One Bad Dog and Two Water Falls

We went out searching for rocks again this Saturday, right after open rock shop hours were over at 1PM. Our goal was to scout for areas around town that might contain fossils. The problem is that recent road and house construction has resulted in most offroad access now being blocked off by many very irritating gates with locks on them. We drove along looking for any dirt road to travel upon, but time after time, we found nothing.

Finally, we left the truck in a parking lot near a river and started walking up stream, picking through large boulders as we went. The landscape was surreal because for a large swath of the river, the surrounding boulders had actually been cemented in place to prevent erosion. The day also started off in a less than savory way because Sesame Pooch found an old dead fish on the bank and decided to roll on top of it. Dogs have the worst taste in perfume! You can see Sesame in the first photo looking smug and happy with herself as usual. But I got my revenge by dunking her into the river a few times to get the smell off. Stinky river smell is still much better than stinky fish smell!

Next we hiked along an old dirt path next to the river and scrambled up a steep hill to investigate the rocks, which were mostly granite plus some basalt. On top of the hill, on a large dead branch, sat a native finch bird. As I trained my camera on him, Sesame Pooch ran up the hill and startled him, and I snapped the picture just as he extended his wings. Score one very nice photo 2!

Going back down the hill, we continued along the river and soon heard a roaring sound, which was surprising. San Diego is supposed to have only one decent water fall in the entire area. This is an often quoted fact amongst local hikers and one that I have always been suspicious of. And sure enough, after hopscotching back and forth over the river on boulders, and clambering through riparian shrubs, we began to hear the telltale roaring sound and shortly found another, apparently not well known, water fall far along some animal paths. It took us some time to find a path across that would not involving wading, but eventually Dave was able to make his way to the top of the falls. That's him on top of the left side fall.

Some of the granite boulders there in the river had strange hoof shaped imprints of half grown black tourmaline. (photo 4) And we found some old pipes, perhaps once used for harvesting water from the river, but little else of interest. (Gratuitous picture of Sesame looking cute on the river, last photo to the right)

As usual, Dave was ready to stay well past the dropping of the sun behind the mountain, and I finally had to prod him to leave before it became too dark to see the rocks in front of our feet. I moved quickly back toward the main road and then searched for Sesame Pooch's leash, only to realize that I must have left it on a rock somewhere. Too late to go back! I cast around for bits of stray rope or string, to no avail, until I finally figured out that the end of a rockhammer stuck under her collar worked well enough as a sort of makeshift leash. Following the river back under the main road, I wanted to make sure she stayed near me and far away from the traffic. The rest of the trip back to the truck was without incident and we now know of one more place in San Diego that does not have fossils!

More Photos From the Nuevo Silica Mine

Here are a few more photos from the Nuevo Silica Quarry that I couldn't quite fit into the original articles but I think are worth posting anyway. One of the most striking things about the mine was the huge tourmaline sprays, but their true size was difficult to properly capture on film. The camera likes to make things look smaller than they really are. In the top photos, you can see several more of the interesting fan shaped patterns that some of the tourmalines formed in the host rock.

The photo to the right captures Sesame Pooch observing one of the areas were the tourmalines looked like splattered and dribbled black paint. The bottom left photo shows some of the water clear quartz and black tourmaline pieces that I took home with me (click the photo for a larger view).

There was also one nice piece of smokey quartz, but I actually didn't spend much time collecting as I was so busy exploring and taking pictures.

The first part of the story, In Search of the Nuevo Silica Mine, is here. The second part of the story, Finding the Nuevo Silica Mine, is here.

Finding the Nuevo Silica Mine

The next day dawned cool and crystal clear, the lingering rains now swept away by a perfect day. We started well before lunch with Dave sporting more research on the location and a much better photo from Google Earth. His plan? He wanted to try coming at the mine from a whole 'nother direction, this time further North. He had seen the mine on Google Earth and felt we had been close to it the day before, but that there looked to be better roads coming in from the other side. So we drove along another paved road for a long time and then by chance, spotted an offroad vehicle turning off the main road in front of us. In a split second, Dave decided to veer and follow. We had no idea where this dirt road would lead but it was going in the right general direction.

The area turned out to be an offroad mecca, with substantial moguls and side roads built up in many places. We crawled along for some time, attempting to head towards the power lines ahead, which Dave knew from Google Earth were near the mine. At one location, gold colored mica was so thick on top of the road that the road literally looked clad in gold. I tried to take a picture of it but unfortunately, the camera could not properly process the gold color and the picture only appeared to show a shiny wet road.

