Labor Day Trip to the Spectrum Sunstone Mine

About a year ago (August 2008) my boyfriend (Bobby) and I were fortunate to be invited by our friend Shep Koss (CFMS FieldTrip Chair – SoCal) to join him for his annual trip to Oregon (Sunstone Mines) and Nevada (Virgin Valley Opal Region).

So you might ask – what took so long to post the trip? Well – we just got the stones back from the faceter and WOW! These need to be seen!!!

I am always up for a mine trip but to do it with someone who is experienced is priceless…there is no learning curve…he knows what to look for and how to get to it!

Shep works the graveyard shift so he really needed to catch a nap – so I drove – wasn’t a bad drive. Just under 12 hours and since we chose to drive overnight the traffic was wonderful (Driving from the Los Angeles Area this was a great change of pace!).

Going over Donner Pass was a little trippy – especially in complete darkness! We were on a constant lookout (Bobby stayed awake to help) for critters and had to stop for a deer once. The road is wonderful almost all the way to the Sunstone mines – when you start to get close you end up on quite a long, rough dirt road.

We arrived early enough to drop a couple large items at our chosen campsite (see helpful hints) – not necessarily by choice – we had to to get to our digging equipment – and the mine hadn’t opened yet.

1st Helpful Hint – OK – this is where Shep’s experience and frugality really helps you make this trip happen! There is no need to pay for an expensive hotel room and drive 1/2 hour to an hour to the mine…BLM SunStone Park! This is a dry camping area next to the mines…there are covered tables and a toilet! really what more do you need?

BTW – just a side note – I was worried about the heat being close to Labor Day but the weather wasn’t to bad…I couldn’t have done any HARD rock mining but for our purposes it was lovely. This is important because as you can see from the photos (provided by my friend Paul over on the Cash and Treasures Wiki – if you haven’t joined you should!)

We were the first guests to get to the mine and they were just setting up – Jessica came out to meet us and offer us coffee – Shep followed her to get a little coffee jolt to replace the sleep he missed and we waited at the Office door.

We were soon joined by a lovely couple that were staying in the TeePee that the mine rents out for overnights. Wouldn’t that be a romantic Rock Hound Honeymoon? Out on the high desert in a teepee with a fire roaring sounds great to me!

When Jessica and Shep return we get the legalities out of the way (everyone starts at the office – you must sign a waiver to dig on the mine property). After about an hour of digging in the open pit I was starting to feel the heat (I am a big wimp when it comes to heat) – so with a little push from me – we all decided it was time to give the belt a try!

2nd Helpful Hint – Do the Conveyor Belt run! From the Spectrum website: High-Grade Conveyor Belt Run…For the ultimate mining experience, pick off our commercial screen plant conveyor belt and our crew will help you pick the gems and payer gets to keep everything that shows up in one hour of running the plant, $200 per hour, nearly 6 tons of ore is processed during the hour and many stones are found. Water is used to wash the dirt from the ore processed on the conveyor belt.

The addition of water from the belt run was a lifesaver for me – we cooled right down and got down to business – this is a BLAST! High Grade Ore is carried by Front Loader bucketfuls to a shaker machine (I know probably not the technical term) and then it is shaken in a steady stream onto a table with a small water feed – the tabletop is a belt that moves continually – are you getting flashbacks to the I Love Lucy episode with Lucy & Ethel in the Candy Factory? you should be!!!! In the interest of fairness we stopped halfway through and switched positions on the belt – the first person on the belt is at a definite advantage!

Around 3pm we were BEAT!!! we said our goodbyes – the staff at the Spectrum couldn’t be nicer folks! Back at the campsite we pitched tents, setup the stove for supper and got a few minutes of discovery in.

3rd Helpful Hint: Take a walk around the BLM Grounds around Sunset or Sunrise – there is lots of Sunstone sprinkled through the grounds…you aren’t going to find anything with color but the sun just sparkles off it and you can pick up several decent sized pieces.

OK – so now you know how I got the Sunstone and where I got the Sunstone…the question now is what do you do with close to 7 lbs. of Sunstone? This is where having a network of rockhounds is so important – I wanted to get some of our better pieces faceted but I couldn’t afford to break the bank doing it! so the last helpful hint comes in the form of a referral.