Monday after work which didn't start, slow, JR felt he could handle it on his own, rainy outside, rain, in July, how often does that happen? Not very.
And I was chomping at the bit, had my granola, water, was ready to get up Crystal Mtn and clean it out. About time.
A long drive with nothing to talk about, beautiful, piss pouring rain, 2 hours to the logging road that turns up and up and I'm off, the first 6 KM, rocky, bad, but I can manage. This was the site of my last breakdown. This is the cause of some slight anxiety, as this place, this mountain, it's been the graveyard of a few of my automobiles, and the three cylinders of fury, gallon of oil, well, I'm not cancelling any adventures because of it...
The next 6 KM up, they're nail biting. The road, always bad, is plenty the worse for the lack of wear, from this point onward I'm unrecoverable, car breaks, nobody is coming up this last stretch to get me, peel your VIN, grab your shit and get the hell out of dodge...
And herein lies the rub, that this car, it's full, packed full of rubbish, more than I can carry in 2, 3, 4 trips even, and so a breakdown - well, it's inconceivable. Intolerable.
Up and up, the switchbacked cobbled roads climbing at 45 degrees and then pitching cliffwards another 45 degrees, less a road than a boulder-jammed rut with 6 inches of navigational wiggling, every year the road slips a little more in line with the slope of the mountain, away from the level, and already I'm thinking this was a very, very bad idea.
The roads up to 6KM are bad, past 6KM, well, ....
I arrive, breathe a sigh of relief, my fingertips are numb from clenching the wheel. I pour a goodly libation to the gods that got me here and if so inclined will see me safely down.
And begin work. The day is grey, rainy, overcast, you can barely see the mountaintops across...
The work, well, first the surface collecting, picking up the easy finds off the top of the dirt. Small, nothing too worthwhile.
By this time it's dark. The rest will wait for morning.
The next day, rainy, grey again, I'm filthy in a matter of hours. Dig down to bedrock, search for new pockets. Nada. I do a good job of baring a few meters, but - nothing. And so I go through the dirt I've dug, go back to a few vugs, clean them out again.
And for all this there's precious little return. A couple of one hour breaks to prospect other possibilities, above, below, but it seems this is the spot, the only spot, really, where the crystals got a chance to form.
Back to the digging.
***
I get, in the end, maybe 10lbs of crystals, most small, a few as big as my thumb, a couple of beauties. But this I would have gathered in a few hours a few years ago, and so - and so - this area is tapped out, no need to return unless I can somehow come up with some dynamite or explosives.
Which I may.
The mosquitos now are insane, and I've no Vodka left for another farewell salute, but it's time now to head down the mountain, now, the smell of brakes as I ride them the entire trip, and safely to the road aim the car southward, I need a shower, covered in filth from the pit, sweat, deep-woods-off, but I've done it, done for the season, done and I have my treasure and now to find a shower, find some food, find a town...