 Hello and welcome once again to the Rugger Rockhound today. I've got a new rockhounding friend, one of our subscribers here, Eric. He's out here to help me search around. We originally were going to go to Siskel and Yellowcat, but that is just covered in snow, so we had to drive all the way over here to the San Rafael as well. As you can find these red jasper nodules that in the center of them, they have celestite crystals. And that probably only occurs in certain areas. There's maybe even some of you that know where that is, but I'm going to start exploring. We're going to start with this area of the Curtis and maybe explore it that way today. So just kind of cross it. As always, GPS coordinates of where we parked. There you go. Let's get at it. Let's see what we can find today. Just found this piece. This one has some nice yellow in it. So we're getting red and yellow jasper. Good. It's coming out of these hills. You can probably see it sparkling on that lower one. Well here we are on the lower hill. We got a lot of jasper slash agate, some with some good color in it. Looking pretty good. Not too bad. Let me switch to the macro lens. We can see some of these pieces better. You should be able to see things better close up. So we get red and the yellow jasper. And then in the center we get some white quartz going on in some of these. Pretty neat looking. Some of that red and yellow looks really nice. Look around a bit and see if we got any really nice ones. Here's a nice piece Eric found. That's got some tubes going through it. I call it tube agate. Found this one. That looks pretty nice. It's almost a green right in the middle. That's cool. That could be fun to cut. Take that home. I also found a few other ones here. I might take home and cut just so we can have fun cutting a few things. Here's this one cut open. At least what survived of it. Really nice. Look at the white dots in that one. That's unusual. I don't see white dots in a lot of this. That is really cool though. This little one shattered a bunch. But it's got those really cool circles in it. So I thought I'd just show a piece of those really cool circles. Red and yellow. Yep. Here's this one cut open. Okay that looks like some classic jasper. Like what you get in the Drum Mountains. Yeah. Red and yellow jasper. There you go. I like the crack that went through it that filled in kind of with an orange. That one looks like it'll be a good one to cut. Looks like it has some tubes in it. We got a lot of it. Yeah that one should cut nicely. Here's this one cut open. Used to be bigger. But what survived is actually quite nice. Once again those really cool circles going through it. Looks like another one I'm going to cut. Just from reference where we're at. That's where we parked. And there's the interstate. Yeah it's really close. It's easy. Here's this one cut open. Oh that's nice. Look at that circle right there. It's got multiple layers to it. Multiple rings. That is a really nice piece. Definitely one of the better pieces I cut. I've cut open. Nice. Here's another good looking one. Problem with a lot of these is they're pretty fractured. So I don't know how well they'll actually hold together. But there are tons of them. So I'm going to grab these couple. Take them back. Try cutting them out. But I think now we're going to want to move up further. Check out that area. But some of them are really cool. This one's a little larger and it's got some calcite in it. So I'm pretty sure that's calcite. Yeah it looks like calcite. Here's this one cut open. You can kind of already see the calcite on the outside. Sure enough it's in the middle. But the sides of it look really nice. You've got those little circles going through it. That adds to it. So anywhere you see that red right below these cliffs. That is it. That is the Curtis where the stuff's coming out. And I guess just follow it. The stuff here looks small though. Eric mentioned the other, the only other time he's been here. He went up further and he said he saw bigger ones. So I think that's what we'll do. We'll go further up. See if we can find bigger ones. Here's this one cut open. The other side broke apart into pieces. But oh look at those circles. I really like those circles. Red and yellow. Coming down just saw this. Look it's got some dog tooth calcites in it. Cool. So I just kind of quickly washed this off just to kind of see better in there. Bunch of nice little calcite crystals. So some of the, some of the stuff out here because it got pockets in it with calcite. And from what I've heard calcite and quartz are going to be your more common, mostly calcite crystals in the middle. Celestite is going to be much fewer and far between. Just found another nice one that I think I'll cut. Yeah, I'll take that home and cut that one. They're definitely getting better looking. Got some cool potentials here, but look at that. Look at the layering on the edge of that one. Definitely a nice banded agate. And this one had a pocket right in the middle of it. And you can see it's got some of those kind of poker chip calcites in that one. That's kind of cool. Here's this one cut open. The other side shattered though. I got some aircraft flying over. But yeah, look at that one. Look at the pattern in that. That's beautiful. I'd love to find a bunch like that that are solid. That would be so nice. So here