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Tuesday, pay bills. After Stupid Money I find I'm not anywhere as rich as I think.
In the evening, test out the new phone / Camera with some generic views of Nelson and the Orange bridge. I'll post those later.
Wednesday, up early and off to the races. First stop, and aquamarine/black tourmaline pegmatite. A couple of hours banging and very little found. This location needs a backhoe - it's there, the logging road criss-crosses the pegmatite - the first intersection has it filled with garnets, the second with black tourmaline and a little off-color aquamarine/beryl at the seams. But it's hard smashing up the rock. Worth another visit, but need to line up some heavy equipment...
The other two stops of the day, both locations that held promise for quartz crystals - some previous finds, but none today. So they're now scratched off the list and ruled out for the rest of summer, no need to revisit, the pay-off too low to be worthwhile.
Then, out of the heat, the drive up lake to the ferry, the drivers side front wheel is making a rubbing sound, perhaps a rock stuck in the brakes? It gets worse.
Stop, a fashionable cafe filled with mosquitos in Crawford Bay, try a couple of appy's, they're trying for upmarket city food but somehow not-quite succeeding, interesting but not particularly worthwhile.
Ferry, drive to Nelson, I work again in the morning. The rubbing on the wheel grows worse, I'll have to dismantle and see what's up, whether I have a warped rotor and need new brakes or if it's as simple as a rock caught in the brakes/wheel, this will be determined on Monday...
Prospecting, this summer - despite all this extra time off, has not been so far too successful. Time now to highlight some new roads on the map and once again begin voyages of discovery...
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Between the Dentist and Shingles I've got to stay out of sight.
Bloody Hell.
The heat, untenable, unbearable, 37 degrees Celsius, higher even.
Up early, on my way to Kimberley to check out some beryl crystals in the pegmatites at the headwaters of the Saint Mary's. On the way check out a few thrift shops, replenish my wardrobe.
I'd forgotten about Shambala.
Salmo, the town pump, packed with cars leaving the festival. Cars filled up with neon lycra leggings, feather boas, facepaint, glowsticks, tutus, tie-die, inner tubes, to the brim, overflowing, camping gear falling out whenever a door is opened, poorly packed. They're easy to identify.
Get coffee, supplies, then head off....
Into the 1 KM line for the check stop, there's check stops either side of the festival, a line up of tow truck drivers to seize impounded vehicles, it's too easy this, shooting fish in a barrel.
From here, a convoy of Alberta plates, eastward bound, past car accidents, careless, or not-so-obviously impaired drivers, through the perennial summertime construction zones, the obligatory stops - Tim Hortons in Creston, packed to the gills, the 7-11, party central...
I Make it as far as Cranbrook, getting out for an ice cream discover I've lost my wallet. I rack my brains, eventually remembering that - oh, no - I left it at the Salmo Town Pump
A quick call confirms it.
Now I'm lucky, I've enough gas to make it back to Salmo. Or I think I have enough gas. In any event it doesn't matter, and so the day is cut short.
The long drive back, just enough for a small ice cream and pop in Yak. And to Salmo, again wait out in the sweltering heat the check stop, then to the town pump.
I'm doubly blessed, not only do they have my wallet but it's contents are intact, including the $200+ I had in it.
Sit at the Subway and watch the show.
This, a super spreader Covid and (it will be seen, I'm sure) MonkeyPox event.
And, just as they sold tickets to Shambala, Salmo should be selling tickets to the aftermath. The most sketched out people - and these the ones that made it through the check stop - the Wolfman of Salmo, somehow escaped, now howling at a table outside the Salmo Town Pump, others, in various stages of recovery, many yet weeks away from any sort of baseline, an oversized girl in an undersized bikini shrieking at the Subway employees that "there's too much sauce...." before storming out, the Subway, fully staffed, a line-up out the door, vendors were in short supply this year, starving festival goers patiently lined up out the door,
...This has to be every service industry workers worst nightmare. Everyone hired must get the same spiel - gas station, bar, Subway employees: "Wait until Shambala...".
