We travelled up the mountain several times over the summer. Whenever we had a weekend off or a day to spare, we would muster up the energy for the exhausting hike. We seemed to have a nice routine down, between collecting and coming home to clean the crystals. I made a pact with myself that if I was going to take them from their place in the earth, and bring them to my home to admire and share, that I would honor them by cleaning each one and finding a good home for them all. Sometimes this means keeping them in neatly organized boxes until they find their place. Sometimes it means adding them to our lovely quartz waterfall, spilling down the rocky retaining wall in our garden.
As the summer drew on, the days were getting shorter and we knew it wouldn't be long before we'd have 6+ months of no access to the high mountain site, and we'd have plenty of time for cleaning; so the focus turned to collecting. We were starting early in the day, so that we'd have plenty of time on the mountain before the air temperature cooled, and the daylight faded.
Once, we were having such a great day and having so much fun that by the time we packed up the equipment and started heading for the trail back to the car, it was almost too dark to see. There was no discernible trail through the trees and the ground had little traction - we were literally sliding down the mountain on our heels and butts. It was a little scary, I'll admit it. Thankfully we caught the slight clearing in the trees to the left that indicated the road back. I don't like to think about what might have happened had we missed it. Now we hike with headlamps and bright orange flag tape, to tie to trees if we're exploring off-trail. And we're also getting better at stemming our excitement and leaving at an appropriate time.
One of the trips up to the pass was during a wildfire outbreak, just on the other side of the pass. It was one of the worst wildfires in the state's history and we didn't realize just how wide-reaching it was until we got up to the trail. Hiking up to the site, the smoke was palpable in the air. The sunlight filtered down through the trees with an orange glow and visibility was nil. By the time we were hiking back to the car, the cooler air of evening had settled into the valley of Snoqualmie pass, weighing the smoke down with it. The air was much clearer now, up where we were, and we could look down into the valley at what appeared to be a wide, muddy river of fire-smoke.
On one of our last trips, we had an especially good day of hunting and the bucket I was carrying back to the car must have weighed around 40 lbs. Now, one reason is that sometimes you just don't know what you're looking at. You pick up a rock that looks promising, but it's packed with mud, so you place it in the bucket and figure you'll clean it at home. If it's nothing, you've got a lovely piece of granite for your garden. On the other hand, sometimes you've just had a really good day and you've got more crystals than you know what to do with, and you justify it by telling yourself you're about to have all winter to clean them. I'm writing this 7 months later, and, admittedly, it has taken us until last week to clean them all... so I think the lesson is in being more selective with what I bring home.
When we returned to the car that evening, we packed up and began heading down the road. We passed a couple of parked cars, one of which had the hood up. The driver was looking at the engine with a headlamp on. I recognized him immediately and we hopped out of the car only to discover that several of our friends had arrived to camp and do some hunting the next day.
I was excited to hear their adventures, so I called several days later to find out how it had gone. Unfortunately, it turned out that one of them had dug too far under a tree and had been pinned by a large rock. After a quick trip to the hospital, he was bruised and sore but thankfully had no broken bones. It was a real-life reminder of the dangers of rockhounding and the importance of playing it safe.
Finally, the days became too short and the snow level dropped and the summer was officially over. It was time to hunker down and clean the treasures we had collected, and dream about what next summer held in store.
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