Fieldtrip Report:
Hogg Mine,
LaGrange Crystal Mine,
LaGrange Georgia,
August 27th and 28th, 2005________________________
Hello members, we had our trip to LaGrange this past weekend, for some, it was an exciting trip, for others, not so much......John D. and I headed down to LaGrange Friday afternoon and arrived around 3:30, we booked our rooms at the Days Inn which I must say was a very nice clean hotel for a change, it seems we have hit cracktown central on the last few hotel stays out of town. After checking in we went to the Steeles Country store where we were to meet on Saturday, we obtained permission to collect here and in about an hour and a half we had about a thousand crystals from the banks next to the parking lot.
The next morning we met with the other members for the Hogg dig at the store, we handed out tickets and collected the money and then proceeded to the mine. Upon arrival I was told by Rodney he planned to open the tourmaline pit to expose some fresh material:
Rodney working the pit with his new backhoe.
Nancy, John and another member working the tourmaline pit.
Many of the members worked some old tailing piles with some success.
Members working the tailing pile.
Matt, found this beryl in the dumps.
Closeup of Matts beryl.
Most of the beryl found was very chalky and seems to be replaced by some other mineral?, the ones we picked up were very brittle and came apart easily. John D. did find a small piece of aqua that was in good shape and solid, he traded it to Rodney for two beryl specimens for the shelf:
John and the two specimens he traded for the aquamarine piece.
Colorado showing off his beryl recovered from the dumps.
One thing that was abundant at this mine was the rose quartz, I found half a bucket of gem quality cuttable pieces.
This piece was also found by Matt, it seems he had the luck of the day.
Matt with his beryl and rose quartz.
Sunday morning we headed to the crystal mine, out of the original 27 members, we were down to around 10-15, those who went to the crystal mine enjoyed it more than the Hogg Mine, we found several nice size clear quartz crystals and the fee was reasonable for the site.
If you are into rose quartz, the Hogg Mine would be a good place to visit to collect, there is literally tons of good cutting material laying everywhere, in the road and covering many acres of land, the tourmaline did produce a few good specimens, much of it is fractured and will break easily but I did see a couple of nice shelf specimens, as for the beryl, most of what I saw was very brittle and will break easily, but there is good material to be found in the main pit.