Fieldtrip Report:
Wagner Mine Amethyst,
North Carolina
February 5th, 2005
Fieldtrip Report:
Wagner Mine Amethyst,
North Carolina
February 5th, 2005
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Hello members, another excellent turnout for the trip today to hunt for amethyst. I arrived at the meeting point this morning to be greeted by 15 other club members eager to get started, including some new members, welcome new members!. Before continuing the report, I want to take a minute to address a problem that has occured twice within the last few trips. This club is very active and we probably have more fieldtrip attendance than any other club in the southeast, the problem is, we have so many vehicles forming a caravan to the sites, it is hard to keep track of everyone and twice we have had members get lost enroute to a site and miss out on the dig. I never thought I would be part of such an active club that we would have this problem, it is great that we have such good attendance, but it is unfair to those who get lost in the caravan and miss out, I would like some suggestions as to how we can prevent this from happening in the future, from now on I will be including detailed directions to a meeting point in the fieldtrip announcements, some have suggested using radios in the lead and follow cars, flags on the vehicles, carpooling etc., if you have an idea, please let me know, we do not want to lose our members!
That aside, we had a fantastic trip to a great old historic amethyst mine located in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Our caravan arrived in Highlands to meet with several more members and on to our site:
Some of the members who attended, some did not get in the pic.
After a 30 minute brisk hike on the easy to follow trail , we arrived at the mine.
The vertical shaft leading into the mine, some collected in the mine while others searched the dump piles outside.
John D. heading in or out of the mine?
Once you arrive at the bottom of the vertical shaft by rope, the mine is actually two horizontal shafts on top of each other, we explored both.
The bottom shaft.
