Washington Weekend; A Gathering Of Friends
July 29-31, 2005
By John Cornish
cornish@tfon.com

Page 3

Sated and tired from the days experiences, folks began drifting away at their own pace until finally night descended and it was time to head for bed, another exciting and busy day right around the corner tomorrow.

Prior to the evening's closing, we offered folks the option of another day of fossil collecting at another locality or the chance to collect crystals from two quarries I'd arranged access into. The group opted for crystals and so at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday morning everyone met up here one last time to caravan east to the new digs for the day. After a 45 minute drive, we all arrived safely at our destination and were soon unloading for the 3/4 mile walk into the pit. It was a hot day and it wasn't long before we all started to bake and water soon became a premium. We worked the first of the two localities for a couple hours finding many nice things including some very nice calcite, mesolite, thomsonite, stilbite and levyne. Everyone seemed to find a little something, though I think we all agreed that the 2 foot open pocket 50 feet up the wall looked better then anything else we'd seen. But darn it, it was just too far away to access. With our enthusiasm waning in the oven of the quarry, after a couple hours we all decided to head out and try for the second crystal locality located about a mile away. We drove right into the quarry after opening the locked gate normally barring entrance into the pit through special arrangements made prior to our arrival. Inside, we all drove to the upper level and ranged about. There had been a fair amount of work in the pit since my last visit and I was hungry for a good pocket and searched carefully all of the new exposures. I found very little for the effort and eventually decided to leave it to the others to find treasure. And they did, the best find was one made by Jerry. He broke up a basketball sized rock to find a killer pocket of calcite. In over a decade of looking, I know I've not found anything as nice... a real sweetie Jerry, ya did good!


On our way into the quarry

Collecting crystal treasures!


The one that got away... 2 feet
across and 50 feet up the wall... darn!

Winding down and heading out...

While not collected during this trip, below are several examples that Gloria and I have collected from the quarries on previous trips.


A nice several inch calcite on matrix. .

A spectacular calcite specimen
penetrated by fine crystals of mesolite.


Clay included laumontite with
copper enriched cores

Matrix apophyllite specimen.

I can't say enough how much Gloria and I enjoyed this gathering of friends. Thank you all for participating in our little outing and until next time... Keep On Rockin'! All the very best.

Sincerely,

John and Gloria Cornish

PS You're the man Herb! We'll look forward to seeing you again!


Thanks for visiting Herb, we'll miss ya!


CLICK THE LITTLE MINER TO RETURN TO THE FIELD TRIP PAGE