A Return to Silverton Colorado 28 Sep 2018 #rockhounding #amethyst #quartz

 After 10 years of a pitted windshield, cracks running thru my vision everywhere, some hailstones destroyed my old 4-Runner.  Seemed like an expensive way to get to see thru my windshield, but I like this ride better too

After a fairly successful rockhounding trip to the Silverton area in July (see post 7/23/18)  my rock hounding buddy, Austin and I decided to return to the same sites near Silverton, CO that we had previously visited. We hoped for another crystal score. I finally got a replacement Tacoma for the 4-Runner that was totaled the previous month, so I decided it was time for a road trip. We coordinated our visit with a geologist friend, Raj in Durango who discovered the crystal rich site earlier in the year, and told us to come on out. I was a little concerned about a late September trip into the mountains but Mother Nature gave us a break this time. We set off west from Colorado Springs towards Silverton, Colorado and made a stop at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (BCG NP) between Montrose and Gunnison Colorado. 

          We took in the sites at BCG NP as a ranger explained how the canyon was carved out of granite over a period of millions of years. The canyon is actually the 2^nd deepest canyon in US outside of the Grand Canyon, AZ. 

One of several canyon overlooks, I went as close to the edge
as I dared

At one point the rim of this canyon is more than 2,500 feet above the canyon floor.  Austin kept telling me to take one more step back so he could get a better picture of me... I think he wants my truck :-)  If you get a chance to see BCG NP it’s worth a stop. We took a few pictures and continued on our way to Silverton, CO.  We stopped at a rock shop in Montrose and Austin favored a couple specimens but we left empty handed promising to return on our way home.  The owner of the store talked about some tourmaline he got from a prospector near Gunnison, but had left the material at his home in Delta, CO.  We saw similar material later on in a rock store in Ouray. We passed on that too.

     We arrived at Silverton around 5PM as the sun was getting ready to set behind the mountains. I decided our priority was to get our campsite ready while we could still see.  Austin was in a hurry to see the dig site, and I knew if we went to the dig site first, the sun would be down before we'd have a chance to set up the tent. 

View of the mountains from our camp site

The campsite was put in order fairly quickly, I think Austin got the tent up in 5 minutes!  After a 10 minute walk we found the dig site much as we had left it a couple months ago. At the end of the trench where we had previously dug, folks had probably dug another 15 feet or so along the quartz seam.  Austin jumped into the trench and found some crystals right where the previous digger had left off.  A broken plate and some small crystals were laying there ripe for the taking.  We went back to the campsite assured there would be plenty of crystals to dig the next day. Austin built a fire while I got out the camp stove to cook up some BBQ.  It seemed like Austin's campfire smoke followed me wherever I went.  The next day we were anxious to get started so we just heated up some oatmeal and hiked over to the dig site.  Austin jumped into the hole and he was quickly pulling out some fairly nice specimens.  He lined up some nice crystal plates near the top of the dig and showed me a couple of the larger groupings he was finding. 

Austin's big plate

The plates looked good and I recommended that we not clean the mud off the crystals until we got home to protect the crystal points.  Of course Austin was curious to see that the terminations were sound so the mud came off. 

Austin continued to work the end of the trench while I searched for a vug/spot further along the quartzite outcropping to dig in.  Since Austin had no hard rock tools I shared my chisel, crack hammer, pry bar and sledge hammer.  I assisted him when he needed to remove larger boulders blocking his efforts.
     Around 9:30 I heard some noise in the woods above us, and the real fun was about to begin. I noticed a figure walking down the hill towards us and alerted Austin. I wasn’t too concerned about having a problem with anyone as this was public land and we had coordinated our visit with the geologist who found the site. However, I quickly pulled Austin’s jacket over the pile of better crystals and plates he had found.  If this was the guy that dug the hole there is no reason to get him too upset over the nicer stuff we had already found. Plus he might not leave if he saw what we pulled out. Our visitor (Hans) was a bit distressed and claimed he had worked the site with his friend Franz the day before, and had opened up the pocket Austin was working in. Hans went on to let us know he couldn't sleep the night before thinking of all the wonderful crystals that could be in his pocket.  Well, now he saw what was in the pocket as Austin had lined up several specimens above the pocket, except of course for the better pieces I had covered up with Austin’s jacket. We told Hans that we had scheduled our visit 3 weeks earlier with our geologist friend Raj, who had discovered the area, and we had been working the site since 8AM.  I had little sympathy for Hans as he failed to coordinate his visit with the geologist, had not finished the pocket he had opened the previous day, and initially accused us of trespassing on his spot (public land) and later said something about running us off. We then told Hans we had coordinated our trip with Raj, the geologist who had discovered the site.  The end result was Austin gave Hans a couple nice pieces from the pocket. Hans then showed me where he had stashed his tools to work on the pocket, and permitted us to use his tools if  we might need them. Hans then left.  We continued to dig for several more hours until Austin uncovered a fairly large boulder with crystals on it’s side. Austin told me I could work the seam and keep what I found if I would help him remove a large boulder.  As we removed the boulder I noticed there were some crystals underneath it so I figured I would be taking something home. I found a fairly large crystal attached to a plate. I dug back into the rock as 

Fairly nice crystal plate in hand

far as I could before I broke the plate off the quartzite. I carefully pulled out the plate, but when Austin saw the plate he pulled a Sméagol on me and decided he wanted this precious crystal for his own. Austin did give me a fairly large crystal for my efforts though not the plate I had dug out.  I told Austin that I thought the day's find was worth $5K. I mentioned that Austin should give the pocket a name.  Every large pocket that I find I usually name. I suggested "Hans' Regret", Austin didn't think that was funny... oh well. At the end of the day Austin's friend, Raj showed up, and seemed amazed at what we had found.