we go. Eric found a nice bigger one that's got that really nice look to it. That'll make a nice cut. Cool. Just found that one. That looks pretty nice. Looks good. It's got those nice cool formations in it. So here's a nice little one, kind of a round one. Look at that because it's got a good round shape to it. So we're going to try this spot here. I can't tell for sure, but I think the layer is right on the top there, which is ideal because it's a little harder to get to. Probably won't be as searched and it'll be more exposure. And here at the fire pit, look what they use as part of the firing. That's a lot bigger than what we've been seeing over there. So that's a good sign. I definitely think we should go check and see if it's on that top. And if it is, excellent. Should he find a part of a nodule? Oh, that's looking promising. We'll spray it off. All right. Definitely got some color in there. That's promising. So we came up here, got onto this hill and look at that. We're getting some good pieces. Look, there's some purple in there. An old frost wedging. Oh, wow. There's just some yellow. A lot of yellow. Just on that piece, it's a little better. We've got some good color and pattern in it. Here's this one cut open. Very red. You can see a little bit of agate going through it in places. Mostly though, it's a red jasper. It's getting kind of cool. We're picking up these interesting pieces. This one had a little druzy on it. Those crystals. It's very interesting. That is very yellow. Just found that piece. Look at the color in that one. Now that is what we want. Okay, more of those please. All right, we're definitely getting some larger chunks now. This one right here. And then he got that big one there. Right here's another big one. It's mostly on the edge though. It like makes an edge around. Here's this one cut open and it broke a little bit right here. So this is a really good example of how fractured this stuff out here tends to be. Look at all those cracks going through it. But really nice. Look at that yellow. These little circles kind of purple in the middle. I like that little orangish reddish band going through it. Just right there. Found this. That would have been a nice geode if you could have found a complete calcite all along the edge. Pretty cool. Let me try and wash it off a little bit. It broke in half while I was cleaning it. But there you can see had a bunch of dogtooth calcites on it. Cool. Pick this up and it looks really cool. It's like a broken croissant. It's all through it. It's kind of cool. So after a while of not seeing tough very good quality, we're starting to get back into some better quality. So that's nice. A little better right here. That's a chunk. Yeah, a little bit of quality right here. Okay, here's this one cut open. Oh nice. There's some good patterns in there. It's really cool. You have to look closely at it. But there's some neat stuff going on in there. Yeah, most of the stuff out here is red and yellow. Occasionally get some purple in it too. And colorless. That's really cool looking. Look at the light come through that. That's really cool. Oh, that looks really nice. It's on that edge. Might take that and wash that off at home. That was really cool. Look at that. The light come through that. We're getting so much bigger ones. The quality tends to be pretty low. Like it's big. I did find this one though. Having a hard time telling for sure. But I think the quality of this one might be better. So I think I'll take that home. Clean it off. So this is a big one I found out there that was broken and you already saw it broken. But I got it all cleaned off. And that's how it looks all clean. Cool. Very fractured. Again, another one that might be some higher quality. I might want to take home and cut it. I don't know. I'll think about it. So Eric made a nice little discovery here. Something that at first glance looks like calcite. Look at it more closely. See those blades? That is not calcite and it is way too heavy to be a calcite. So barite or celestite. And I would say that's barite. It looks like barite to me. Blades of it. Blades of barite. But yeah, you can feel how heavy that is. It's definitely not calcite. That's really cool. We dug it all out. So it was a large nodule that had filled in with, I'm going to say it's celestite. It's either celestite or barite. This place is known for it's celestite, which is why I think that's what it is. But both celestite and barite are heavy. And I've been out of mineral gel long enough. I can't remember the difference in the crystal structure. So I'm going to get home, research that and be certain. But I think it's celestite. Well, I'm back at the vehicle. We're going to actually go quickly check out one more spot before heading out. But I forgot to give you the coordinates. So here you go. Here's the coordinates tour we were. And just so you know, we were up on top of that ridge. All right. So that's where you're going to find your stuff is up on top of that, the lower ridge, the one here close to us. Here we are at the last air for the day. Gonna go check this area out. We don't have a lot of daylight left. So we're just going to explore probably the other side of that a little in the wash, something around here. Anyway, here's the coordinates to this place. Let's see if this place turns out. So far, the second place