Rockhounding the Rockies: August 2013

This Deer Witnessed the Entire Afternoons Activities From A Seemingly Close Proximity

Family illnesses and death, US24 highway mud closures and threatened closures have put a damper on rock hounding in August. I finally got out for a day with my nephew Andrew and Bob after a nearly month long break. It is good to get away from life's worries, share some time with others and pound on rocks for awhile. It turned out to be an extraordinary day as all three of us were successful finding crystals. My nephew Andrew is new to rock hounding, so I outfitted and helped him in our crystal pursuit. We set out early and had some quick success, but Bob's afternoon find won the day. Andrew and I started out digging an area I had started nearly a month ago. The pegmatite showed promise with a lot of smoky quartz chunks (subhedral), but few crystals. Andrew hit a seam and began gathering up small crystals. I found some fairly large smoky quartz crystal shards which eventually led to a few keepers. I found numerous microcline plates some of which were etched. Joe Doris (Prospector Show Fame) told me once that he usually wasn't happy to find fluorite because it seems to have negative effects on collocated amazonite. Having found etched microcline I decided to keep an eye out for fluorite. Sure enough I soon found massive fluorite. After digging around the pegmatite for much of the morning I finally found some better formed fluorite (see picture). There was a doe about 20 yards away from my dig which kept a wary on us but wasn't inclined to move. She sat there for at least 4 hours. I would pop my head up out of the dig and she would flatten her ears and stare at me. After feeling we had just about finished our dig we got a call from Bob advising us of his find, so up the hill we went. We find two-way radios helpful when digging in different areas. While I couldn't see Bob, he was able to vector us to his site by use of the radio. I thought I was in fair shape but Andrew quickly outdistanced me as I zig zagged my way up the hill and Andrew went straight up. Bob had tracked some float up a hill to a pegmatite which was below the surface by only inches. There were not many digs nearby, so this may be a fairly productive/untouched area. Bob probably found over 200 crystals ranging in size from 1-4 inches. Many of the desirable crystals were associated with microcline on pegmatite plates. There were also doubly terminated crystals mixed in. It was quite a day for all of us so much so that we stayed well past our normal departure time.