Fieldtrip Report:

Kingston Range Amethyst
San Bernadino Co, California
March 7, 2005,
by Dave Hart

My dad and I tried to find this place before but were only able to locate a talc mine and didn't hike enough to find the amethyst. With some more researching and better directions, we found the purple stuff this time. This has been a well-known site for years, just a year or so ago some really nice phantoms with dark colors and very gemmy were found up near the peak. (10,000 ft.) mind you. We managed to find a dig site down lower and had a great time with plain quartz, smokies, and, amethyst.

This was on the side of the road in a town called Sandy Valley. I loved it.

We pulled out specimens both from digging in the dumps (small points up to boulders we broke)

The plates I pulled out.

Also chased a few small veins, I got into one really nice pocket where all the larger plates came out of. Its aggravating though, all of the quartz from the pocket had a thick purple seam in the middle, but all the points were milky, clear, or slightly smoky. It seemed that people digging before me didn't care to keep any of the "plain" stuff. They're still great specimens I think.

Metal detecting

Later in the week we also went metal detecting in Gold Basin Arizona which is about an 1hr.20min. ESE of Las Vegas, didn't find anything that day. Detecting will sure teach you patience. My dad has been skunked the past few times he's been out there, but in his first few trips he's managed to find 23 small nuggets.

On the way to the site we stopped at a quartz outcrop and found this sidewinder rattlesnake, wish it was a better picture. Since it had been chilly up until that day the snake was very docile.

View from the dig site, can't beat it.

It was my girlfriend's first rockhounding trip, of course she found the best stuff, this was the first one she found.

Digging in the dumps, that's my dad's dog...Jasper.

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