May Trip to Lake George some Smoky Quartz CSMS

Well, I'm running out of titles for my blog posts so unless I find something special or opine on something other than what I've already discussed the titles will be somewhat uninformative. Anyways I returned to Lake George and planned on doing some prospecting. This particular day I prospected for only about 15 minutes before exposing some smoky quartz shards really close to the surface. Not sure I've ever found so much quartz with such little accompanying pegmatite. I expect the pegmatite that was host to this quartz just crumbled away over the eons and all that was left was the stronger/solid quartz. I called my digging partner Bob over to check it out as I was finding smoky quartz pieces with faces. Bob immediately got to work on the same knoll and hit a better-formed pegmatite and found some amazonite. While I wouldn't say either of us found any trophys, we enjoyed the day and found a few crystals to take home.

Digging through some kinnikinnick

Quartz shards appearing in the dirt, or is it more than just a shard? See below.

More than a shard, best of the lot (see pic above), a nice cathedral crystal (Bob digging out a peg in the background) This crystal grouping, only about 6 inches below the surface was in amazingly good shape!

Rock Hounding at Lake George

A View Of The Tarryalls... Will Winter Ever End?

Still snow up at Lake George. We had a recent 10 inch dump of snow last weekend and there is still a bit of snow lying about. While rock hounding at Lake George today we got some graupel, but no accumulating snow. Not exactly a Chamber of Commerce day up there, but it was good to get out. Flowers continue to bloom despite the weather. Digging was a little wet this day, but having been away for a few days due to illness I decided I was well enough to dig crystals!

We also saw some elk, but they were too far away for pictures. After scratching away at some pegmatites, Bob (digging partner) hit a promising seam. Small crystals started popping out of the ground, so I stopped prospecting and lent Bob a hand. Bob didn't need the help, but handed me one of his scratching tools as he knows it's almost as much fun seeing the crystals come out of the ground as digging them for yourself. We got over 50 smokys out of the ground and a number of small plates with smokys and microcline. There was nothing exceptional about this pocket, but a day in the mountains digging crystals beats just about anything else I know. I've attached a few pictures of the diggings. Everything is pretty much fresh out of the ground.

Iron infused dirt/clay with crystal definition showing in pocket

Small plate with smokys and microcline evident on piece of pegmatite

Interesting grouping of microcline

Fairly shallow pocket about 1.5 feet to bottom finished

A Return to Lake George

Now that all the snow has melted and the frost is out of the ground we decided to check out some of our crystal sites at Lake George. The winds had blown hard the previous week, so we came prepared with chainsaw in hand to clear the roads. Nobody seems to maintain these forest roads, most folks just try and find a way around down trees and create new roads. I'm not looking for a thank-you from the Bureau of Land Management or the National Forest Service, but I would think some of the folks who live in the area would bring a chainsaw instead of continually driving around the trees making new roads. On the other hand there are probably some rules prohibiting folks from cutting trees in the National Forest with out a permit whether they are blocking a road or not; however, there are also rules about staying on the road, so there you go. A couple of years ago we took out over 20 trees blocking the road. Today it was only about 8 trees fallen over the road. If you go to Lake George on a breezy day and venture out onto the forest roads, you may want to take a chainsaw or at least a sturdy rope if you plan to get home.

Looking up the road towards my SUV

I think Bob enjoys doing roadwork as much as he does finding crystals

After clearing the road we found we still have time to look for crystals. While prospecting the ground for crystal forms and pegmatites, one can not help but see the beauty of nature. It seems there was snow here only a couple of weeks ago, but the cactus are already in full bloom

Best Gems I Found This Day

Anyway, I finally found a promising seam of amazonite to prospect. I followed it for a couple of hours, but none of the crystals really panned out as they were all subhedral. Still it was good to get out and I guess we freed up the roads for everyone else.... you're welcome.

Subhedral Amazonite and Quartz Crystals From Pegmatite