is the best place we've been to today. So we'll see if this is any better or worse. Just started hiking in the wash. And then right there, I found this not bad. That's a good looking piece. So that's much better. I wish we could find more of those. Like to know where it came from and it looks like maybe some celestite on top of the quartz. I'll have to take it home and look closer at it. Here's this one all washed off and it is nice. Look at that. Got you a nice agate here and it goes yellow to red jasper. Nice little pocket here with some druzy. Just an overall really nice piece. So we had to come all the way up on the hill from the very top. Before you get to those, that's where we're showing the layer. We've got some good jasper here. Nice red and yellow. Good stuff. Well, I would say we're back in this stuff. It's all over again. Once again, trying to find the good quality ones. Here's this one cut open. Okay, red jasper. Got a little bit of a kind of a colorless, it's almost a smoky quartz in the middle or at least in this part. Interesting. This one has some of the larger bubble shapes I've seen on it. So I think I'll keep that one as my piece with those. Really cool. There's some really nice ones right around here that have this botrotal formation on top. Actually, it's almost more like a stalactite. It's really cool. There's a bunch of them right here. So we're just picking up a couple of them. Here's this one. I started cutting it here and then it fractured right down the middle like that. These are really fractured. So sometimes they just shatter. In fact, a lot of them just fall apart. But yeah, that's pretty cool inside. I like the color. Just found a better one. Look at that one. It's kind of on both sides. Really cool. Go check that out, see if it's any good. Just found this. This is looking really nice. I think there are more stalactites going through it than just like spheres. So they might make nice tubes in it like he was saying. People call it some tubular agate or jasper out here. That's looking really good. And I think we see some big pieces on the top of the hill too. Hopefully it's more of this stuff. Here we are on top and look at that. This is some good looking stuff. Look at that one though. I love that one. That could be more right there. Oh that's looking so cool. Definitely going to take some of this back. Here's this one cut open. The other half shattered. So we only got this half. Interesting though. Look at that structure in there. It's like a bunch of little red dendrites running around. I picked up most of it. Eric's found a really good spot right here. So this little spot coming out has this really good formation of really nice jasper in the middle with agate on the edge. And these are probably going to look really nice. So look at that. Look at the colors in that. Look at that. So that's what he's talking about. This is some good stuff. Here's this one. Now I tried to cut it and as I did it just simply broke. So that's what it broke into on the inside. Pretty nice. Pretty neat looking stuff. Here's this one cut open. Oh look at that. That is cool. That is a really nice one. It's like a flame. Those reds and oranges really going together nicely. Lots of layers in it. That is a nice one. Here's this piece cut open. Oh that's better than I thought. It has a lot of circles in it. Really cool. Nice. I like that one. Here's this one cut open. Huh. Center of it is a grayish. Here's this one cut open. Oh that one looks pretty nice inside. Look at that. Look at one of them at a time. Very nice. We've got some purple hues, yellow, red. Pretty nice color and pattern going through that. I like that one. So we dropped everything off at the vehicle back there and we were finishing up the day in the wash because you see the sun getting low. And I've been finding just you know a bunch of little neat little things. I haven't really been filling just because we've seen so much but look what I just found in the wash. Look at that. Nice big complete nodule. It's got fractures in it but I'm gonna hopefully get it cut open but it'll probably fracture. I might have to glue it a little bit. I'm excited though. I'm excited for that one. And here is this monster cut open. Oh man. I'm gonna have to show you each half at a time. Here we go. Here's the first half. So a huge thank you to Eric Ned Vecchi one of my subscribers for cutting this open and polishing it for me. It's a lot of work polishing something like this. So a huge thank you to him for that. It's crazy. Just look at that. Just kind of slowly go all the way around it. I mean I wish the center would have been like terminated crystals or other cool colors but as it is it's still really cool. And here is the other side of it. So we'll just kind of take a quick look all the way around this. Oh boy though. Yeah it's huge and cool. So I really want to find more of these. So a lot of the ones we get are you know small and fractured and most of them do have these white centers but when they're this big it's worth it. And we made it back to the vehicle. Wow that was a big day. We hiked a lot found a lot of stuff and I've got a ton of stuff to cut. That's gonna take me a little while. Yeah great spot and Eric said next time we'll go to the better spot. So we'll see what that's all about but until next time remember there is treasure everywhere.