It's an economic boon, the busiest couple of days of the year, but at what cost?
The workers, the stony-faced response of having to work this the worst day of the year, for a minimum wage job, serving the sketchiest people in the nation, this, their worst day of the year, the day after Shambala, passengers passed out in their cars wearing nothing but facepaint, tattoos, pasties, there will be no prospecting today, merely sit and enjoy the show....
A week after the event the RCMP put out a call for a missing festival goer, trying to hitchhike out of Salmo, last seen "running through peoples yards", this a week ago, some people don't know when the parties over, a tragi-comedy unfolding...
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Again. Just 6 years since the last outbreak. Mother fucking bloody hell.
As soon as this clears up I'm getting the vaccine. It's supposed to be a once in a lifetime thing, this is - well, too much, must be the Native American blood that's making me sensitive to the pox, after the dentist, probably stressed, undoubtedly, a tingling in the extremities, I recognize this, ignore it, hope it will go away, but nope, nope, nope.
The pustules, leaking burning lymphatic fluid, acid, that lift the skin, blisters, on your eyes, around your face, fill your ears, groin, thighs, from the tips of your fingers to your wrist, wake in the middle of the night almost howling from the pain, it's as if someone sanded your skin down to the very nerves then threw some gas on you and set you alight, then begins the drying of the dead skin, the cracks, lesions, sores begin to heal - heal it's own form of torture, how many layers of skin have to be shed? 5 at least, feeling your finger tips, you can feel them, but not them, as if they were hidden somewhere inside a dead flesh glove, knuckles crack, around my mouth, eyes, I grow in my beard to conceal it, this is fucking murder.
When all of it is passed, and it is passing now, I'm getting the vaccine, fool me twice...
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Monday, exhausted, in such a rush to leave that I forget my phone charger, proper climbing shoes. Monday, after banking and errands I swing through Balfour on my way to the big adventure.
Pick them up. There's been power outages, the weather, unruly, 3 foot whitecaps on the lake, no boats, this might not be the day to be off prospecting...
North of Kaslo I hit it. Torrential rain, the road, awash in an inch of water, pouring down, wipers can't keep up.
And 20 minutes more and I'm through it. Roads dry, have never seen a drop of rain, and North of the meadows the logging roads are dry and kicking up dust.
First stop, some snacks at the little shop in Trout Lake. I hoped to have a bite to eat at the Hotel - beautiful, 100+ years old, but it's booked for a private event.
Nevermind. Some chips and a pop and I'm off towards Ferguson. There's a few roadcuts there that inspire me, similar terrain to the crystal mountain, but a couple of hours later I've found nothing. Now where to?
Up Crystal Mtn. Why not?
That's actually a rhetorical question, there's lots of good reasons "why not", but that inner voice is generally silenced by the prospect of treasures...
Up, up, the jeep, overheating, slow down, speed up, switch gears, 4WD Lo, and somehow or other I find the balance between driving baby hard and getting her to the top of the mountain. The hardscrabble 'road' to the summit is worn, not only am I tipping precariously back on the way up but to the left, over the cliff, hit one rock and you'll be pitched rolling into oblivion...
I make it to the top. The roads, worse than I remember, the last couple of years are eroding them, soon there will be none...
And riding along the summit I come to snow. A little late in the season for this, a 3 foot patch, someone has been through with an ATV, why not, give it a run...
Nope.
And - getting out to walk the snow patch, looking over a small rise I see snow all the way down, had I succeeded in surmounting this I would have drifted into a snow filled ravine and been there a week or so waiting to get out. So - a guardian angel of sorts somewhere...
This road, rude cart track on the edge of the mountain, a 341 point turn and I'm turned around and ready to go back.
Not that I'm going back, I just like first things first.
Now get out, gather my tools, head to the crystal place.
It's a mess. Deteriorating overburden have hidden all pockets, to get to "the good stuff" will take a day or more's digging, and so I content myself with raking the tailings. A few small crystals, none worth the journey.
