Falling under the Smoky Hawk Spell?

Smoky Hawk and adjoining claims

I have a long relationship with Joe Dorris the owner of the Smoky Hawk claim near Lake George, CO of Prospectors show fame.  Occasionally I will do some small favors for him in order for us to prospect his claims a bit. Joe has a rule to be aware of when digging on his claims that any pocket with combinations of amazonite and smokies you find you must let him see the material. Sometimes he takes the pieces and sometimes he doesn’t depending on the quality of the specimens. From Joe’s business website Pinnacle5: “if you find a combination amazonite and smoky quartz pocket, Joe will retain the pocket (Otherwise, most other pockets you will be allowed to collect and keep.) Joe will attempt to clean the pocket as quickly as possible and give the finder(s) a piece or pieces. Generally, he will return the lesser pieces to the finder(s) as well. If exceptional, and the finder wants, he or she will have first right of refusal on pieces when they become offered for sale” So why do we do it??? For the thrill of the discovery and Joe is very generous with the way he distributes our finds. So I think you know how this story will unfold. hahaha  

I had talked to Joe recently and he was concerned about some high-graders (claim jumpers) hitting his Smoky Hawk and adjacent High Point claims and digging large pits without permission. Another friend of Joe had spotted this problem and reported it. Joe wanted these pits examined and harvested of any remaining crystals before the claim jumpers returned. This is where David and I came into the picture. David was the one who had noticed the large scale diggings and found some topaz (1^st ever on the Smoky Hawk) with good amazonite crystals flung out of a large pit. I arrived at the Smoky Hawk to discuss a couple of issues with Joe but when he asked me if I could help dig out the claim jumped pits with David it sounded like fun to me so I followed David to the pit which he had already mucked out and was starting to look for crystals. I started looking in the claim jumpers tailings and found some keeper specimens while David hunted in the pit for topaz. David found more topaz associated with lots of mica (zinnwaldite) and suggested I join in the fun. Soon I had pulled out a few small topaz and began checking out the rest of the dig.  

A large boulder loomed over the left side of the dig but the right side looked fairly safe to work and had some interesting pegmatite structure.

Large boulder overhead is pretty solid

I pulled away at some of the rock and found the claim jumpers missed quite a bit. Amazonites and smoky quartz were lining the inside of a pocket and a ceiling plate was exposed while the pocket floor was littered with crystal shards. While David gave me credit for finding this new pocket I’m sure given a little more time he would have broken into it as well. With the pocket opening up to the right we quit looking for the small topaz and concentrated on the trophy crystals in front of us. Soon we were pulling out 3 inch amazonites and well terminated smokies--the fun was just beginning. Due to the size of the opening we tag teamed and worked a half hour on and then took a break to wrap or muck out some of the tailing or just take a water break. By noon it became obvious to me that Joe would want to see this stuff so David grabbed a few of the largest amazonite crystals and off we went in search of Joe who was hosting a field trip. Tim, Joe’s son, decided the pieces were good enough to spend some time fitting together. Tim is well known for his ability to fit gem pieces together and find sheared off pieces which can complete a world-class specimen. Yup Joe wanted everything—figured he would after seeing the size and color of the gems. Knowing we wouldn’t take much home from this pocket we still pressed on excited by the hunt. After taking out a few 250lb boulders looming over our heads we resumed digging. Since Tim was going to try and fit things together we spent a little more time wrapping specimens found near each other. Soon after I found a couple whopper amazonites with cleavelandite at their bases I tagged in David who went to work carving out a ceiling plate from the hole. 

David took his time and with care and perseverance pulled out a world-class combination ceiling plate with a central smoky (3 inches) and a base surrounded by cleavelandite and amazonite. We also scooped up many of the shards and small crystals lying beneath the plate so that Tim could do his fitting as necessary. At the end of the day we showed and gave Joe this plate and I suggested it was probably worth upwards of $15K and he didn’t say no. Thunder was rumbling nearby and it was nearly 4PM so we called it a day and both of us decided to return the next day to finish up the dig. I would say we took out well over 200 crystals the first day with many more in sight. I suggested to Tim there could be just as much still in the pocket as what we had already recovered. Impressive!  

Day 2: I arrived the second day just beating a 20 car caravan of field trippers headed in to visit the Smoky Hawk claim. Evidently the Littleton Rock Club had made arrangements to visit the Smoky Hawk. Joe is very generous with groups and gives everyone an explanation of the claim, its geology, a safety talk and opportunities to hunt for crystals.  David and I beat the hoard of crystal hunters in and I believe Joe asked his visitors to stay away from our area as we saw nobody until we were done for the day. Day 2 was very similar to the first day, we expanded the dig and ran into very similar material to what we found the first day. I think some of the single amazonite crystals were even bigger the second day than the first. We didn’t find any killer plates this day, but the quality and size of the crystals were comparable to day 1.  On day 2 we found larger smokies and amazonites than day 1 as we slowly advanced the dig westward down into the hill.  I was somewhat exhausted from the day before and finally called it quits around 2PM. David was still finding a few collectible crystals but the overburden needed to be removed in order to carefully collect anything remaining. Another chamber may still be there but at least two cubic yards of overburden will have to be removed first. We brought another 200 crystals down the hill and met some Littleton field trip participants. Some of the folks were interested to see what we were finding but nobody seemed interesting enough in helping lug the crystals to Joe's truck J.  One gentlemen from the field trip showed me a very fine penetrating twin purple fluorite he dug up, he recognized me from this blog and complimented me on my posts. Thanks for your interest sir!  I gave Joe a couple more topaz I had found in the pocket along with another 200 

crystals or so from our days work. Quite a find. Joe invited David and I to watch while Tim ran his track hoe on the claim where he had a few field trippers looking for gems. After wrapping a few crystals for Joe I decided I had enough and left for home. Two days at near 9000ft digging out scree and moving 250+lb boulders is more work than I’m used to. This was probably one of the best digs I’ve ever participated in. Thanks to Joe and a big thanks to David for his initial discovery and graciously partnering with me in working this world-class pocket! 

Here are some field cleaned crystals ready for Joe and Tim to do their thing, not sure when or if I'll ever see them again, but I got to pull them out of the ground and made first discovery!

It appears many of the amazonites are etched due to the volatile fluids in the pocket that created the topaz                    

Here's the way Joe and Tim do it... beats the heck out of a pick axe and shovel .