A Rockhounding Vacation
Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico
April 8-23, 2006
By Mike Streeter
mcstreeter@charter.net

Page 2

Sunday afternoon, we drove to Jet and continued about 8 miles north to Great Salt Plains State Park where we camped on the north bank of the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River.

We woke up early Monday morning and drove to the official selenite collecting area on the southwest side of Great Salt Plains Lake.

Great Salt Plains Selenite Collecting Area Entrance

Great Salt Plains Selenite Collecting Area Access Road

Great Salt Plains Selenite Digging Area

The process of digging hourglass selenite crystals at the Great Salt Plains is fairly easy and straightforward. First, you dig a hole about 2 feet square by 2 feet deep. If you are lucky and in the right spot, you will hear a lot of crunching as the shovel goes through a layer containing selenite crystal. While it is true that the process of digging the initial hole will likely destroy crystals, doing so is necessary for the greater good. After the hole is completed, salty groundwater will slowly infiltrate and fill the bottom of the hole. Using a small bucket or some other container, you take the water on the bottom of the hole and splash it on the sides to reveal selenite crystals or clusters, should they exist. Obtaining water from nearby abandoned holes to use in your freshly dug one hastens the process.

I spent much of the morning trying different spots without great success. But, it didn't take Chrissy very long before she landed on a location that produced some terrific crystals and clusters. This was just another example explaining why I affectionately call her the "locator". Chrissy worked her hole and recovered many dozens of specimens. By early afternoon, the stiff morning breeze turned into gale force winds with gusts up to 50 mph. After tiring of being sand blasted, Chrissy turned her hole over to me while she sat with her back to the wind and watched me have fun. With her rich spot, it didn't take very long before I was surrounded by large crystal clusters.

Mike in Hole

Close-up of crystal clusters yet to be liberated

Recovering single crystals is relatively quick and easy, but obtaining large clusters takes great patience, care and a little luck. I took my time dipping and splashing and splashing and dipping until I was finally able to liberate several very nice and big clusters. The following pictures show a couple of the better ones that we managed to pull out of the hole.

Tuesday morning marked the beginning of a two-day drive to Wickenburg, Arizona. The sun finally decided to rise about 15 minutes after we hit the road.

Oklahoma Sunrise

While I was setting up to take the above picture, I looked up the road to see some sort of critter scampering in my direction. "Wait a minute", I said to myself . . . "that's a SKUNK!!!!!!" Just as I turned to run in the opposite direction toward the safety of the truck, the skunk disappeared into a hole next to the highway. It seems that he wasn't any more thrilled to see me than I was to see him. And no, I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture of Pepé Le Pew's American cousin.

We drove all Tuesday into a fierce headwind that mercifully let up by Wednesday morning. That afternoon we arrived and set up at the very well kept Desert Cypress RV & Mobile home park in Wickenburg. This extremely nice place would be our home for the following 4 nights.

We were very excited when we woke up on Thursday morning. We had been anxious for many months to visit the Monarch Mine located in the desert about 6 miles from Wickenburg. This was our first Arizona backroading adventure of the trip. When I say "backroading" in this region of the country, what I am really referring to is driving on treacherous 4-wheel drive-only desert roads and washes to get to remote rockhounding locations at abandoned mines and prospects. There are some places where it was clearly not advisable to stop or even slow down or we would have sunk up to the axles in sand and rocks. What a BLAST!

The Monarch Mine in Yavapai County is a long-ago abandoned gold mine/prospect. Untold shafts, adits, cuts and spoil piles can be found along about a 1/2-mile east/west strike on a ridge in the Wickenburg Mountains about 7 miles northeast as the crow flies from Wickenburg. Like many Arizona gold mines, the Monarch contains a fair amount of copper carbonate hydroxides, including malachite and azurite. Also found at the Monarch are quartz, pyrite, chalcopyrite, fluorite, and calcite.

The desert roads and washes leading out to the Monarch were surprisingly good. I would think that even a 2-wheel drive vehicle would have had no real problem negotiating the way, except for the last 1/2-mile up to the ridge top. This final ascent is very rocky and pitted and should only be driven by experienced 4-wheel drive enthusiasts - or crazy rockhounds like us. The view from the top was stunning.

Southward view from Monarch

Northwest view from Monarch

Report continued . . . . . . .

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