At several places, recent heavy rains had substantially eroded the road, and at one point, just inches from high centering, we had to stop and fill in some of the ruts before moving on. In the first photo, you can see Dave, who was supposed to be filling in the last part of the rut, as he gets distracted by a pretty rock and has stopped to inspect it. I guess you just can't keep a rockhound away from the rocks! Just before that, I had been collecting large rocks to throw into the ruts, when I unknowingly grabbed a rock that was covered in fire ants underneath. Cluelessly carrying it along, it was not until I reached the ruts that all the ants collected on my hand simultaneously bit me. How they can synchronize like that is beyond me! The lesson for me is to pay more attention to my environment.

Eventually, we were on our way again only to stop again shortly to follow a long skinny strip of pegmatite banding. Again, we saw white quartz with pinkish feldspar. I walked for at least a half hour, following the white lines, but not finding anything quite worthy enough to become excited about. But I couldn't quite get myself to stop following those amazingly straight lines in the ground! Any minute, the pegmatite might improve and I might find some garnet or tourmaline! Or so I kept telling myself as I walked until finally running out of white lines and returning to the truck. While I was gone, Dave had spent some time digging into the dyke closer to the truck, but he also had founding nothing of interest, just some tiny ends of what he called 'red tourmaline' but what I thought were probably tiny dark red garnets squished into the host rock. [Edited to add: Looks like these may in fact really be zircon] We continued on, choosing roads, and then sometimes backtracking and unchoosing those same roads, but always mostly heading towards the power lines.

Until finally up ahead, we saw chunks of broken ice lining the road. Or was that actually quartz!?! (see 2nd photo closeup) I was so eager, I jumped out of the truck before Dave even had time to park. I could see hoards of white and clear quartz and even the occasional black tourmaline interspersed between. We knew we had to be near to something because where had all these broken chunks of rock come from? They were clearly tailings, and just up ahead, Dave saw the entrance to the quarry (3rd photo), well hidden until you were right on top of it, a cut out area beyond which was a short but steep trail into the open mine pit below. We had found Nuevo Silica mine!

At the top of the quarry, long black veins of compressed mica ran along the walls. But the most striking part were the huge black tourmalines embedded lower down in the mine, directly in the rock walls, many of them as big as my arms (4th photo, note the rockhammer for perspective, and 5th photo). More pressure lower in the mine had grown tourmalines instead of mica veins. The tourmalines made a variety of shapes in the walls including parallel lines, fans, bullet like blobs formed from an end on view, and even in some places, meandering lines as if black paint had been splashed against the walls. The walls were steep and in many places, deep pockets had been dug into the walls, but Sesame Pooch easily danced up the sides using tiny footholds that only a dog could find. In a corner of the mine, Sesame also found a small 'short cut' tunnel that also led out of the mine (6th photo just above) We spent considerable time investigating and collecting bits of black tourmaline, until Dave found another hole in the ground further away.

This time, the hole was a horizontal tunnel instead of an open pit. Sesame was the first to inspect the mine entrance in the 7th photo (to the right). We speculated the goal of this mine may have been gold instead of silica. The tunnel disappeared far into the Earth, but water dripped from the ceiling, the floor of the tunnel was heavily flooded and even the entrance was incredibly slippery. (8th photo just below/left)

We contemplated wading further in, as the water did not appear high, but on thinking about it, we realized the murky grey water could have hidden a vertical shaft or any matter of other hazards, making for a potentially dangerous situation. Besides that, neither of us had brought an extra pair of shoes! So we decided sometimes discretion is the better part of valor and moved on. Perhaps later in the spring, when the water table drops. this shaft may become more easily accessible. However, near the entrance to this tunnel, in its tailings, we did find the most clear of all the quartz pieces we found that day, many of them, although not large, were water clear and suitable for faceting.

After more collecting, we headed out along more off road moguls and bumps back towards the main road. Since we still had a little bit of time before absolute dark, Dave, not wanting to waste any of our time up there, decided to go further down the paved road and looked for additional access points, perhaps some that might be less difficult and bumpy. Eventually, after many dead ends, we did find another road that went through, this one much further East. We followed it up directly to the power lines, the ruts here also being difficult in a few places. At the top, we found a thick pegmatite dyke running right under one of the power line foundations! More pinkish feldspar was there to be found. And on we went, our shadows now very long indeed and then next thing we knew, we were crossing another road, this one a very nice new paved one. Where had this one come from!?! We had not seen any paved roads previously but we were still far from the mine.

