Two Sundays In A Row…

We had so much fun finding pockets last Sunday, the 22nd, we decided to try it again on the 29th and scored again big time. We started a little earlier this time, arriving at 10 am and immediately began finding crystals and pockets. Docia decided to take it easier this time, and brought her own chair for the long day ahead…..

01 Docia Taking It Easy

….she began digging down where she thought she was spotting potential pieces of calcite laying around while I decided to work a pocket from the week before and see if I could find more crystals and pockets branching off from the other pockets and trenches…

02 I Started Here

….we both had success in finding more pockets. I found several nice new poker chip crystals, several singles and some twins and triples even, including some larger singles and some small combo plates.…a few minutes later, I dug down in one spot and bumped into a large plate of rock that was in my way, so I turned it over to find a very pretty gray bubbly druse plate with large yellow poker chip crystals all over it….

04 Nice Combo Right Away

….I was now one happy camper….and this one cleaned up very nicely as well….I kept on digging and the pockets kept on expanding….

05 Pocket Begins To Form

….so I started raking out the dirt and rocks away from the area I was in, to see how much more I could find and the pocket just kept on expanding even more….I started finding pockets of crystals about five and six feet away….

06 Checking Older Pockets

…and the next thing I knew, a hole opened up, there to the left of my mini mattox up above..…hoping I had hit another subterranean cavern full of crystals…but not convinced of it due to the rocks and gravel I was pulling out of the hole above…these were plain old ordinary rocks and gravel, no crystals or even pieces of calcite coming out….and as it was, turned out to be a drill hole instead.

Docia in the meantime, called out and said she was starting to find plates of bubbly druse in her pocket, which is always a good sign for us that we are in the near vicinity of a good pocket….

08 Docia Finds Druse Plate

…and showed me what her first pocket turned out to be…another drill hole, just like mine.

I continued to work on expanding my pockets around the drill hole I had, and found quite a few larger crystals and a few small clusters popping up out of them….

10 Expanding My Pocket

 ….and then my pocket started deepening and I saw more roof plates emerging as well….

12 Pocket Deepens

…so I worked that pocket for about the next hour, pulling more plates and some nice crystals out, then decided I needed to find the hole pocket and see what I could pull out of it, since I hadn`t done much with it since I found it. I took a break and then walked over to where I thought it was located, and began walking in circles…Docia asked me if I had lost something and I said, yes, the hole pocket..I cant find it now….after looking around a bit, she said it looked like the heavy machinery had been there again and moved things around. We noticed that alot of the heavy boulders had been moved from one side of the walls to the other side now….which freed up some areas for us to search again but in the process they had apparently covered up my hole pocket too !

After a few minutes though, I found the spot and started to uncover it again, and discovered that the machinery had actually done me a few favors, breaking up some of the heavy rock on top that covered it up, so now I had some nice druse plates to go with the crystals that I would soon be pulling from it as well.

13 And Expands More

So after clearing away alot of the excess dirt and rock, I again found the opening on the north end and began exploring to the south to find the other side of it and found some other areas opening up as well…

14 Relocating Hole Pocket

…here are some of the smaller pieces of the roof plate that the machinery knocked loose for me…

15 Plates Removed By Dozer

…and here are the first few nice plates of druse and a nice combo that I pulled from the dirt on the left side of the re-exposed opening….

16 First Combo Pulled Out

…I started working the area to the right of the opening, to lengthen the pocket line and see how far it would expand to the right again, and also started working an area moving toward me from the mouth of the opening that was showing alot of potential in terms of exposed calcite, with the hand rake….

17 Main Pocket Relocated

…and as I did so, the foreground area deepened and another small hole opened up…wasn`t sure if this was going to be a new pocket or a back entrance to the major hole pocket, since I could reach into the hole pocket and reach around to my left at a 90 degree angle….

18 Another Pocket or Back Entrance

…I took a break and checked on Docia to see how she was doing and she told me her pocket was expanding quite a bit, she had reached in up to her shoulders and still couldn`t reach the back of the pocket, she had dug out the length of her legs and hadn`t reached the back of it yet either, and she showed me that it had widened out at the mouth of it this far….

19 Docia`s Pocket Now This Big

…so I decided to take a break and stretch my legs and walk over to see how her pocket looked now….

20 Docia`s Pocket Keeps Expanding

…and see how many nice crystals she had pulled out of it so far….

