Thursday, January 10, 2019, Desert 4-Wheeling to Crystal Mine

Loren and Sharon arranged for us to join a collection of desert rats that liked to ride the trails together. Today's ride took us to an obscure hill known as the Crystal Mine. It was a chilly morning, but everyone had layered up to stay warm.  

I rode with the expedition leader, Bob. Joani was buckled into the CamoCat with Loren. Also along for the outing were Tom and Nancy and Brad and Susan with their adorable dog, Skittles.

With his doggles in place, Skittles was ready to ride! 

Loren maneuvered the terrain with ease!  I had a blast!

Bob and I took the lead. Bob had programmed all of the local four-wheel routes into his mapping program so he knew where we were headed. Lucky for me - in the lead, there was little to no dust to eat. It was cool but Bob's Arctic Cat stayed pretty warm and I was soon thinking about shedding my coat.

Our trail took us across some pretty desolate looking landscape passing the occasional watering hole. Most of what we traversed was either Arizona State Trust land or BLM land where ranchers had arranged to graze their cattle. Luckily we did not run into any cows - we did not even see any cows. There were, however, plenty of cow patties to let us know they had been around.

The trip was 24 miles each way and took us through some impressive ruts and washes.

We found the two below boondocking at the Crystal Mine location. They were from Durango and had been in the area for three days. They were a bit more serious about digging than we were. They did find a lot more nice crystals for their efforts.

We mostly scoured the surface since we had no shovel and really no desire to dig. We did find some nice, if small, quartz crystals.

Susan said the site below was calling to her but it didn't deliver. Skittles wasn't much help at sniffing out treasure. I think she was just happy to be outdoors.

Someone had time on their hands and maybe a desire to dig to China. I wonder if all their hard work paid off.

After everyone had enough digging and some snacks we headed home.

We made a short side trip to see a really big boulder. You can see Skittles was left speechless at the sight of the big rock.

I thought I could give it a little push and get it rolling but it was not to be. The rock was just too big for a single frame but I think you get the idea from the shot below it was large. It was just mysterious how so many of the boulders were round and appeared to have just been dropped randomly around the area.

Someone had the idea this was the location for some hidden treasure and they dug a hole. A pretty big hole. Over the years it has been filled back in some. We were all thinking maybe we would see some gold nuggets from way up here - we saw only rocks and none of them were gleaming.

Back home Joani cleaned up some of the crystals we had bagged for the day. In case you are wondering, a penny would just about cover the entire collection below.

The crystal in the middle is about an inch long. Not very impressive, but still fun to find.

This chunk of rock surprised us after the mud had been washed away. It was on the reject pile from the prospecting couple we had met today. I wonder how nice their keepers must have looked.

Oxalic acid is supposed to remove the rust stains from the crystals, but it is a lengthy process.

(Close up of the same specimen)

What a fun day in the desert and many thanks to all of the folks who included us in their adventure!