2021 Year of Rockhounding in Colorado

 I have not posted to my blog in 2021 because I did not go rock hounding much.  Normally I might go 40 times a year, but this year only about 6 times. Many trips I had planned were canceled.  A number of factors contributed to my inability to rock-hound. The worst thing that happened was a severe accident for my wife which caused me to be her caregiver for nearly 3 months.  She is back to 90% and healing well.

I did not take any notes during my trips, but will rely on a few pictures I took to refresh my memories for this post.  Despite Covid, I did attend 3 rock shows.  All shows were downscaled considerably from the normal events.  I attended the Tucson Show (Apr), Denver Show (Sep) and Colorado Springs (Oct).  I would say I had the most fun at the Tucson Show, plenty of interesting material and smaller crowds.  I always purchase a few items for resale at this show and picked up some nice amethyst clusters from Veracruz, Mexico.  Purchased a garnet from Brazil.  Got an aquamarine on matrix from Pakistan along with some other fluorite specimens pictured below.

Both of these fluorite specimens are from Mexico and were purchased at the Tucson Show.  The fluorite pictured to the right has a layer of hematite encasing the cubes along with some associated barite sprinkled along the edges. 

 Austin Cockell cornered much of the market on some interesting fluorescing fluorite and so I purchased one fluorite from him seen below.  Under longwave light the fluorite produces a brilliant red color.

Veracruz amethyst I purchased... many double terminations to ogle

I rock hounded a bit in the month of June and then in October.  Most of the summer I kept busy running to the hospital and then driving my wife to various appointments.  I recall finding two pockets of crystals which isn't bad for only going out 6 times.  One of my favorite finds of the year was a float crystal in the middle of a remediated area

This area had probably been remediated more than 10 years ago as there were small trees growing in the area.  It was an older claim we had permission to be on and after not finding anything I was walking back to my truck and saw this smoky in the dirt.  A nice 3 inch smoky with rehealing and some onegites attached to the sides.  A keeper in my book.

Next few times out in June, I went with my friend Bob to various places in the Lake George area and found one pocket of smoky quartz crystals.  Years ago I  found a pegmatite that yielded some twinned microcline and quartz crystals so I walked down the hill along this pegmatite looking for sign of a crystal pocket.  I noticed some shards of smoky quartz and dug in.  It didn't take me long to find some larger smoky shards up to 5" in length, but no complete crystals.  I continued digging up the hill at about a depth of 1 foot. I noticed a slight change in soil color off to the side and dug into that.  I was rewarded with about 10 crystals.  Many of these crystals have issues like overgrowth, fracturing and damage, but the fun is in the finding.  I continued digging and found a few malformed microcline, but the quartz had really dwindled. My next find was more substantial and included some amazonite.

Not the most desirable smokys  :-)

 I went to an area that had been dug before, but my eye caught some really nice color of amazonite.  I often dig around old digs to see if the previous rock hound missed anything.  This time I was rewarded. I dug next to the dig on a line I thought the pegmatite should run and overturned a fairly large rock.  Under the rock were microcline crystals, not amazonite but just plain microcline.  As I dug out the microcline I found one smoky quartz crystal, all by itself.  I noticed the microcline went down so I followed it about 2 feet into the ground.  Then I started finding some quartz crystal shards so I continued on.  The ground got softer, changed color and opened up into a nice pocket of smoky quartz crystals with microcline about 4 feet into the ground.  But wait, after scrubbing the microcline I did notice a faint blue color on the x-faces (tops) of the crystals.  I guess I can call it amazonite.  Digging further down I found some destroyed plates which once held many crystals. As I neared the bottom of the softer dirt/clay I began to run into one of my old friends, well formed pseudomorphs of goethite/limonite after calcite or other carbonate.  Cleaning out the bottom I found a large pseudo with many crystals embedded in it (see pic). 

                                  My hog turd--big hog

I carefully removed this piece and noted it was directly below the damaged crystal plate I found earlier in the dig.  I guess many of those sheared off crystals in the pseudo were from the damaged plate I found above the pseudo.  Little more than an oddity/curiosity.  I think in the Prospectors Show they would have called it a hog turd.  lol.  Finishing up the pocket I dug all around it to make sure I didn't miss anything.  There was a small crevice in the pegmatite which held a few more smaller crystals, but nothing greater than 2 inches.  When I got home that evening I found my wife had been hospitalized due to an accident and I didn't return to the digging area for 3 months.  I got out once or twice in October before the ground froze and can't say as I found anything memorable.  This year was somewhat forgettable but 2022 is just around the corner 😊 

Coming soon, 2 new 2022 posts on a large find in the Pikes Peak Batholith and a very productive trip to Hallelujah Junction, CA.