Whatever the case, we followed it and found it was another road that we had looked for fruitlessly the day before. We even saw pegmatite vein running right through the road! (last and 2nd to last photos) This vein also contained some black tourmaline but all the pieces I saw were locked inside the host rock. But eventually we could barely see, it was so dark, so we headed back down hill to find out where this paved road connected to the roads below. At the end, we found this road was actually blocked by a gate, which is why we had not found it the first time. Google Earth didn't tell us about the gate! ;-P The gate would allow people out so we could leave this night, but getting in would have required the password or a clicker code, neither of which we had. Anyway, it was dark now, so the rest of that road and its side roads will have to be an adventure for another time. But we found our mine and we found an heretofore unknown and ungated path to that mine. We found a prodigious supply of black tourmaline and water clear quartz and we avoided getting seriously stuck numerous times, so not bad for a day's work!

{You can see part one of this adventure here: Rockchaser: In search of The Nuevo Silica Mine}
For additional pictures of the mine, click here.

In search of The Nuevo Silica Mine

We left at 2PM on Saturday, a last minute decision to scout the area around Nuevo to look for the Nuevo Silica quarry. The mine was reportedly located behind a road that had recently been taken over by a church. One thing we needed to ascertain was if
the church was allowing traffic to the mine. Rumor had it that a gate at the church was intermittantly opened and closed, thus causing a constant hazard to access to the mine. One of our numerous goals that day was to find a route that would bypass the church altogether. But doing that without even knowing the exact location of the mine itself would prove to be tricky.

First we drove along the base of the mountain, looking for any and all roads that headed in the right direction, but all were blocked off by gates or recently built
houses. Eventually, we realized we had little choice but to hazard the church route and were soon back at the road to the church (can't remember if there was a gate there or not!) that gave us access to a meandering dirt road until finally, ahead, we could see some structures and parked cars. Not sure what kind of reception we would get, we decided to take an alternate branch of the road that led into the hills to the left, instead of going directly past the church itself.

This side road meandered in endless spirals and cloverleaf patterns, the off roaders had obviously had some fun in that area. As we drove, the rocks slowly changed from rounded off on top to sometimes twisted and tortured shapes of nightmare. The lava here had indeed suffered before dieing but now it was reaching out even after death(2nd photo)! Other granitic rocks had large off colored bumps that looked like plague skin lesions (1st photo). One rock even looked like a weary petrified buzzard (second to last photo).

But despite the eery rocks, the area here was indeed beautiful, the artistic rocks interspersed with soft green winter grasses and white flowering bushes. The soft soil and smooth rocks also happen to be Sesame Pooch's favorite kind of environment to run wildly hither and yon, barely able to decide where she should run towards next. She trounces happily in photo 4, until in photo 5, you can see where Sesame Pooch is actually being eaten by a giant killer dog eating head chomping rock! (click on the photo to see a larger view) ;-P


As we drove and intermittantly parked and wandered, Dave told me a lot about pegmatite dykes and how they formed, most of which I have now totally forgotten! But he did assure me that the area looked promising and indeed, we did find some streaks of white rock in one area which was a pegmatite dyke running along the ground. Inspecting the white rock, we found a lot of white quartz along with some pinkish feldspar and the occasional black tourmaline. We also found an area where several large rock faces had weird indentations like the fingers of God had been poking and probing at His Playdough creation (3rd photo).

But it was getting late and Dave wanted to try a new way out, down hill instead of back up towards the church. Luckily, we soon found yet another branch of dirt road that lead in the right direction, and as we followed it, it looked more and more commonly used, always a good sign when you are hoping your road will pan out.

Soon it was already dark as we continued to pick our way along strange roads, but we knew we were almost back to the main road and eventually we did make it. At one point, we encountered one of the roads we had looked for desparately on the way in but could not find! But at least we now knew of a way into the area without going
through the church. Or did we? First and most important, was that really the route to the Nuevo Silica mine? Since we had not actually found the mine itself, we still could not say for sure. The second question was, even if it was the right route,
after all that meandering, did we even stand a chance of finding the same route twice? Both questions would soon be answered in spades by the end of day two, which will be the next posting. But as a coming attraction, I give you the bottom photo. Hint: the big black spots are big black tourmalines! (Plus it looks like Sesame Pooch actually survived her encounter with the killer dog eating rock after all!)

To see part two, "Finding the Nuevo Silica Mine" click here.
For additional pictures of the mine, click here.