     The plan for our trip as I understood it, was to spend one day at the milky quartz site and another day at an amethyst area on the top of a mountain.  I had told Austin I wasn’t interested in hiking up to the amethyst area and would prefer to just work the quartz site near the camp site, and he could drive up with Raj and  hike up the mountain for the amethyst.  That evening I found out that Raj had a camper on the back of his truck and was not planning on taking that off to drive Austin up the mountain to the amethyst site. I changed my plans and decided I would drive everyone up the mountain and then hike to the top as well.  

Marmots getting ready for the coming winter... they left my truck alone

     The next day as I parked my vehicle above tree line, Raj mentioned he had some trouble with marmots chewing on electrical wiring under the hood of his vehicle in the past, so he brought some mothballs and ammonia along to fend off the varmints.  I was glad for his thoughtfulness and dispersed the ammonia round my truck while bags of mothballs were placed in my engine compartment. I’m not very quick at 13,000 feet so it took me awhile to hike to the top.  I knew where I had to end up but I kept losing the sketchy trail on the way. The 20-year olds were long gone by the time I worked my way up the mountain. I had to retrace my steps and rock scramble four different times to get back on the path. Austin checked up on me a couple of times on two-way radios... after all I did have the keys to the truck. Finally I got near the top of the mountain and was told not to crest the hill because there were some claim jumpers on the other side, and Raj didn't want the claim jumpers to see me, and give away the amethyst hole he was working in.

A chilly view east of Silverton, CO

After 20 minutes of waiting in a fairly cold stiff wind I decided Raj could just shoot the claim jumpers if they got too close, I was getting cold. I crested the hill and Austin found me and soon all three of us were digging out some crystals in a fairly large chasm/pit that the geologist had opened up a few weeks earlier.  Austin wandered off and spent most of his time outside the pit gleaning crystals from previous dig sites while I helped Raj muck out the bottom of the pit. Raj gathered up crystals, and crystal plates from the bottom of the pit and then placed them in a plastic bucket and hoisted them up to me.  I dumped out the material from the bucket and gleaned through the muck looking for crystals. The geologist was none too happy that he didn't have a flashlight, but he did the best he could. After an hour or so I found a place in the pit to dig and found a few crystals for myself. At the end of the day the geologist said we would divide up the crystals. First Raj took a few of the finer plates he found and then generously divided up the rest of the stuff we found in the pit.  We found a lot of small pale amethysts along with a few plates of quartz.  With two deteriorated disks in my back it took me longer to get down the mountain than going up (which is why I didn't really want to go up in the first place).  I knew from past experiences that one misstep or slip would really mess up my back, and with the extra weight of rocks I had to be careful.  This is also why I took a pass on lugging down any large crystal plates for myself. Eventually we loaded up the truck and drove back down the mountain.  The marmots had been defeated with ammonia and mothballs and all 3 of us were pleased with our haul. 
    We spent another night at the campsite and listened as some light rain fell throughout the night ruining our plans to revisit our now nearby muddy quartz dig.  

Cleaned Quartz I found in above pic

The next day we slowly traveled back to Colorado Springs stopping at rock shops along the way home. Austin made some trades with Ben who is taking over his father's rock shop in Ouray, Colorado. I purchased a Hardin County, IL fluorite pictured below.  Ben was quite affable as it seemed the cold, wet weather had kept

Fairly nice fluorite backlit by old Sol 

the tourist traffic down this particular morning, so Ben spent quite a bit of time with us. We continued on our way home in a steady rain. When we arrived in Salida I decided I was due for a shower for $5 at the local aquatic center, but that price was too steep for Austin. I told Austin afterward I got a free shower as I looked pretty bad-off to the attendant, and promised not to go into the pool. (haha). Austin wondered why I hadn't gone back to the truck and gotten him for a free shower.  I told him it probably wouldn't have worked for the two of us, especially since I looked more like a homeless person than he did. We stopped at another rock shop in Salida but it was closed, and then checked on a local jeweler. As the trip was winding down I decided we deserved a treat as we had a successful trip and neither one of us had come to blows.  We stopped at a Dairy Queen in Canon City and indulged ourselves with some ice cream. Evidently the secret to making a proper dip cone has never been explained to the DQ folks in Canon City. It looked like they painted the chocolate cover on my dip cone with a spatula. I was just grumpy enough to have them redo it, unfortunately with equally dismal results. I decided I wanted to get home sometime that day so I took my cone to the truck and watched the ice cream melt all over my hand. The ice cream still tasted pretty good.
      Some pictures of the cleaned specimens we found on our recent trip are pictured below.  The one large artichoke quartz to the right appears to have some inclusions under a secondary hooding of quartz which may have encapsulated some manganese. The crystal also has some odd rhombic impressions which I may study a bit more. While the amethyst is pale it makes up for that deficiency in the odd windowing or fenster habit exhibited in nearly all the crystals in excess of 1 inch.  Some of the smaller amethyst have multiple terminations which I also find intriguing.  Austin is already busy selling some of the larger quartz plates to a high end dealer and has promised me some cash for my share of work.

The following weekend snow covered Silverton and it seemed like we got our season ending rock hounding trip in just in time.  At least rock hounding season ended in the high mountains.  We are already itching to go back again but we know that will have to wait until spring. Maybe a NM road trip can be done until the weather warms up.

One week after we left Silverton, here is a view of the outskirts of the town courtesy of CO Dept of Transportation. Brrrrr!

  .