A couple weeks ago I broke the Stay at Home BS and headed up to the Tungsten Hills in Bishop, CA to see what I could find. The area is known for producing amazing garnet specimens and it did not fail.
This is a boulder of solid garnets.
I went to an open pit mine I had read about because it was one of the few that was not under claim. The mine itself produced tungsten, scheelite, chrysocolla, garnet, epidote and a few other minerals. I only found the boulders of garnets as I was leaving though. They were in a tailings pile on one side of the mine towards the top. I'm actually lucky I found them because I would have gone home empty handed if I had not. Here are a few pictures of the garnet specimens I broke away.
I took about 80lbs down the mountain to my truck. When I got to the bottom there was a stream bed also loaded with specimens! I could have saved myself some back breaking work! Oh well, next time I head up, maybe next weekend, I can go for the easy pickings.
Thanks for reading!