Gazing Into Our Crystal... Rocks

Part 7 of Our Treasure Adventure

(If you haven’t heard the beginning of this adventure tale, go back in my blog posts and listen to my podcast, Healthy Mom Crazy Life, to catch it all from the beginning!)

In my last blog we were in the first half of Day 4 of our Family Adventure Treasure Tale - today is the second half of Day 4, we just had so much treasure adventure I couldn’t fit it all into one blog! ;)

We had finished discovering a bountiful harvest of garnets at the River of Gold and we were excited to carry on our adventure 2 hours west as we took on a completely new type of adventure at Crystal Park. I knew that we’d need some guidance in any endeavors to find gold, but I also wanted to have some kind of authentic experience out in Mother Nature as well. Who knew what this would bring, but we had to try something!

I wound our car up and around the hills and mountains of Montana; out and further away from. . . well, who knows where. I had two thoughts as we continued Part B of our Treasure Adventure for the day. 1. I was glad that I had filled up with gas when I had the chance, and 2. I was excited to have some kind of self-exploratory opportunity for the boys to try their own hands at finding treasure.

My knowledge about Crystal Park was pretty limited - basically I knew the location of the park, that it was free except for the $5 parking, and the public was welcome to come and do their ‘thing’. What this ‘thing’ was, I really didn’t know, but I figured that we’d discover something when we got there. Ironically, the campground managers we talked to had no idea what to do either - go figure.

Whatever it was we were going to do, at least we came semi-prepared to do it. Not knowing when we’d need them, from Wisconsin we brought our little shovel, some Zip-loc bags, and a tote with some other semi-useful, semi-useless tools and gadgets - it was about time to test these tools out. Excitedly we got out of the car, ready to get started, we began walking towards the forested hills. It was getting on towards later afternoon by this point and the sky had a somewhat ominous tone, but, as usual, we were determined to do something here.

Quite honestly, I wasn’t even exactly sure what we were looking for, so as we were walking along we were looking for other treasure hunters scouring the hills for crystals and seeing what techniques they were utilizing. We didn't even have a chance to discover the strategies of our fellow treasure hunters, as we quickly started to see small sparkling objects on the ground, subtly reflecting the sunlight and catching our eyes.

Excited (yet again), we quickly reached down to examine these mysterious glistening objects. What exactly are these tiny clear rocks? Crystals!

In amazement we walked along picking up these tiny clear rocks - some of them a more milky white, some with small veins of red or purple in them. Some were slivers broken off from a long-lost larger mother rock. Others had multiple edges that exhibited a raw beauty, but others had sides that looked like they were professionally cut and faceted by a jeweler - 6-sided crystals that came to the perfect point. Harvested straight from the earth - it was insane! We could hardly believe our eyes as we picked up one after another.

Not knowing how much digging this treasure adventure should entail, we relied on surface-level finds and those found from a few shallow shovelfuls. To us they were beautiful.

About 30-minutes in, some suspicious looking clouds rolled our way - we hoped that nothing wet would pop up on us. Evidently the day before a good soaking had come through - very likely the same one that had flooded out River of Gold. It was advantageous in that it helped to wash away dirt and sand to unveil treasures, but we didn’t need remnants of the storm visiting g us today, after all, we all still had fresh memories of our Night 1 Tornado Warning on our mind… luckily we dodged that storm cloud and we only had to deal with a few light raindrops. Win!

After a few short hours of searching and discovering these unexpected finds, we decided to call it a day as it was already after 4:00 and we had to find our way out of a mountain side yet.

We made our way to the parking lot to drop off our treasure bags and equipment before we made a pit stop at the fancy campground toilets. While I was waiting for Brett, Adam was off to the side looking fervently for any last minute treasure, while he was doing this, an old hobbled up man ready to hit the woods for his own adventure came slowly walking by. Noticing Adam and his intent searching, he stopped and started to talk to him. After a few moments I could see this man (named Gary as we soon found out) pull something out of his jacket pocket and show Adam. Brett and I made our way over to them and were in quick amazement to see what Gary was showing Adam….

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It was very quickly obvious that the pieces of treasure we found were more likely the discards of the real treasure hunters who worked this price of property. Easily many times larger than our biggest crystal, this gem he held was close to three inches long and an inch in diameter. Each edge was perfectly smooth and came to a sharp point, but come to find out, the size did not alone make it quite a find, it was the other end that tapered down then came out again to form a base that made this crystal a worthy discovery called a scepter.

Gary had been out the past few hours showing some rookies how to unveil these mysteries in the earth. He’d come across dozens of crystals, discarding or giving his guests all of the funds except this one- this one was worth keeping secure in the confines of his rugged jacket.

After a few minutes of him teaching us Crystals 101, he invited us to join him as he ventured back up into the hills. It was clear he loved to teach people all about crystals, it was clear we would never get a chance like this again (and we could obviously benefit from a little help and direction), and it was also clear that I could outrun this man should the need arise.

The boys emphatically agreed they would like to venture back out, so we quickly ran back to the car to fetch our equipment and back out we went.

The part of Crystal Park Gary brought us to was like another world and if one didn’t know any better you’d think people were digging for dinosaur bones or some crazy thing. There were big holes scattered throughout land - now this must be where the serious gem hunters go!

He shared with us the physical locations that one should look for, the depth you need to dig, how to sift and find the crystals, and which gems were the cats meow...but for us, they all were still pretty cool. We found bigger and better crystals; the boys were hooked.

After about 20 minutes he left us to our own Treasure Adventure as he slowly set off across the hole-peppered land. The boys were in a state of heaven. . . except when the other boy found a crystal, then they were mad that they didn’t find it instead. Aside from a little jealousy (and some mad crazy mosquitos), this extension to our day was a blessing.

We left the park with our pockets full of the most beautiful treasures pulled straight from the ground and our hearts full of excitement and love of the opportunities we were blessed with. Crystal Park ended up being the portion of our trip that the boys continue to talk about and profess their desire to go back there someday.

Winding our way out of the park the natural beauty continued to amaze us, and I continued to be thankful that my gas tank was still full enough to not worry. Another hour and a half brought us up to Butte, where we stayed our fourth night. After some semi-poor southwestern food and an hour splashing in the pool, we were ready to hit the hay. It was a full day and some rest was certainly welcome, plus we needed to recharge our batteries, after all, our adventures weren’t over yet...