10-2-97
Saturday Morning, August 29, a banner day in my collecting memories. I finally got to visit the Four Peaks Amethyst Mine, and it was a real adventure for this Native Arizona Son. Ken and I met at Darrell's house about early thirty that morning, and drove for 3 hours to Lone Pine Trailhead. Carrying a gallon of water apiece, we began our climb to the mine. The trailhead is on the far North end of the Four Peaks, so the Mine is on the far South end, of course. It was a steady three hour hike up to the Mine.
Our Friends Ed and Bob have been working the Amethyst mine for a group of investors, and invited us to pay a visit The miners have been having some trouble with uninvited visitors pilfering tools and hard dug material from them while they are down in the Valley trying to get a bath and a shave. As a matter of fact, a group of Boy Scouts robbed them of an empty water jug and the scout leaders cussed them and made vulgar gestures just before we arrived. We passed this group on the trail, and they seemed like an OK bunch, but in a kind of a hurry! Darrell gave some of the boys water, as they had not properly supplied themselves. When we got to the mine, Ed had called the sheriff on the funky two way radio, but the transmission was not very clear. Since some threats had been made to rob the miners, the Sheriff played it safe, and sent in two Helicopters!
When we arrived at the Mine, the Helicopters were already circling. Darrell loaned Ed his Cell Phone to talk to the Chopper pilot and explained the situation with the water jug, and the other sheriffs went down to Lone Pine trailhead, apprehended the Perpetrators, and put the fear of Treaspassing on them.
With that excitement out of the way, we were able to take a look at the work that these fellas have been doing! They are digging like the Cave Man ancestors must have done when looking for a way to dodge the last ice age. As a matter of fact, on his first trip up to the Mine, long before the diggings had reached the present length of about 30 feet, Ed was caught in a snowstorm up there! I know that was a cold miserable nite, snuggled up in a shallow hole in damp cold earth and stone. To hear Ed tell it, it was a walk in the Wilderness area...ah, youth!
The vein that is being worked is huge! A hard red Iron stained claylike matrix that can be worked with a bent screw driver contains 1 to 6 inch Amethyst crystals, mostly only well formed at the Terminations, but those terminations are such a beautiful red flashing deep purple that they look black until you shine in some light. The area is littered with 1/2 to 3/4 inch crystals not perfect enough for the investors, who are interested in Gem rough only. These little points will be real treasures to the School kids that I will be giving rock collections to this year. (Thanks to Ed and Bob and the investors, who I don't know, but appreciate!)
Ed said that after it rains, the dumps look like they are littered with broken purple bottle glass. After we had looked over the present workings, Ed took us around the end of the peak, where we could see Apache, Canyon, and Saguro Lakes all at the same time...it is beautiful.
Out here were the old workings that might be from the early mining efforts of the Spanish. We found prismatic quartz crystals, some included with a black mineral, and groups of Amethyst with clear Quartz in tightly packed agglomerations, on a harder, Quartz matrix. I bet that some of the real classics came out of this area, but it looks very dangerous to me, with large jumbled boulders covering most of the shaft. The tailings that are sliding down into the ravine below are sure interesting, though! Farther down in the ravine is the remains of the old trailer that had been drug up there in earlier mining ventures. Not much left by the vandals now.
Ed showed us some quartz that was coated with a platy mineral that he was told was Fluorapatite, and an area where the quartz was smokey. It seemed like there was a lot more to see, but we knew it would be getting dark by the time we got back to the Van, so we said Thanks! and started hiking back. I was sure glad that I had brought that gallon of water, cuz it not only tasted good, but it got lighter as I walked. The rocks that I had picked up were sure getting heavier at the same time. The walk back seemed a lot longer than the walk in, though it took the same amount of time by the clock. Shoes started chafing, and the walking stick I was carrying on the way in was sure helping to carry me on the way out! If you find a good walking stick like mine, pick it up for me, I probably put it down there and forgot it!
At a special place along the trail, I began feeling pretty frisky, and got a ways ahead of Ken and Darrell. I decided to have a seat on a rock, and I began thinking about an old buddy of mine, Mike Marks. I had just learned of his passing from this Earth the day before, and hadn’t really stopped for a moment to think about him. This was the place to do that in style. The high places always hold a special perspective for Men when we stop to wonder about the reasons and meanings in life. That vague understanding of the implacable propriety of life and death touched me up there, and as my living friends rejoined us on the trail, the world seemed fair and magical. We Live Today.
On our way home down the rough, winding road leaving the Peaks, we slowed to watch the Tarantulas crossing in five places, and were amazed at how different and strange dirt roads look in the dark. Kangaroo rats bounded along the two ruts in front of us, throwing long shadows in the headlight beams, and we bounced down out of the cool air into the humid, sultry valley where we live. 12 hours rough riding and hiking to gather up eight or ten pounds of rock and a couple Native Arizona Jewels. That’s a perfect day!
