Rockhounding the Rockies: Trick or Treat Pocket 29 Oct -- 6 Nov 2022. Rockhounding the Lake George intrusive area of the Pikes Peak Batholith

No wildfires near Lake George, CO this fall. Controlled burns like this one can produce a lot of irritating smoke

While we were in the midst of fall, winter was rapidly approaching. I hoped to score a pocket before the onset of winter. I had been prospecting an area that was dug up a lot in the past, but I figured nobody gets it all. I started checking out some old digs and found a bit of mineralization (sign) between two digs. There was a dig up the hill from me, but it was at least 20 feet above me. I decided to give the spot a try. I soon hit some grey quartz and then a microcline crystal.

Nice size smoky popped out

I took the microcline crystal in hand and decided to see if I could find my digging partner Bob. Bob was about 100 yards away from me, but I needed to stretch my legs. I found Bob digging in a well mineralized pegmatite, but with little to no crystals forthcoming. After showing Bob the pieces I was finding, I wished him luck and walked back to my dig. We often check on each other while we dig. It was about 1PM and I figured I better get cracking if I was going to find and harvest a pocket.

I got back to my dig and continued following the quartz up the hill. I was digging fairly shallow, but the sign was good and I continued to follow quartz up and into the hill. The quartz was slowly getting better with white quartz turning to grey and some crystal faces now appearing. I just pulled out my first quartz crystal and Bob appeared over the hill. I was now about 5 feet into the hill and 3 feet down. Bob sat down to watch the developing "show". Below shows the extraction of a microcline crystal.

Soon I was digging out smoky quartz crystals with size. After 2.5 hours of digging I decided to take a break and handed over my tools to Bob. I began to wrap what I had found. Suddenly Bob interrupted my wrapping saying, "you're going to have to take this piece out yourself". It appeared to be a plate of crystals. The only thing showing was the butt of the plate and a microcline hanging down into the bottom of the pocket. Despite daylight beginning to wane I decided it would be better to spend some time taking out the right side of the pocket before I went after the plate in the back. Fortunately, the sides of the pocket were separated from the surrounding country rock, so pocket extraction was not too difficult. I worked my way towards the back of the pocket carefully pulling crystals away from edges. I was now laying on my stomach trying to get at the plate. It was finally time to reach into the back of the pocket to pull out the anticipated plate of crystals. I was able to stick a hooked screwdriver behind the plate and slow move the plate directly out of the pocket. The bottom/back of the plate faced me, so I didn't really know what I had. I slowly crawled/backed out of the hole on my knees and elbows like some kind of crippled crab. Finally, I extricated myself from the pocket and held the plate up in my hands for Bob to see. From the look in his eyes, I knew I had something special. I sat up, flipped the plate around and knew I had a nice keeper.

Doesn't look like much, but a lot of work needs to be done.
See picture at end for the near finished product.

I thanked Bob for letting me take out the plate and staying to help me. The last thing I did was remove all the loose debris around the spot where the plate had been, in case there might be any fits to the plate. With bad weather forecast to move in the next day I decided to bury the remains of the pocket and head home. I wasn't sure when I would be able to return and harvest the rest of the pocket.

A few days later I did return to the site and mucked out the dig. A bit of snow had fallen, and the ground was frozen to about 6 inches. I carefully removed the debris I had dumped into the pocket and began extracting crystals once again. I didn't find any plates this time but did find a rather large microcline at the bottom of the pocket. I spent the entire day excavating the pocket and kept finding interesting albeit smaller crystals. A short video below details some of the action

Bob always says there is at least one good crystal in each pocket. I counted about 5 very collectible crystals and a crystal plate that would find its way into one of my mineral cases. I wrapped up my crystals and figured I was 99% done with this pocket. I would return to this spot one more time to inspect the remains of the pocket for any missed gems and then remediate the area.

Third trip back to the pocket. I had one area on the left side of my dig which was yielding microcline. It was over 5 feet down in the ground. There was a void, and I was able to pull out some small single microcline crystals. In order to further access this void I would have to remove about 2 square yards of rock and debris... no thanks. I'd removed the quartz seam producing the smokys that ran right through the center of the dig. Very little if any quartz was found in the void, so I decided it was time to fill in the hole.

Time to remediate the dig

When I got home the first thing I did was rinse and then sort my finds. All microclines went in one pile and all quartz in another. Next I decided to look for fits to my plate of crystals. Immediately I recognized that some rehealing of broken crystals had taken place. Fitting rehealed crystals that had broken off the plate may be next to impossible. I refer to rehealed crystals as those that have a secondary layer of quartz over the broken areas. I then divided the crystals into small, medium, large and rehealed crystals. There was also a lot of manganese mineralization (gunk) clinging to many of the crystals and some fluoride also mucking up my finds. I also found some small, shattered fluorite crystals in some of the debris I took home to analyze.

After doing an initial cleaning I noted the microcline do have a slight bluish tint to them. Not sure the color is strong enough for the microcline to be considered amazonite. Oh well, I still have many keepers and bragging rights to an end of season hurrah! See more pictures below.

Pictured below is the large plate cleaned and reconstructed. Seven separate fits were found to the plate. The importance of taking odds and end pieces home for further analysis and possible inclusion in other pieces (plate) can provide considerable enhancement to a collected specimen.

One final cleaning and a couple of small fits will complete this plate (12.5 lbs). I found the
sheared piece of microcline (right center microcline front), so that should help the look of the piece.