Here are some of those crunchy Garnets.

Sweet Garnets and great color!! Very cool indeed!

Sunday, July 10th.

I Had a Great day digging Crystals this weekend. In fact, it was possibly my best day ever. I had to stay in close to home because I had to turn in my truck on Sunday for more repairs. “Hopefully all that mess is over with soon”. I had spent about 5 hours up in the hills and was just about to stop and call it a day. A strong rain storm was moving in and I was working a spot right on the crest of a high mountain. I hadn’t found much and was kind of disappointed. I was beginning to think all my prior visits had cleared this hole out. Then my workings broke through into a cavity. At first it was only a small Mouse hole. I stuck my finger in and could not feel the end. I worked the edges a little and was able to sneak a peek inside. I could see the sparkle of crystals inside and I could tell the hole widened out. I was like a kid in a Candy Store. Could it be I finally found my first Crystal Pocket? I quickly broke the edges away some more. I stopped only for a brief moment to take a couple of pics with my phone camera. “Just my luck I forgot my camera in the truck”. Crystals quickly started popping out with ease. Soon I was able to get my entire hand inside and could feel no end to the back of the pocket. More pics, more breaking away at the edges. Every time my hands go into the pocket crystals seem to just fall into them. Sometimes I had to let go of one or more of the crystals in order for my hand to fit back through. I am reminded of a story that my dad told me;

During the Vietnam time frame, my day was stationed on an island in the South Pacific somewhere. He said that the locals would catch Monkeys by making a Monkey Trap. They would drill a hole in a tree and widen out the hole. Then they would place a Peanut inside the hole. When the Monkey would grab the Peanut, its closed fist would be too big to come back through the hole. The monkey would not let go of the Peanut even when someone approached. “Good to know if you’re ever in the Jungles of the South Pacific.”

Now with all of its fury, the storm starts to cut loose. No way am I stopping for just a little Downpour. But the Lighting is getting super-close. I have to concede that I soon must seek shelter. The rain is coming down in buckets. The Lighting is so close that there is no space between the flash of light and the Crack of the Thunder. Now I am able to put my arm into the hole up to about my mid-bicep. I can’t feel any end with my fingertips, only the smooth sides of crystals. I work feverishly to stuff handfuls of material into my backpack.

That’s when I had to stop and have a good chuckle. I was out of control! No way should I be doing it like this. I was poorly prepared at best. I didn’t have wrapping paper to protect the good ones. I was throwing everything into the same pocket of the backpack. I was breaking up clusters as I was bringing them out and not paying attention to what went where. Yes this was really cool, and yep that storm was getting dangerous, but that did not mean I had to grab it all and run. So I had to make a hasty retreat. Before I left I stuck my arm in as far as I could and still felt more crystals. I then hid my Crow Bar as I did not want to carry around a Lightning Rod at the moment and beet-feet off that hill top. Only after I was about half way down did I reanalyze I had made yet another mistake. I forgot to block the hole. No chance of anyone hurting themselves in it but anyone will take one look at that now rabbit sized hole and say, ALLLLL RIGHTTTTT!

And I have to wait until my truck is finished before I can go back up there. I will not sleep well tonight. Have a good one, Woody.

Sorry the pics are poor quality. I only had my Cell phone at the time.

When I left the hole was still going deeper than I could stick my arm in. It wasn’t quite up to my shoulder but I would have to open up the entrance to allow for better body position. This is a pic of some of the larger ones that I did a quick clean up on. There must be over 100 of the littler pieces. ~

I can't wait to get back.

Nice Pic of the Gernets Swizz. It sure looks to me like those are big enough to work. Now it will be extra hard to keep our noses out of the screenings. LOL.

Oooooh crystal digging!!
Sounds like you had a blast Woody. Nice finds! Those will clean up nicely with a little warm vinegar I bet.
It also sounds like a good place to look for Fulgurites.

Thanks for the report!

Definitely very nice pocket you revealed there Woody, and great story!
I wanna see some pics of those puppies when they're cleaned up. Definitely try the vinegar soak and maybe a stiff bristle toothbrush.

