We spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday rockhounding at the famous Graves Mountain. After checking in with the caretaker, Junior Norman, we arrived at the Mountain around 9:00 AM Wednesday. Ron, Faye, Chrissy and I were met by Don Reems and Glen and Faye Haye who had been there the day before. John Whatley and Charlie Padgett were already collecting in the main pit. After catching up with the small talk, Don, Glen and Faye headed for the lower pit where they planned to prospect the main wall for rutile. Rutile is almost exclusively found in the lower pit with some as float on the "saddle" between the two main pits. The rest of us headed to the upper pit where we planned to poke around for likely places to dig. The upper pit contains excellent iridescent goethite, hematite and quartz crystals along with some lazulite in quartzite, variscite, and pyrophyllite.

As usual, my poking around turned into major digging as I was able to use my large prybar move rocks in order to see what was hiding behind them. Ron and I were able to recover some excellent and delicate goethite/hematite specimens with fantastic iridescence, as is illustrated in the following pictures.

On Thursday we were delighted to have Dave Timpany join the fun at the Mountain. He and Mary Lane had pulled into Elijah Clark State Park Wednesday evening where they would spend the next couple nights in their spacious motor home. Dave had never been to the Mountain before so I took time to show him what and where all the many minerals could be found. The vastness of Graves Mountain can be intimidating to fist-timers but it didn't take very long before Dave was like a kid in a candy store; he collected enough cutting material to keep him busy for many winters to come. Our friend, Bill, also joined us at the Mountain that day and he kept busy by himself in the main pit.

Ron and I attacked another section of wall in the upper pit while Chrissy and Faye climbed up on the main wall in the lower pit looking for rutile. With great effort, Chrissy was able to recover some fairly decent rutile micros in matrix. 

Ron and Faye Burke demonstrated their refined style of rockhounding as we all broke for lunch. I was waiting for their butler to hand out hot washcloths but they must have given him the day off.

On Friday, Bill Juras joined us, but our overall ranks thinned a bit to just him, Dave, Chrissy and your's truly. Dave continued to wander the place finding more and more material to cut. Chrissy and I spent the morning prospecting different areas while Bill sat under an umbrella next to the high wall where he was recovering iridescent goethite/hematite from of a large boulder that had months ago fallen from its own weight. The previous week's torrential downpours had uncovered some excellent kyanite and lazulite rocks at the bottom of the main pit. One particular boulder produced some fantastic euhedral and unweathered lazulite crystals in quartzite.

Dave bid us farewell around noon. Apparently he was headed for greener pastures or, should I say, purpler pastures as he was preparing to join a nearby amethyst dig that would take place on Saturday. Chrissy decided to head for the shade on the saddle to have lunch. On the way, I stopped by to see how Bill was doing with his boulder. He showed me some nice material that he had so far recovered from one end of the very large rock. Bill asked me if I wanted to take a few whacks but I politely declined fearing that I would get my nice outfit soiled . . . . NOT! Although Chrissy had gone ahead to have lunch, I knew that she would know why I didn't show up right away - I just had to bang on that monster boulder. Working together, Bill and I were able to recover some fantastic iridescent goethite/hematite specimens and also some decent micro rutiles in matrix. After about an hour and with about half the boulder broken in pieces, we headed up to the saddle for lunch where we joined Chrissy who had long ago finished her meal. After lunch, we spent the remainder of the afternoon breaking down the boulder. Before, the day was finished, we recovered some of finest iridescent goethite/hematite specimens that either of us had ever had the pleasure to collect.

It took Chrissy and I quite a long time to pack and load all the rocks into the back of the Dodge. The large volume of material that we found at the Mountain forced us to rearrange and repackage nearly all the other rocks that we had collected at the other sites earlier that week. But, that's never a bad problem to have. Somehow we managed to get all the rocks and tools loaded with just enough room left for Opal to ride comfortably home. We stopped at the gate to say goodbye to our buddy, Bill. We both looked like we had spent the entire day rolling in dirt, which wasn't far from the truth.