Fieldtrip report:
Sinkhole Mine,
Mitchell County,
North Carolina,
June 26th, 2004_____________________
Hello all, we had a great time today at the Sinkhole Mine in Mitchell County, this is an historic mine which was mined for mica by the ancient indians. RJ, Landen and I met with Jackie, Mickey, John D., Dave, and Alan at the Silver Armadillo at 9:00 and headed to the site. Drew and Tate joined shortly afterwards from Virginia. Below is an old pic of the mine dumps:
A lot of material has collasped on the hillside which has created a terrace about 20 feet above the bottom of the mine. I decided to give a rockhounding 101 course on how to properly climb on dump piles, after showing the correct way, I showed everyone to improper way to do things !
Roadrash from falling off the dump piles!Everyone said that they understood how to do it right, then someone said they missed the first lesson, so I climbed a little higher on the dumps to demonstrate once again improper dump climbing.
After finishing this second lesson and praying for class to be over, someone said they were'nt paying attention, after doing a through body and limb check, I decided it would be in my best interest to end class for the day! 8^)
We found some interesting material, I did not find any apatite that I really liked, I went to a location that my friend Bill had hunted a long time ago, he had found a columbite crystal in this one area, after walking around a few minutes I picked this large columbite crystal section.
Columbite crystal.
New member Alan.
John D. checking out a specimen.
I found this large pyramid quartz.
Me and John, Dave and Drew.
Another great day of collecting!
