Day 6 - Saturday, 7/29/2023: Pinnacle 5 Minerals’ Topaz Claim
Parking was also limited at the topaz claim, so we met up at the hotel where a lot of folks were staying around 9 a.m. and truckpooled it down 24 again, past Florissant to where the South Platte River meanders in the shadow of Pilot Peak. It was another beautiful day of blue skies and white clouds, and we each found a spot and began raking gravel in hopes of catching a topaz winking at us like a fresh-cut diamond. Raking was better than the day before's digging, but it's safe to say I worked up a bit of a sweat, pausing a few times to chat with fellow rockhounds as we toiled away. This was another day of far more effort than reward, but I would have probably been doing yard work had I been at home, so yay raking gravel in Colorado!
Most of us found a small topaz or two at the site, but based on my own experience and those of a couple of other folks in the group, we had better luck with topaz, smoky quartz and amazonite in the bags of salted gravel we bought than in our own digging. We were all pretty much tuckered out by 2:30, so we headed back to our respective hotels and met up again for our final dinner together at Thunder and Buttons. Many of us would start the journey home the next day, while a few other folks were sticking around for more rockhounding, looking for bladed calcite near Penrose and then fossil fish in the Green River Formation in Kemmerer, Wyoming (and, damn, did they bring back some amazing finds!). It's always kind of a bummer when a club trip is over, but I am definitely glad we did it, and major thanks to our field trip chair for coordinating us from Tennessee to Colorado!
Took this photo of Pilot Peak and environs as we were driving toward the claim.
This is the view back the way we came from the parking lot.
Pilot Peak from the parking lot.
The main pit at the claim.
This was the view from my dig site. We spent about five hours on-site raking through gravel.
The cirrus clouds were gorgeous.
Final shot of Pilot Peak framed by clouds. Damn, those skies!
I found this and think it’s a topaz with red inclusions, but I could be way wrong.
Same specimen from a different angle.
This is the biggest topaz I “found”—as in, our guide that day found it and gave it to me. Note the bluish cast.
Same specimen from a different angle. Notice the clarity and sparkle at the bottom middle of the crystal.
This little guy was also in the bag.
You can really see the crystalline structure of this specimen from this angle.
This smoky quartz point was in the bag, as were the other two smoky quartz specimens I brought back. I had no luck at all finding a point while on site.
You can see the translucence along the bottom edge of the crystal in this shot.
This one is sooooo close to being double-terminated!
The same specimen in a head-on shot.
This little guy is tiny but lovely.
Our last dinner with most of our fellow travelers from the club. I drowned my sorrows at finding nothing in white wine and pasta.