January 24 Through February 4—TUCSON, ARIZONA: Annual show
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 Post subject: The north west tour
PostPosted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 9:59 pm 
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Location: N Dakota
I recently made a trip west from North Dakota to the Oregon coast and back. My goal was to find a variety of gems to fill a treasure chest for my lifelong friends. I decided on sapphires, garnets, opals, and sunstones. All were from pay to dig mines along my meandering route.
Famous sapphire bars near Helena Montana were the first stop. Spokane bar and Eldorado bar. Sapphires of good size and color were found and help fixing my pulse jig from the owner of the mine was greatly appreciated.
Next stop emerald creek Idaho. Had to skirt the forest fires and go north to Couer d'Alene and then south. Never saw a stretch of road more than a mile long without a curve. Found the signs and bumbled on down the forestry road to the dig site. Watched an 8 year old boy find 3 star garnets between 3 & 6 oz. I was happy to find my hand full and enjoy the cool water and smell of the pines.
Left the mountains for the high desert of south eastern Oregon. Took a day to get there but we'll worth the drive. I checked out the public collecting area at the crack of dawn and discovered ants are the best sunstone miners. Their mounds were covered with rice sized sunstones. Not wanting to die of heat exhaustion or snake bite I chose one of the mines just up the road. As the crew ran the machinery I took up a position on a conveyor and did my best to sort sunstones from ore.
I opted for higher ground to beat the heat and drove north to glass Butte since it was close by. Filled 3 pails with black and mahogany obsidian.
On the return trip my thoughts of opals from Nevada melted in the heat and I instead turned east and found myself in Spencer Idaho. Opals!? You betcha! Pay to dig here was an option but I instead chose to mine the display cabinets and found 4 delightful pink opals for my love of 27yrs. Sally is a gem in her own right.
Thoughts of sapphires rose again, but it was too late in the day, so I took some back roads to Ruby Valley Montana. Not tired enough from the 14 hour drive I grabbed a flash light and did a garnet hunt at night along the reservoir. Very interesting and successful!
A nice cool night sleeping at the campground and up early to find my way to my favorite sapphire stop at gem mountain near Philipsburg, Montana. Running out of time I opted to grab 9 sandbags and take them home. I did have one of the staff evaluate 50 stones for heat treatment and cutting. I paid close attention and now understand better what qualifies as a cuttable stone.
That ended the digging and I then put pedal to the floor. Made it Back home by 2:00 am 3458 miles of bliss!

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 Post subject: Re: The north west tour
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 4:14 pm 
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Joined: Mon May 26, 2014 9:42 pm
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Sounds like many of the adventures I have had through the same region. Next time before you go, let us know and we will share some of our favorite places - though you did hit most of them. The old radar station in the Judith mountains has perfect doubly terminated (not clear) quartz crystals. They slice and polish really well, for example. Crystal mountain for clear qz. and amethyst. I do love Spencer, and I hear they are letting people go up in the mine again on certain days of the year - and that is well worthwhile.


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 Post subject: Re: The north west tour
PostPosted: Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:18 pm 
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Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2015 3:52 pm
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Location: N Dakota
That's sounds like a good plan. Of course my favorite stop was the Tillamook cheese facility! Love Cheese!

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 Post subject: Re: The north west tour
PostPosted: Fri Sep 01, 2017 5:20 pm 
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Here are some of the places I have looked for gems in the west:
Of course Oregon has Crystal Butte for obsidian, sunstone near Plush, opal in Nevada. The tourmaline mines in California were very productive for us (Pala Mountains). Same people who do the spectrum sunstone mine. Idaho has garnet at Emerald Creek (but my best bet was buying it from Rusty just outside the turn off - we found about a pound - but he had crystals the size of oranges (one the size of a softball). And of course we always go to Philipsburg, sometimes Crystal mountain, and in the east of the state (Judith Mountains) we get the doubly terminated quartz crystals. Oh and there is a Canadian opal mine north of Washington, and southwest of Bryce that we had some nice luck at. There is supposed to be some nice obsidian just south west of plush in california, but it was too dark for us to find any when we went. (we found obsidian - just couldn't tell what it had in it.)
On the road from billings to Philipsburg there is a stop where you can pan for Rhodolite garnet. It was mostly pretty fractured - basically tailing remains when they were looking for gold.Arkansas has gorgeous quartz of course. Looked for pyrite in Tx. but didn't find any - just a lot of poison ivy. Have heard woodward ranch is really good for agate, and of course there is Texas topaz, though we have not found any of it. (Of course the oregon jaspers are famous). And on the coast of oregon, there is blue agate - the last time I looked was over 50 years ago, though..... But wait, of course there is Wyoming jade and Sweetwater agates in Wyoming. Well worthy looking for. I actually found a piece of apple green jade last time there. (along with a lot of more common jade).
And Rock Hound state park in New mexico (nice thundereggs) and the Kilborne Hole (for peridot) are close to texas. Also fire agate (not my favorite) in Arizona (I think... maybe it was new mexico.. have to look). There are broken open geodes down along hte new mexico border, too.
If any of these look interesting, let me know which ones, and I will dig up some details. I keep pretty good notes.


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