Spending a few days in Missoula with my daughter, Leilani, I convinced her that I had to spend at least a few hours at Lolo Pass digging for smokey quartz crystals. ?She didn’t take much convincing, but insisted that we wait until 7:00am to leave. ?I used the usual argument about wasting daylight, but to no avail. ?We pulled out of the drive way at 6:50am and ?arrived at the parking area at about 8:30am.
The truck is in the shade now but when we got back to it the sun was baking it.
My wife, Joyce and I recently went on a long two week trip to North Dakota. ?This trip was not intended for collecting rocks, but I did manage to squeeze in a few short stops. ?The first one to Lolo Pass, Montana.
This stop was possible because we needed a place to stay our first night and the hot springs at Lolo Pass called to us. ?While Joyce was able to sleep in I got up before dawn and headed to a great Smokey Quartz location.
Night time is not good rock hunting time.
I spent a few hours waiting for daylight before heading out with my tools. ?The fall colors were crying out to have their picture taken, so I obliged them.
Colors that wake you up!
I hiked up an old logging road to a spot that I had visited before and spent two hours digging. ?At this point I decided to explore and hiked around the hills looking for evidence of crystals.
It wasn’t long before my time was up and I had to head back and pick up Joyce for our next leg of the journey. ?I did not find much this trip, as shown here, but had a great time in the mountains of Montana.
Two small and one medium crystal.
Thanks for joining me.
chasfire