Crystal Pockets at Lake George

Warmest day of the season up at Lake George this year with only a few mounds of snow in the deep woods, the ticks, spiders and ants appear to be thriving in the mid spring sunshine. While earlier in the week I found a nice starter pocket today was a little more exciting. We walked for about a mile or so into the hills and I reworked the pocket I had found a couple days earlier. I worked the downhill portion of the old pocket and after picking up a few crystals I determined the spot was finished.  I prospected a little further around the hill probing a couple of old digs when I noticed someone long ago had dug a narrow trench up a hill and stopped.  At the point where they stopped there appeared to be a fairly quartz laden pegmatite. I stuck my pick axe in a few times and decided to continue up the hill as the pegmatite seemed promising.

A new dig begins!

 After about 15 minutes I started picking up small crystals and a few poorly formed plates with microcline and smokys. I liked the way this pegmatite was running up the hill and the crystals seemed to be without the iron mineral deposits present in the previous pocket. As I continued along the pegmatite I noticed red dirt/clay appearing and was sure I was running into a pocket. The scree and clay started to give way to larger rocks which revealed themselves to be crystal plates.

Smokys appearing in pocket wall

I continued finding crystals for the next 3 hours along with approximately 8 plates of smokys and microcline.

Plate #1

Plate #2

I found a couple of nice plates and one interesting bevino microcline with an attached smoky quartz crystal which proved to be the find of the day

Bevino microcline with accompanying smoky quartz

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When crystals show up rock hounds swarm to the area :-)

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