Another Crystal run,

I just got my Truck out of the shop right after work this evening, "still one more visit left", and had to go back up on the mountain to see if anyone had found my hole yet. Of course by the time I got to the top it had started to rain again but everything was just as I left it and I quickly shoved my arm inside the hole. And for the next 2 hours I was that kid in a candy store again. I was pulling larger crystals out than the last time. All the work was done by hand. You could feel around inside the hole and removed whatever you grabbed onto without much effort. The opening of the hole was difficult to enlarge so I concentrated on removing everything I could at arms length. Big sections of crystals and Microline came out along with the occasional nice semi-smokie crystal. I removed handful upon handfuls of crushed rock type stuff. Mixed in with this material was nice larger plates of crystals. Some of the plates even have Rhombus shaped Fluorite on them. Of course I am hoping it will start to show Amazonite in with the Microline.

The hole is probably more like a crack along a vug line than a hole. I can feel spaces going down between sections of plates and sometimes a small rock will fall between one of these sections and I can hear it continue falling several feet below me. Who knows what this little bitty hole might produce. The opening still stayed about the same size but inside I removed enough material to fit as many as three basketballs and it is longer than my fingertips to the end of my shoulder.

As it got dark I once again had to leave my little Rabbit hole and I know there is still good stuff left in there. I could feel a bigger plate with nice smooth sections on it. This feels to be the biggest crystal piece yet.

I'm going to have to leave it alone for a while and hope no one else stumbles on to it. My evenings are filled up from here to the weekend and I am going to leave for that Lifetime Outing trip this Friday night. So if anyone goes out looking for my secret spot, let me give you a hint;

It is north of the equator! Have a good one, Woody.~

Some pics of my workings.

Little rabbit hole indeed Woody! Wow! What a sweet combination find in that last picture!!
There is a little ding on the Fluorite to the bottom right, but it's still a great piece!
That one is definately going to clean up nicely! I can see several nice Fluorites on the Microcline, and I bet more pop in as you clean it.....maybe even some smokeys?! Im looking forward to seeing it all cleaned up!

I have a feeling there's gonna be some cool show-n-tell pieces at the outing this weekend.

I did not make it up to the Club meeting this weekend. Last minute change of travel plans and both me and my travel partner having to work late meant I opted to stay closer in to home and hopefully reschedule. I spent most of the weekend rafting down the South Platte River. I was able to get up to my Rabbit Hole for about 3 hours but still did not get to the bottom of it. I opened the opening up quite a little and then cleaned up everything that my new opening allowed me to reach. With my entire upper torso inside the cavity I was able to work the hole by hand in four separate directions, hard left, upper left, straight ahead, and hard right. Hard left and upper left are easy working but seem to have long stopped producing crystals. Straight ahead looks like it is going to “peter-out” quickly into straight hard rock. The right side however is still producing, I just need to widen out the hole again and get better access so I can continue down that way and see how it goes. Some of the crystals come out shinny and smooth and clean up is fairly easy. However most of the material is covered by what could be best described as a hard encrustation. I have found nothing that is effective in removing this outer layer. Soap, hot water, and a stiff bristle plastic brush works the best so far.

One thing that I am kind of excited about is the possibility this pocket or vein will start producing Amazonite Crystals. That is the reason I started to scratch around in this spot in the first place. About 5 yards in front of where I am working is an old outcropping of Amazonite. It has been well worked-over but I thought I would go below it a little bit and see if there were any good leftovers. That’s when I found this pocket. Maybe I will get lucky yet. Later,Woody.

1st pic is of the hole and straight ahead. The next is a picture of how the walls looked inside of the hole and still do on the right side. It also shows three nice cubes of Fluorite. I can’t wait to get them out. The next one is an enlarged pic of the straight ahead area. The last picture is of the roof area in the cavity as it turns hard to the right.

Great update Woody, looks like you hit a sweet vug! Nice how it's not too far from the surface either!
I really like your underground working pictures!

Nice finds Woody for sure! I'll be looking forward to seeing some pics of those cleaned up later too, the fluorites are going to look awesome I'm thinking.

CP