Red Fever

A giant handful of thick red garnets, the size of gumballs, their edges gently worn down during their long travels along the sandy river bottom, this vision I had in my mind as I waited in the parking lot for the others to arrive. Sesame Pooch, perhaps sensing the impending adventure, wagged her tail eagerly at my side. Of course, Dave had thought Mike wasn't coming. And Mike had thought Dave wasn't coming. So the whole thing was almost called off by accident, but finally we got it all sorted out that everyone was in fact coming. And so we came. But where were we going? That was the REAL question!

In my mind, I could only think of those garnets that Dave had shown me several weeks earlier. He had said they came from the river, clogging the sluice boxes of the gold hunters, of all places! The gold hunters had looked upon them distainfully as mere hindrances to their travails. But Dave had found the common sense to save as many of the garnets as he could. Now I wanted some for myself. Oh sure, they were rather opague garnets, and their edges were gone, but hey they were big! And they were red! And they would make a reeeeeaaaaally nice necklace after being cut into halves and made into cabachons. I have always wanted to make some garnet cabs from self hunted garnets, but in California, large garnets are not common. So far, I had only hounded small specimen samples of garnet. And yet Dave had found these large garnets right in our own backyard of San Diego! As the boys yammered on about this and that potential location for the day's travels, I realized that I had little to add other than, "Yeah but does it have garnets?"

Perhaps because they were getting tired of me, Dave did indeed assure me that a place they had finally chosen along the 76 freeway did in fact have garnets. If you could find them. But that was enough for me. We took off in 3 separate cars, I and my friend along with Mike heading toward the river and Dave going back to his house first to pick up gold pans. Why had we not brought gold pans in the first place? I guess that's just how organized we really are. And of course it ended up taking Dave two more hours just to catch up with us because the route he had chosen ended up being clogged by an overturned vehicle. And not long after he arrived, he ended up having to leave because of a prior engagement. Sometimes, it sucks to be Dave.

But at least we did arrive at the river, and eventually we did even have some gold pans. First taking up residence near a large downed treetrunk that crossed the river from bank to bank, I spent a long time digging in one spot looking for... (I think you can guess at this point) ...garnets! But there were none, not even a tiny little bitty one. Next I spent time picking up pieces of quartz and inspecting them. Since this location was downstream from several well known tourmaline mines, we could potentially expect to find any kind of pegmatite material, quartz crystals, tourmaline, kunzite, etc. Indeed, we did find many pieces of schorl (black tourmaline) as well as some half formed quartz crystals. One piece of rock even sported some tiny bright red translucent spots that might even have been garnets, but you had to squint hard to see them as they were so small. I guess I would not be making any cabs out of those!

It was hard to imagine this this lazy trickle of water called a river had only a few months earlier been a seething monster that had tried to drown Dave. As we picked through the lazy silt, Mike told me the story of how Dave had been standing behind that very same large treetrunk now in front of us, in the middle of the river, panning the sand under his feet, thinking this would be a very likely place for gold to have accumulated, when suddenly a hoard of sand flushed under the log. That was the sand that Dave had been standing on and so instantly, Dave was pulled under the log by the raging current, the underside of his chin hitting the top of the log as his feet went down and under the log. Luckily, he was, with difficulty, able to drag himself out of the current safely, but not before recieving a bit of a scare and also losing his gold pan downstream to the river current. But what kind of gold hunter loses his gold pan to a measly little river, that's what I want to know! Oh well, I guess I'll forgive him. This time at least.

Back in the present, we continued to look for gold and garnet, but most of the silt that Dave had so eagerly panned previously when the river was in high flood was now covered over by larger rocks. Rocks that were not garnet, I might add!

Eventually, we decided to trek upstream through a low but rather thick hedge of poison oak, to a picturesque water fall area where the river percolated gently between large boulders. There, Sesame Pooch frolicked happily with my friend's dog, oblivious to the dangerously itchy three lobed leaves all around her. Until eventually, Sesame, in her carelessness, accidentally slipped and fell between two steep boulders, clawing and scratching but unable to make the high leap out, panicking in her frenzied efforts to escape the water below, until my friend finally came over and dragged her out by her collar. First Dave and then the dog had almost fallen victim to this innocent looking river!

From my perspective some distance away, all I heard were a few anxious sounding exclamations from my friend about the dog and some kind of problem. But by the time I made my way over and figured out what was happening, it was already over and my dog was already running back to me where she felt the need to recuperate for all of 7 seconds before going back to leaping between the boulders in glee. In this scenic area, we took many pictures and critically inspected the silt for gold panning potential, but the sun was already slipping behind the mountain and it was time to go. Maybe next time we would bring a sluice box and find some of those garnets! Right now, I am thinking that would be the best course of action, but then again, three days from now when I find out how much poison oak response I will develop, I just might change my mind!