COLORADO TRIP AND JUNIPER 2.0
TRADITION
Every year for part of June and July I take a trip across the country to Colorado where I'm expected to show my face at the Renaissance festival where I own some small businesses. One rock business, one wood toy business.
It's always exciting to do a little digging in the Pikes Peak Basilisk as well as heading up to Red feather lakes where friends have claims and this year going back to explore our new claims in Nevada.
My Pikes Peak area digs were fairly limited. This year I visited a claim of Austin Hartman. I did a little prospecting on other areas but mostly ended up fishing which I hadn't done for a while.
I also spent a week down in the Bayfield area visiting family.
NEVADA AT JUNIPER
Nevada
Ever since our digs and locating claim points last year. Tommy Pulda and I have been looking forward to revisiting this area in Northern Nevada. I was also visiting to see how applicable this location was for our new business Premiere Mining Experience. Was it too rustic? etc.
Last year we had found a vent while doing a little prospecting that proved very exciting. Not to mention finding some darker amethyst in the region.
The only problem was this year. The time we had planned to meet happened to be the same time. There was a high pressure zone over that region so we had an average of 102° weather to dig in.
Somehow we managed to do some test digs in this weather. Although with our two visits we barely scratched the surface, we have found four distinct types of crystals coming out of this location.
The one we had dug last year was a hollow vent with interesting white crystals and Chevron amethyst on the sides and bottom. On this trip we discovered another zone with more calcite creating epimorphs and flower shaped or rounded lavender clusters of small crystals. One vein we hit produced tight pockets of interlocking slightly larger, darker amethyst crystals, that soon fed into smaller vents of super dark often phantom crystal that reminded me of the famous Guerrero amethyst.
Overall, this locality seemed to have even more potential than we previously thought.
However, we definitely realized that we needed a small machine dig at this locality. We met with BLM management while we were in Nevada and they were super encouraging. They were happy that we were trying to work with them legally as they had had issues with ok clubs and others digging illegally.
The mountains here are rolling hills and small mountains that remind me of my childhood in Northern New Mexico and Southwest Colorado. Junipers and pinons line the hills. We had numerous interactions with beautiful wild horses. We saw a bobcat, huge jackrabbits and several interesting birds. Aside from the heat, I found this to be a great location, ideal for a spring or fall dig. Definitely some groundwork needs to be done to create a space comfortable for our PME customers.
COLORADO
Red feather lakes
On the way back I met Tommy again at Red feather lakes, Colorado.
This is a super prolific area where many people have filed claims for the the varieties inclusion quartz.
I dug some great lustrous plusters of hematite included quartz and had a great campsite near my friend's claim. The sun rises were spectacular.
The potential in this area is great but there's a lot of subpar material and there's a lot of drama between claim owners, etc. I left with some good material and will return on another year. The Red feather lakes Rock shop there in town displays much of what's available on the local claims and the people that work there are great.
On the way home, I stopped again in Mount Ida to check on a friend there who has some claims who are becoming active. He was digging some excellent material with various inclusions and growth formations. We discussed working together in the future with PME and some production.
Overall I had a great trip. What can I say? I dig my life and I'm happy to be home in the mountains of Virginia.