It
was a rather humid day and thundershowers were expected for later in the
day. The prior days forecast mentioned
thunderstorms developing over the Colorado Front Range around 3PM and the early
morning forecast set back the timing of the storms to 5PM. Storms were not expected to be severe, except
for some isolated heavy rains. A few years ago the Hayman fire stripped the
forest of overgrowth which makes the forest along Ute Pass susceptible to mud & rock slides onto US-24. A couple weeks ago I got trapped in the pass due to a
rockslide and had to wait for the road to be cleared by front end loaders. A couple years ago I waited nearly 3 hours
for the road to be cleared of debris prior to its reopening. As I was rock hounding at Lake George I found
some interesting goethite and smoky quartz float crystals. One very large goethite spray is surrounding
some smoky quartz crystals and is an exceptional specimen in my opinion.
After finding this specimen near the surface
I decided to dig around the area a bit further and deeper and dumbed into a pegmatite with
large grained quartz about 2 feet below the surface. I decided this peg needed further inspection
and so I dug up a few feet of this pegmatite to see what way it was traveling underground and see what it might contain. After an hour or so I started to get smoky
quartz faces on some of the pegmatite pieces and then some rather large crystal
fragments. I hadn’t found a crystal
point so I wasn’t sure there was much there but as soon as I hit a crease of
yellowish-brown mud some quartz points appeared and a small crystal pocket
opened up.
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| 3" smoky for size from pocket. Couple smokys at bottom of goethite spray Usually smokys in goethite are more embedded than this... I like it! |
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| Turned out to be very expensive smokys! |
I was getting some fairly
large smoky quartz shards but the complete crystals were few and far between. For the
most part the crystals were about 1” except for the one pictured above. As
I was digging out the pocket I found some small fluorite but unfortunately they were not attached to any of the pegmatite or smokys. It was 1:30PM and the sky was beginning to darken to the north. I
mentioned to my digging partner Bob that it had been thundering for nearly a
half hour and if we want to get down Ute pass before it might get closed we should
pack things up for the day. I wrapped my
meager lot of crystals and headed back to the truck. One hour later. We stayed dry until we got about half-way
down the pass and then the hail began to fall.
I looked for a place to pull off the road for cover but there were
really no options. I slowed my speed,
put on my flashers and eventually got off the highway and waited under a willow
tree for shelter. As I left the highway
another 5 vehicles followed me off the road.
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| I don't care for these ice crystals too much |
I waited about 15 minutes until the hail diminished in size and the
storm appeared to ease off some. So 2”
hail is definitely severe weather and it started around 3PM, but oh well I
didn’t pay too much for that misguided weather forecast, or did I? I should have stuck with the prior day's weather forecast. We finally resumed going down the pass. We spent
another 30 minutes or so driving thru the hail and eventually within about 5
miles of home the hail quit and changed to rain. Time for me to start making my own weather forecasts again I guess. National Weather Service can't seem to get it right very often.
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| Trying to take a little cover off the road under a tree to no avail. Crack in windshield spreading and car getting totaled. |
While my windshield held for the most part, the rest of my
vehicle got turned into what looks like a very large dimpled golf ball. My vehicle is 10 years old with 114,000 miles
and I like it a lot but depending on what my insurance company says I may
decide to get a new one. The insurance
claim has been filed. The weather
forecast for tomorrow is for severe weather and I’ve decided to stay home… we
shall see. Sigh. Turned out to be sunny, 75 and no rain... go figure.
Most appreciated comments
1) You know if we would have left L George 30 minutes later we probably could have avoided this
2) Oh that doesn't look too bad
3) It if gets totaled I wouldn't mind buying it from you if I can get a discount
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