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…

Docia and I returned to the secret spot yesterday, four weeks since we had last dug there, and anxious to see what new treasures we could unearth and add to our collections.  As Missy and I were driving down the interstate, we saw a westbound train hauling what appeared to be ten Bradley Tanks….

Docia and I met at our favorite location about 8 am and drove down to the lower area to find that an even larger area had been exposed by heavy equipment and dug out for the clay mixture of rock and dirt…we still have no clue what they are taking it out and using it for, it still looks like a landing strip for ET….

We walked around the new area, but decided since the sun wasn`t above us yet, it would make finding anything sparkly difficult, so we drove on down to our favorite spot and began looking for pockets, or I should say I did…Docia decided to investigate her last big pocket there for more dogtooth calcite crystals…

so I walked back to the back looking for signs of poker chips, found a likely spot, and sat down to dig down and see what I could find.  I should also back up here and say that Docia found me a nice mini mattox while I was down in Kentucky…I have been looking high and low for one, couldnt locate one at Lowe`s, or Orschelin`s, or even Walmart, dont know where she found it but I very much appreciate it. It def makes it easier to move alot of rock and dirt around. Here is where I started my day out…

I began digging down and soon discovered that my pocket was going to be one of those subterannean pockets, it was down at least ten inches if not more, and while a ledge seemed to appear on both of the horizonal sides, the chips started appearing under the ledge and then up in behind the ledge as well…I wasnt finding any druse plates to speak of either, just some boring gray and red shale with icky clay mud attached to it. Thats what I dug down into at first until I found the first chip about a foot down…

..then I started finding some crystals laying at the bottom and those led me to the pocket sides and weird ledges with crystals tucked under and behind them…

…so my pocket size continued to expand from side to side and grew in size within minutes, as I was finding pocket after pocket on the sides all the way around the hole…

I kept looping back to the main pocket though, as its the one that looked to be deep, and as I came back to it each time, I was seeing this nice cluster of poker chips and druse at the entrance, and it kept looking like it might break loose on its own…here it is in the upper left hand corner….

and here is my pocket from the end where I started digging, showing the other end which appears to be the pocket headed for the deep…

and a few of the combos I have already found in the pockets so far…

..and gray druse plates that have come from the pocket so far as well….

As I was digging along, Docia decided to take a break from all the heavy pounding on the sledge hammer liberating more dogtooth crystals, and walked over to the wall behind me and right away, discovered a pocket of poker chip crystals….

You can see the crystals inside the pocket under the heavy plates of druse and some are even attached to the druse…this was a good find for Docia…she spent a few minutes removing the overhang and then started gently digging in and removing some beautiful crystals…

and here are some of the crystals she removed from this pocket….

and some of her finds including the chunks of druse with chips attached to them…

So then I returned to my pocket, after that short break which really helped my back and legs a bit…and as you can see, my pocket has expanded a bit….

…so I began digging again, this time concentrating on the nice big druse/chip combo at the entrance to the deep pocket and I was fortunate that it decided to break away on its own…less damage for me to inflict…

and I dug out a few of the plates of shale at the entrance to the pocket, there was actually a small mountain of it piled there…and then set my camera down and took a photo of the pocket, to get an idea of how deep it was…

needless to say, that really didnt help tell me anything about the depth of it at all, due to so many pieces of shale in the way even further back, and the dome of rock on top of the pocket was so thick, after about five minutes of chipping away, I could tell it was going to take me all day or I would need a jackhammer, both of which I couldnt afford, so I started pulling what I oculd out of the pocket from where I was sitting, reaching in and feeling around with my hands…the first few out looked like this….

…after a few minutes of this, it became quite apparent to me that this pocket was extending back at least thirty six inches deep, if not more…underneath and behind me…so I decided to lay down on my stomach and reach back into the pocket….

..this gave me more leverage, but I had to pull myself forward to hold on with my right hand here, for balance, while reaching back with my left hand into the pocket, and once I had my hand back in there, I had to twist around in order to feel for crystals on the sides and back and floor of the pocket…pulling whatever was loose out and setting it in front of me and then reaching back for more again…a process that required about thirty minutes as that pocket became deeper and kept going further back on me…by the time I finished cleaning it out, what I could reach inside it that is, I would guestimate it was at least four feet back and prob kept going, I know I never did touch the back wall of it…here is the pile of crystals in front of me that kept growing and growing, there are even some twins in there….

and a few of the clusters I pulled from the pocket as well….

and…

..I got out of the hole and decided to stretch my legs and fill my bags and wrap the really nice ones up…and took a look at the other side where I first began, and saw crystals under a ledge there too, so I started digging and soon after, a fourth pocket opened up in the same original hole I started in….

After filling my bags and walking them to the truck, I decided to try one last place…Docia drove up to the new place to look for druse plates, so I started digging in the place I had dug in four weeks ago….

..and I only found one small pocket with just a few poker chip crystals inside….

and on the way home, I spotted some beautiful fall foliage…another reminder of why this is my favorite time of the year.

I did a little cleaning this afternoon, helped me work out alot of my sore muscles from digging yesterday, maybe I wont need as much tylenol tonight. Enjoy the results :

this is a pretty druse chunk Docia and I found up on the overburden pile….pretty smokey colored druse bubbles…my fave color in druse.

these next three photos show the cluster I pulled from the entrance to the deep pocket yesterday when it finally broke free on its own….

and the next two came from Docia`s pockets, some she didnt choose to take home with her…

the rest of these goodies came from my pocket…