Well Jim
Sawaya and I decided to head back down to
Riffe Lake again. This time we took our fishing gear. The weather wasn't too bad, the sky was clear but there was a pretty good wind blowing out of the east. After about a hour and a half to two hours I had caught my limit of
Konakee, a.k.a. silver trout. They were between 12 and 15 inches each. Unfortunately Jim wasn't so lucky. We wandered back up to his van to put the fish on ice and gather up our
rockhounding gear.
I told Jim that I wanted to walk in a ways before we started hunting as most people stopped to hunt fairly close. We hiked along the shoreline which is at a fairly steep angle up from the water and strewn with boulders and talus. There is water running down the hillside which sometimes under and though some of the talus areas which makes for some
interresting footing.
Since Jim was exploring down closer to the water I decided to take the high road. I started to find small agate nodules and pieces of
albite. As I moved further along I came across a few clusters of quartz crystals. Most of the agate I was finding was small and clear with no color. I then found a basketball sized rock that had some very nice blue agates that had amazing crystals inside. I trimmed
alot of the basalt off and ended up with some very nice display pieces, I largest being softball size.
By this time Jim was hunting on the upper slope so I took the low road and found a very nice fortified blue agate and a gray one. Neither were very large but I should be able to get a couple nice sized cabs out of each. I also found a nice nodule about the size of large baking
potatoe. At this point I had about 50 lbs. of rock and Jim had a fair amount so we decided to head back to the parking lot hunting as we went.
I got way ahead of Jim a couldn't see him behind me because of a rise in the terrain so I decided to rest my pack and wait for him to catch up. So I waited and I waited and I waited and no Jim. I figured he must of found something good and he'd be along in a few moments. So I waited and waited and waited some more. By this time I was starting to get a little concerned so I shrugged off my pack and went to look for him. I crested the rise and didn't see him so are started to think that maybe he had fallen. After more searching and I still hadn't spotted him I started to wonder if he had fallen into the lake with his pack on. I decided to head back to the van when I see a figure off in the distance waving at me, it was Jim. He had walked up to the top of the cliff and walked back to the van that way.
After cussing him out in my head and then feeling relief that I didn't have to explain to his daughter that I lost her Dad, I headed back to the van. When I caught up with Jim he told me that he had yelled that he was heading up but with the wind I didn't hear him. We compared our finds while having an ice cold liquid refreshment. Jim had found a nice cluster of light amethyst crystals and it was decided that even though Jim didn't catch any fish it was a great day anyway!
Electric Blue
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