The boys and I decided to go on a new adventure today. I had read that there was a place within an hour of our home that might possibly hold some rocks worth collecting. We got ready, I loaded the GPS coordinates into my phone and we were off. Once we turned off of the main road and started to drive down the dirt road one thing was apparent; this place was mostly private land.

We found one area that was not so we got out and looked and hiked around.








Yes I know, I still need to buy a pick hammer






We didn’t really find much so we decided to drive further and see if we could find anything else. As we went further, it was more of the same, which is marked private property. We did come up on one area that was not marked and looked interesting so we decided to stop and look.




Below the car behind the fenced area was the entrance to an abandoned mine. There was a decent amount of vegetation as there was a small stream flowing out of the mine. There were plenty of rocks littering the exterior of the mine so the boys decided that they wanted to see if they could find anything. While they were looking, I took the time to get a few photos.
































The boys did end up finding some quartz that had an interesting yellowish tinge to it. The pieces were nothing spectacular but that didn’t really matter to us. They were happy to get out and check out some place new. On our drive out, my youngest said that he had fun but this place was not as cool as Succor Creek. I let him know that this is how we find cool spots, I told him it is like fishing, sometimes that new blue line on the map ends up being something special and often it doesn’t. He understood what I had meant and said, we should look at lots of places so that we can find cool rocks.

Tanks, glad you like the trip reports it does take a little bit of effort to process the photos and write a little something.

Anyway, yea that mine looked interesting except that there was a spring flowing out from it. No way, I would risk taking my kids in there. We went to the place based on some things I read on the net. The biggest issue that I am having now is that I am so new to this, I just don't yet know where to go exactly. Reminds me of many years ago when I started to fly fish and didn't know where to go. The net was good for the blue ribbon spots but not for the off the beaten path spots that I love oh so much. These days, I know exactly where to go for what. I suppose that as I gain more knowledge in rockhounding, I will have better results.