up and there were more adults walking up to the far end where I was at as well. I had filled three bags by that time and Kyle had filled two bags as well, so we loaded up and headed toward Hot Springs.  We decided to drive down to Magnet Cove, south of Hot Springs, and see if we could find some pyrite in Cove Creek. I had been in touch with Mike Howard, a geologist with the State of Arkansas, and he gave me some good information on where to drive to, park at,  where to look and what I might be able to find there, pyrite cubes and feldspar, and possibly brookite crystals as well. 

We drove down to the creek and parked next to the creek, and as I was getting out of the truck, a local resident stopped at her mailbox to pick up her mail…I talked to her a few minutes and she told me the local folks didn`t mind rockhounds as long as they were respectful of the area and cleaned up after themselves and didn`t leave their trash laying around for others to pick up after them. I assured her that we were very respectful and well mannered rockhounds. Its amazing how some people who have no respect for others or their property,  can make a bad name for the rest of us.

Well I got my fire boots out and waded up and down the creek while Kyle searched along the creek bank in the gravels…I had read online while researching the creek and pyrite field trips and read where there might be some tailing areas along the bank…Kyle managed to find a few small pieces…he had greater success than I did, all I could find was the feldspar dike running across the creek. I figured we might be there at the wrong time of the year as well, since the leaves were covering the ground thick as could be. I left after an hour of searching with just a few small pyrite crystals in my hands and one small chunk of feldspar with a few pyrite crystals in it. I might return there next spring when I am back down there again.

I have a couple hundred pounds of quartz yet to clean up, so I will post more photos as I get that done. I plan to be down in Arkansas at least four more times next year, due to more work for the client down there, and plan to visit Miller Mountain again. I had planned to visit Bear Mountain Mine as well this trip, but they had just concluded visits by the Federal Government and were just getting back to digging when I was down there, so I didnt visit with them at all this trip. Maybe next year.

 

 

Pockets of Smokey Druse and Poker Chips

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….

1 Beautiful Cloudy Day

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….

1A Druse Plates Found

 

1B Druse Plates

 

1C  Druse Found

 

1D  Druse Plates Found

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

1E Soda Straw Druse Plates

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.

3 Pocket Where I Started

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…

4 Started On the Left

…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….

5 Some Druse and Combos Found

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

6 Druse Plates and Chips

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….

7 Expanded and Drained the Pocket

…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….

8 Beginning on the Left

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

9 Drained to See This Plate

…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….

10 Removed Plate

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

11 Pocket Without the Plate

12 Plates and Crystals Found So Far

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….

14 Chiseled Into Back Entrance

and create a back entrance to the growing pocket….

15 Expanding From the Back

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

16 Large Plates of Druse

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…

17 Sunset on Way Home

 

 

Another Pocket The Next Day

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….

1 Missy Patiently Waits

 

..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….

1A Missy Smiling At Me

 

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

3 Started Digging Here

 

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

3A Started Seeing Signs

 

..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….

3C  Pocket Signs

 

..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….

4B The Pocket Revealed

 

..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….

4A Chipped This One Out

 

..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….

6 Pocket Expands

 

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

8 More Crystals Bottom of Overhang

 

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

9 Crystals Are Piling Up

9A Even More Crystals Found

 

 

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

11 Other End Pocket Opens Up

 

 

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

13 Nice Cluster From Other End

 

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

14 Cluster and Other Crystals Found

 

and even closer up….

14A Phenom Cluster

 

…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…

15 Large Chunk Next to Be Removed

 

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

15A Now Removed Upper RHC

 

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

16 Crystal Pile Growing

 

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

16A Crystals

 

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

18 Sure Was a Pretty Day

 

18A Sure Was a Pretty Day

 

 

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

20 On To Pocket Three

 

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

21 Beautiful Clouds and Scenery

 

22 Spotty Gorgeous Foliage

 

23 Gorgeous Foliage

 

 

 

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

24 Sunset On Way Home