June 21, 1997
The Sammy Dog Mimetite Mine The trip to the Sammy Dog Mine was a pleasure. I picked Darrell up about 5:30 a.m., and we picked up Ken and got on the road by 6:00. The trip from Phoenix to Red Rock (about 100 miles of smooth 75 mph freeway) went by quickly, as we chatted about Ken's upcoming move to Arkansas. I sure hope he is able to get back down Arizona way for collecting trips...we have had some great ones over the past few years. We got off the freeway at the Red Rock exit, headed west past the cattle pens, and soon were on a washboard road that threatened to shake the bumpers off of my old van. We had to slow down to 20 mph or less to keep our fillings from falling out, but maybe I just need to buy some new shock absorbers... We could see many old workings and tailing piles to both sides as we continued past the foundations of the old SASCO smelting operation to the north of the road. There is a lot of collecting potential in them thar hills I bet! The final short stretch of road up to the adit is a little steep, but we made it, and had room to turn around and park. There is a wooden sorting table in front of the mine that had some of the colorful orange and yellow mimetite in matrix, giving us a pretty good idea of what we should be looking for, and since the vein is exposed right at the surface of the adit, we had a pretty good idea of where to dig, too. It was still cool when Darrell and I began to break some rock in the vein closest to the entrance, while Ken went a short distance into the workings to dig. The matrix is fairly easy to break, and the fractures and small vugs that the Mimetite is formed in are easy to see. The prismatic crystals are often capped with a mushroom shaped head of smaller crystal growth, an interesting and somehow humorous habit. The Sammy Dog Mine RevisitedSaturday, September 20th, was a dandy day for a field trip. On that fine morning, Ray and Cynthia Grant, Darrell Dodd, Larrey Dodd, and your new Editor-in-training, Steve Decker, got down to the Sammy Dog Mine, not too far from the Silver Bell Mine, in Pima Co. It was a cool morning, and traffic was not bad at all! About an hour and a half after our rendezvous at Ray Road we were pulling off the highway to make our way down miles of rough road to the small claim. After one false turn (or exploratory venture, depending on who is telling this story) we made our way to the mouth of the adit. The mineralized vein, containing Mimetite, Cerussite, Galena, (and at least one Wulfenite crystal) is exposed at the surface in the mouth of this mine. The rock is fractured and easy to work, but few of the colorful crystals stay attached to this matrix. Some look like little sheaves, some are hexagonal prisms with mushroom heads. Larrey found a pocket with a 1 cm Wulfenite, red as the best of them. Darrell and I found several small pockets that contained tiny yellow and orange acicular crystals of Mimetite, and one special specimen with sheaves of red-orange crystal clusters. Early in the digging, as I was tapping on the fractured west wall of the adit, I saw a large clump of rock begin to fall from the roof. "Uh-oh" was barely out of my mouth before it fell to the floor, scratching my arm on the way down. No-one was hurt, but we were certainly a lot more cautious and observant the rest of the day! This prospect is under Claim by Ed Davis and his cronies, so be sure to contact them before you decide to go out there! They may be willing to take you there for a fee, though I am not sure about that.
August 23, 1997
Just got back last weekend from our Colorado camping vacation. 10 days and 2453 miles of fun, traveling through the most beautiful country on Earth. We were doing the tourist thing: Old Town Santa Fe, NM, The Cave of the Winds near Manitou Springs, CO; Leadville, CO; and those kinds of places. We also got to go to the Buena Vista rock show, and the Lake George show. At Lake George, we were able to collect some specimens of Amazonite and Smokey Quartz, thanks to our new friends Greg and Carolyn Tunicliff. We also got to meet a lot of old and new friends in the mineral community. I was very pleased to meet Tom and Melissa Gressman at the Lake George show. Tom is the President of the Board of Directors of the Mineralogical Record (my favorite magazine). They had some beautiful minerals for sale, some with considerable historic interest. One Wulfenite from Tiger, AZ, had been collected by Ed Over. I bought a blue Barite from Stoneham, CO, from the collection of Sharpe Osmundsen, a noted collector who Melissa had known personally! I hope we will see you all again soon, maybe in Tucson this winter.~@Ç@~ . I took my family camping near Show Low, AZ, in May, and I'll be darned if there wasn't a rockshow in the Painted Pony Hotel! I got to meet an email acquaintance, Jamie Stone, who had some really nice fire agate, and jewelry made with that lovely Arizona gemstone!
Here are some trinkets that I made from silver and stones. I have got to get some of the mineral specimens off of my bench,so I can get back to work!
Ken Dunham and I took a look around the Olsen Mine, near Superior, back in March. It was an easy trip, and interesting, but we didn't find any real special treasure. The little Vanadinites from this locality are very gemmy, and some are zoned, but they are soooo tiny! We also found some little Wulfenites, Lemon yellow ones and some as bright as Red Cloud, but they were itty bitty too! If it were easy to find the 1 inch crystals, I guess no one would be a bit interested in my collection, hehe.
Ken, Darrell and I went to the Grand Reef Mine a couple of years ago. My friend Ken Poulsen scanned some pics from that trip for me. What a neat place! We collected some very nice Cerussite, and a couple of nice Linarite crystals. There are many rare, tiny, and hard to identify minerals found at this location. (I don't know how many of them we got :>) Take a look!
Boy, did I ever get lucky in January of 1997! My day job had me stationed in Tucson for the whole show, and so I got to tour each nite for a couple of hours! A dream come true!
I met so many nice people there, and passed out a lot of little cards with this URL, so I hope some of you are visiting!
The last week of the show I spent each nite at the Executive Inn. I was able to find some real deals on minerals from Russia and China, as well as a dandy little matrix specimen from the new find at the Red Cloud Mine! By the time I got there in the evening, most of the dealers were ready to chat and kick back a little, so I had a ball. I got a beautiful Wolframite from Xianguaualing, Chenzhou, China (you should have seen the girls brows knit up as she tried to figure out how to translate that into English!), A dandy Twinned Cinnabar crystal From Hunan Province, China, and a very lovely Beryl with a Scheelite octahedron at the base.
Were you there at the show? What treasures did you find?