And for all the deep-woods-manly-sportsman-off I'm wearing it's the mosquito netting cap on my head that saves my life. No kidding. They're bad.
Night, walk the 2 KM back to the jeep, tuck in, the next morning explore other roads up to other summits.
There are plenty of good signs, and places to dig and sink a hammer, but - well, still too much snow.
Off to other destinations....
***
Frosthall, then Sol Mtn road, some 60 or so KM off road from the ferry at Shelter Bay.
Up, up, a lizard scurrying between rocks (are there lizards up here? How? But I saw it...)
Getting out to tap at some of the pegmatites, I'm seeing them everywhere, this mountain, it's nothing but a zone of pegmatites, but I'm not seeing...
Well, what I'm here for. Minor mica, black tourmaline, some garnet, feldspar, smoky quartz. But none of the other, none of the goodies.
And it's here, I know it - I can feel it, only somehow I'm just not seeing it. It's like standing on the edge of some vast treasure that I'm somehow just not able to recognize...
Getting out at another peg I'm finding myself short my Estwing Hammer. Damn. Put it on the jeep last stop while I took a leak and now...
Backtrack, can't find it, must have slid off and been lost, and I'm mourning it, the loss of a faithful friend, tool, that discovering-breaking extension of my right arm...
...and braking on the way back it slides from the roof where it was hidden and lands clearly on my windshield.
Reunited!!!
I drive up to the furthermost point of the road, I could go further but this is far enough, in the morning I'll prospect the way back,
I've checked it all, but then, not even a fraction of what's up here - and there's lots. It's here, and sooner or later I'm gonna find it. I have to stop at the hundreds of creeks and rivulets, pan them for gold, screen for gems, I need to canvas the length and breadth of every pegmatite - it's here, I know, and in the past it's taken me a few trips to find the paying ground, this will be no different...
Wednesday, stinking of deep woods off, sweat, cigarettes and vodka, the jeep, filled and billowing with the dust collected from 400 KM of gravel roads, it's back to Nelson to clean up for work on Thursday...
***Note: Working pretty much the next 10 days straight. I want to complain, but I've got bills...
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So, breaking myself into the new jeep. It runs, well, with a few quirks. The Passenger door doesn't open. Sorry Hitchhikers. And the door behind drivers doesn't open. And don't dare try and lock the drivers door or you'll spend hours crunching yourself in other doors and crawling over rubbish to get in. Which I have done and learned the hard way, this jeep, just keep it messy enough no one wants to break in.
It came with a single key. And I would jostle it and think to myself "I should get another one cut" - but - I've never lost a vehicle key in my life.
Until Monday, when I did, and had to pay the dealers to cut me another, $80.00 worth of "Ouch" in a hard lesson learned.
It overheats going up logging roads - just like every other one I've owned. Top up the rad fluid. Same problem. Clutch Fan need replacing? Maybe, but, god-damned - every time, every single one, wtf is up? I'll investigate a few other things first. There's no way - unless I find a solution - that this is getting to the top of Crystal Mountain, and - well, it's time. Overdue. There's a big dig gonna happen and great things will be found...
So, expeditions, twice to Revelstoke, Nakusp, the Valley, other areas, a few new roads, no great discoveries on the old ones; one new area I found of promise seems to hold great potential for giant quartz crystal clusters. None found, as of yet, but - well, the ground is good - and looks right, big area to be covered, merely need to do some poking with a shovel and pick and see what I can unearth. Sometimes great things are hidden in plain sight.
And so far that's it. Great swarms of mosquitos are everywhere, in town even, and worse upon the mountains, I've bought some "Off" but will definitely need some mosquito netting - there's just too many, this year they're insane. And hopefully it reduces the deer-fly and midge bites as well. Then there's the heat, 34 degrees the other day, sweating buckets, drenched, too fucking hot. These are the terms...
Now, tomorrow back to work, 30 hours in hell to buy myself a few days in the high-swamps of BC...