My last outing, A Weekly posting Options

[Crusty]

Awesome family experience woody! So cool!

We're not seeing much at all for garnets down our way. Odd you are finding so many above us.

Jason and I are planning to spend a weekend down there sometime in Dec. Wanna get my 4" in the water!

[CP]

Nice work Woody, what a fun day you all must have had!

[Woody]

Zircons, Goethite, and Microcline… Oh My!

Yesterday I took Nate out on a dig, he brought along a friend…. “Zack, I believe”. I took them to a spot I’ve been to many times before and was anticipating to find some Zircons and maybe a few Crystals. It was a bit
of a hike and along the way we found a couple of places that looked like they might start producing some good crystals. I think we found three places along the way but ultimately each spot only produced a few crystals
and none were completely formed. So, we trudged on to the spot I had in mind. By the time we got there, the day was already late. Nate and Zack had commitments back in town later that evening so they bid me farewell
and set out towards home. The day had been on the boarder of warm/cold depending on if you were in the sun or not. The spot I was working was in the shade so I was getting kind of cold and ready to pack it in, also the
hole was not producing much. I got my things together and started heading out a cross the hill.

I didn’t get very far when I noticed a few small chips of crystals. Poking around a bit, I found where they were coming from and dug in. Everything seemed fairly similar to the other pockets we found that day. Some
formation, a few nice facets, but nothing completely formed. I started pulling out a few pieces that I knew had Goethite, even though they were completely covered in red clay/mud. The give-away was in the heft. I also
found some interesting Microcline that was covered in the red dirt but they kind of looked like little slices of French Toast sticking out. So of course I has to bring those back home to clean up. Imagine my surprise when
I cleaned some of them up and found large Zircons, "The largest I've ever found". The Goethite cleaned up nicely as well. Some of it looks Cobalt Blue.

Some of the best Goethite in the world comes from Colorado up in Park and Lake Counties, but I have never seen any Microcline, Zircon, and Goethite Combos coming from that area that.

Nate and Zack, I hope you guys had fun and found at least something to stick in your pockets. We'll do it again sometime.

Later, Woody

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[nate]

It was a terrific day out! Its always good hiking the hills with you woody, especially when there are a few treasures to take home. Those are some great specimens. Im looking forward to getting out some more through the winter. I've gotta show you my zircon spot.

[Crusty]

Cool finds! Awesome y'all got to hook up!

[Woody]

Hello Everyone,

Well it’s been a while since I last posted. What with the Holidays and all, and several different moving targets, I just haven’t parked it in front of a computer much as of late.


Picking up where I last left off…. I was out with a few friends mainly on the hunt for some nice Zircons. So a little more about that. Three weeks back Nate invited me to accompany him and his friend Ryan to a spot where he had found some well
formed Zircons. Kind of odd that we were both finding Zircons from two different sources. The location is separated by a few miles as the crow flies, but at least 10 miles by road access. Just a fluke! All I can say is that up until about 4 years ago I
hadn’t found a single Zircon and now it seams they are everywhere. True enough to Nate’s word, the spot he took me and Ryan to did have nice Zircons. They were well formed and easy to break out of the host rock. Hopefully we can get back up there
sometime soon.

For the last two weekends now I’ve returned to a hole I started at the beginning of the month. The Zircons I’m getting from this location seem to be a little larger, and a little shinier. On the down side however, they are not as stable as the ones coming
from Nate’s hole. In my hole, they are associated with well formed Microcline. This microcline is hard enough that when I try to break the Zircon out of it, the Zircon often falls apart completely. Bummer! The ones from Nate’s hole are growing in
Granite, that is slightly weathered. A few light smacks with a hammer and the stone jumps right out.

The hole I started was producing some promising samples of Goethite as well. I was finding some stones, about the size of plumbs, that had the much envied “Coin-Stacks” on them. These stones were normally combos of Goethite, Odd Smokyie
Quartz, and Microcline. A couple of them even included Zircons. Seems like any of the stones with Zircons on them only had weak, sporadic Goethite. Looks a lot like someone sprinkled silver sparklies on them. I went up again this last Saturday and
paid a heavy price. It was cold, very cold! I found only a few odds and ends, the hole has stopped producing, and I got sick. I’ve been laid-up for several days. So that is how my year comes to an end. No more running around for me. Right now I
couldn’t even outrun the expansion radius of a fart.

All is not lost however. All I got to do is get back on my feet and I still have at least 2 more producing holes to finish.

Merry Christmas Ya’all and I hope you have a Happy New Year, Woody.

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[Woody]

“In the previous post”, That first picture shows the hole I started way before the snow set in. I really like spending my Summer prospecting, and then saving some producing holes for winter.

Next pic, Nice large Zircon. Exactly how it came out of the ground.