21 Docia`s Initial Crystals

…I walked back over to my pockets and took an overall photo of the progress I had made so far…the relocated hole pocket opening in the bottom right hand corner, and the expanding pockets moving to the left and around the backside even….

22 Crystals Pulled From Around Hole

 

…I was pulling crystals galore out of both areas and then I started working on the right expansion of the hole pocket as well, finding even more of a bluff line of druse hanging upside down with poker chips attacked to them and another pocket opening up on the right side of the bluff line too.

24 Expanding Hole to Right

 

After working the right side a bit, I decided to work on the hole opening on the left and see if I could get some of the druse roof plates down without too much damage to the poker chips attached to them…always more difficult when the thickness of the rock is so great and you have to use a sledge hammer and chisel to knock them loose…chances are the poker chips are going to knock loose as well and fall off, or there is a chance the whole thing could fall to the floor of the pocket and damage crystals on the bottom floor or cause damage to the crystals when they strike the other crystals on the way down….I stuffed a couple of blue bags inside and under the roof plates to minimize any damage and then set about hammering the roof plates out…

26 Bringing Down The Roof

 

…as I suspected they would, they came down in several pieces, but I was able to salvage some nice combos despite how it looks above…

27 Combo Roof Plate

 

…and one in particular came out with several poker chips attached to it just fine, with minimal damage, so I was very happy to see that….

28 Me With 1 of Nicer Roof Plates

 

…I set my camera down in the pocket and activated the flash to give you an idea of what remained inside it…..

29 Inside the Hole Pocket

 

…and the next photo shows the progress I have made since then, with the hole pocket now expanded with the removal of the roof plates and some of the crystals and plates up on top piled up….

30 Roof Plates and Crystals

 

…and a couple more of the roof plates that came out with little damage….

32 Combos From Roof

 

…I took another break and then while moving around, found yet another spot with some potential showing, not far behind the hole pocket and started digging down and raking back the rocks and dirt until I exposed another ledge…..

33 3rd Pocket Found

 

…and after cleaning out the hole pocket a bit more, I started working on the ledge pocket…

33 3rd Pocket Found

 

…for some reason, I didn`t photograph that ledge plate after pulling it up…either it wasn`t pretty or I just forgot….but underneath it and off to either side, I found three more pockets chock full of crystals…

35 3rd Pocket Expands

36 Crystals Popping Up

Well the next thing you know, this pocket is moving to the right and to the left on me, by way of a small trench, and I was pulling both small plates and large crystals out right and left in the trenches and in both of these small pockets, and they were tightly packed in there, too.

38 Pocket Expands Into 3

 

The next 2 photos show a few of the crystals and a combo plate,  coming out of here…

41 Crystals From Last Pockets

 

42 Combo Found in Last Pockets

 

 

…while the next photo shows me working my way down the trench which widened out almost into a ditch line and shows crystals just hanging around in the mix of dirt and rock, like taters in a big pot of stew just waiting to be plucked out…

43 Crystals In the Mix

 

…and here are a few of those crystals after I pulled them out of the stew mix….

44 Crystals From Pockets

 

..and as you can see, the trench started forming bluff sides, plates of druse and chips hanging upside down, or just druse plates, and there were chips all over the place underneath and in between them as well….

45 Crystals All Over

 

…one of those plates turned out to be this nice cluster combo of poker chips all over a small area of druse….

46 A Nice Cluster

 

…as well as a few other nice large plates of druse or druse and poker chip combos, as well as some nice large poker chip crystals alone…and this nice combo of druse and poker chips was the next one to pop out along the sides of the pocket trench….I usually find these plates as part of the roofline of a pocket, but in this case they were lining the sides of this trench filled with crystals and plates. I wasnt complaining at all, I was having way too much fun pulling them out and admiring them as they seemed to be coming out of their without damage for once…

48 Another Nice Combo

…there was much fun in the hunt as I often hear about…and soon after, I popped out yet another nice cluster.…and soon enough, the trench led to this last pocket of crystals and bluff plates….

 

50 Crystals Up Close

 

53 Crystals In the Mix

 

…where I found this nice little palm sized guy…

54 Nice Cluster Found Last

 

…and here the pocket ended with this haul of nice crystals and plates….

51 Crystals Plates and Clusters

 

…all in all, a very nice day and just as I arrived home, I pulled off the highway and snapped this beautiful sunset….

55 Nice Sunset End of Day

 

…perfect ending to a great day of collecting…

56 Nice Sunset End of Day

 

Leave a Reply