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Taboose Creek - Lone Pine, CALabor day, 1999 at Taboose Creek is a collecting success. Those in attendance are: Diane and Mark, Bob and Maxine, Keith and Christina and Brad. Saturday, hurricane Iris provides a welcome relief, keeping the temperatures in the 80's with occasional light refreshing sprinkles. Everyone finds crystals both small and large including one nice 45 pound cluster by Bob. A few crystals are double terminated, many are single having grown from a cluster. The color varies from almost clear to smoky with some light green. Many more crystals fall into the broken class, missing the termination (one or both) leaving just the shaft. Nice specimens are found about 1½ to 2 feet down. Bring your pick and shovel. The amount of crystals found is proportional to the amount of dirt moved. He/she who moves the most finds the most. Sunday, with everyone maxed out on crystals, we decided to explore a new area called Mazourka Canyon. It is approximately 9 miles south of our crystal collection area. Since everyone has 4 wheel drive vehicles, we head across the desert along the mountains on an old range access road (many gates to open and close) instead of heading back to 395. Traversing many large puddles and muddy areas adds a new dimension to rock hounding. It’s not the destination but the journey. Arriving in Mazourka Canyon we follow a stream bed to the mouth of the canyon where the gray 400 million year old limestone is abundant. We have lunch in the shade of a large slab of vertically raised sea bed. We find coral which is brownish against the gray limestone. The host limestone is weathered away exposing many coral clusters. We are also lucky enough to find some crinoids stems. The weather was certainly on our side making for an enjoyable and rewarding field trip. See you next month.
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