The third pic shows some fair crystals that came from the same hole, “Notice the sprinkling of Goethite”.


This post;
Here are a few more nice sized Zircons, the last pic shows how prone they are to breaking up.

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[Crusty]

"expansion radius of a fart"

Got that same bug that's going around... 11 days in now

cool looking bits you're getting in to! Hope you find some more stable stuff!

[Woody]

Today I stayed out of the hills in favor of some low-land activity. I figured there was still too much snow for the convenience of digging in the ground. Instead I put some new batteries in my coin detector and headed over to a local park & play area.
I got several hours of detecting in and the day was pleasant. I was surprised to find that the ground was frozen in spots even down here. Several times I had identifiable coin targets showing up on the detector but had to abandon the hole because I
couldn’t get down 4 inches. After a while I learned to just ignore anything showing deeper than surface. I’ll hit that area again sometime when it is warmer.

The total take for the day was $3.67 in copper and clad, and this nice ring. It is engraved with the words “Tungsten Carbide”. I looked it up on amazon and found a wide range of rings fitting that description. In the end I learned there are two main
types of TC rings. The first type is what is called a “Brushed” TC ring……….. uh, Fake! The second type is a true TC ring. Without having a real one and a fake one in my hand it is practically impossible to tell the two apart. Or at least that’s what I
came up with, me being a commoner and all. I couldn’t find this ring design in the Brushed section so if I was to say this one was for real, it sells for 80 Bucks.

My detector was showing a few coins as deep as 10 inches so there could be silver at this spot. I’ll likely not devote a prime Summertime weekend day to it but I’ll keep it in mind for quick run opportunity.

Hope everybody is out and enjoying life, Woody.

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[Crusty]

Way to get out there and enjoy the good weather!

[nate]

Cool stuff! I'm hoping to do more detecting this year. Seeing as how I'm all over Colorado on a regular basis, I'm sure I go by some good spots I could stop and swing a detector around for a bit.

[johnnybravo300]

Sounds like a fun day. I'm definitely getting my detector out more this year and might upgrade to something better.
I'm working on a story I read about a few years ago in a book but I need to find the book again at the library for details. It always stuck with me but I never thought of detecting this place. I want to shoot for that this summer.
There was a guy heading to tincup on the stage coach to start a business but ended up finding a decent abandoned run down building along the stage line to aspen further to the north. He fixed up the building and ran a stop there for the freights and passengers to rest and switch animals as I remember, and it was also a saloon for the more remote mines in that area, plus he cashed their pay checks as a service for them spending money at his place. He also had a woman helping him with the business.
He made regular trips over the pass to aspen where the mines banked at and return with the miners pay.
The miners that partied at his saloon were a wild bunch and actually burned the place down twice. The second time it happened, he took their checks to aspen and never returned!!!

If I can figure out where the heck this place stood I'd spend some time there hunting but I need to find that book. I have it narrowed down to two possibles so that's a start haha.

All those drunk miners with all that silver spilling out just waiting to be found! I'd be stoked to find anything!

[johnnybravo300]

We went to town today and I got to the library just before they closed. It didn't take me long to find the two possible books and when I scanned through the first one I turned almost right to this story so that was a bonus.
I reread it all and there are good details and directions so I hope to find this place. Theres more history to it than I remembered so that's a good sign as well. More history of people coming and going is always better.
There's nothing remaining in the area except one cabin the nfs has used as an outpost when they need it, but it was a stage stop, livery, general store and a post office at one time. If there's no nfs around when I'm out there I'm hitting that cabin yard for sure!
I need to read this all this info few more times and study my map to figure out the exact location but it's looking good so far. I'm pumped for a new adventure but I hope my f2 can handle it.

I have a few creeks to check in this same area so it should fill a weekend with fun I'd think.

[nate]

We went to town today and I got to the library just before they closed. It didn't take me long to find the two possible books and when I scanned through the first one I turned almost right to this story so that was a bonus.
I reread it all and there are good details and directions so I hope to find this place. Theres more history to it than I remembered so that's a good sign as well. More history of people coming and going is always better.
There's nothing remaining in the area except one cabin the nfs has used as an outpost when they need it, but it was a stage stop, livery, general store and a post office at one time. If there's no nfs around when I'm out there I'm hitting that cabin yard for sure!
I need to read this all this info few more times and study my map to figure out the exact location but it's looking good so far. I'm pumped for a new adventure but I hope my f2 can handle it.

I have a few creeks to check in this same area so it should fill a weekend with fun I'd think.

that will be a terrific adventure! best of luck and i cant wait for pictures of what you see and find!

[Woody]

Hi All,

Here is a another video I recently uploaded to YouTube. It is a continuation of the Video I posted a short while back Where I was digging in an area I've come to call the Back Forty.

Hope you enjoy it, Woody.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u58FQLg0JWg&t=71s