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Now I've been there before, read the reports, knew they were there and returned to find my own. Sapphires. This outcrop, just past the avalanche/rockslide zone on the Slocan Valley Rail Trail. I walk the trail, my prospecting is kept low by the snow above the road, and I pass the avalanche zone, walk another kilometer, checking every outcrop, every inch...the report says they're in pockets in the black bands of the gneiss.
Garnets. Plenty of garnets. Garnets aplenty. But nothing that to me resembles a sapphire.
I dutifully bang off a couple of dozen pieces of rock from different zones and haul them off to the Chamber of Mines. Brad, Brad, he's my man. Last trip there was a beautiful young blonde, just graduated, bubbling and all the rest, but I'm about the rocks and I didn't trust her information. I trust Brad.
Brad quickly looks at my rocks and gives me the "nope nope nope". Brad's good. I got a lot more rocks for him, but that's for another day...
He gives me precise instructions. "They'll be small and grey..." he warns me, then shows me a giant blue one, 3 inches across, from Herb Hyder and the Revelstoke area. Yeah, I wouldn't have missed that, and I admire Herb's finding ability, but I need to spot them in the wild, or at least the signs that will lead me to them...
The next day:
A pegmatite/feldspar occurrence, take a photo for Brad.
The place he told me of, the sapphires in the feldspar next to the entrance of the "cave".
A close up of the feldspar. That's black tourmaline (schorl) in the upper right.
And closer:
See them? Grey, I bust one out and bring it in, the tiniest shit-sliver of a sapphire, 2mmX1mmX.5mm, show him the photos. Yep, yep, yep. But, really, who would fucking recognize this?
Still, know the small and you can find the big. The biggest from this claim, (or above this, this is a rail trail, not the claim) is over 500 grams (2500 Carats!), and colors range from a steel grey to a cornflower blue. So...I found one, now to find better!
Links: Herb Hyder's Sapphire Finds:
- https://www.rockngem.com/sapphire-discovery/
- https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=6116&view=previous
Yeah, don't google any further, the instagram and facebook are just disturbing. But he finds good shit.
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And, counting down the days left at the restaurant - told, first, that we'd be open until after the Thanksgiving Long Weekend. Then, on Thursday, the owners are discussing the possibility of closing after the weekend. I'm thrilled, naturally. Friday morning it's decided - Friday is to be the last day. That's the notice. Today, beginning the deep clean of the restaurant, menial, mindless work for which I'm grateful, perhaps a weeks worth all told, then back to the mountains with my pick and shovel to gather my winters supplies...
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Wake up. There's a squirrel on the painting above my head on the sofa. The cats apparently got a little overly ambitious overnight and made a big catch.
The family's got me (and the squirrel) surrounded, they're trying not to wake me and capture the squirrel to release it.
Hilarity ensues.
In the end everyone is fine, squirrel included. I need my own place to live.
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The busiest weekend of the year. This year is no exception. 1/2 the tables, + an additional 7 tables on the beach. Impossible to serve, too far, walking on sand, can't keep an eye on this and the patio, the restaurant, we're running with 2 servers, me and the owners son, the restaurant is full.
The parking lot is filled with Alberta Plates, they drove all the way from Calgary, Edmonton, wearing their masks, took them off as soon as they entered the restaurant. I'm not kidding, it's like they were saving it for us. This is how the Covid got in...
We're busy, dumb-ass busy, stupid busy, for 2 servers, wtf? We did the same numbers last year with 6 servers, half the area, this year, it's pandemic suicide. The pandemic lemmings.
We're done. Done, done, done.
It's a record-setting weekend with only half the tables, a third the waiters, heat wave, beach, foreign accents, American the worst, License plates ranging from Quebec to Alberta, it's a gong show. A ton of complaints, startlingly few, all things considered, and it's over.
It's 10 hours of non-stop trauma.
Recovering, going to town for some tacos, a smaller restaurant, waiting 10 minutes for an empty table, count 7 servers/bartenders - and I realize that our crummy service, it's not so bad, you can count us, see that there's only 2, here, really, there's no excuse other than Kootenay indifference/incompetence, and while it'd be a lot calmer here I'm not thinking this would be a healthy change...
Anyways, it's over, it's all downhill, down the other side of the mountain, and soon it will be dead enough that I'm missing the customers.
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Walking on the mountain, bear scat everywhere, you know they're everywhere but I'm noisy enough they keep out of sight. Old mining trails leading onto old mining shacks and homesteads, some good exploring, and then I come to a meadow that rather intrigues me and I catch my first sight of one:
See it? Look closer...
Making noise, the cubs have fled the picture but mom's not backing down and so that ends a fine day of near discovery...
Need to start carrying my bear banger and spray. On the way out, fresh scat piled in the tire ruts I drove over to get here - the place is infested with them...