Juniper Ridge Fire Opal -Holey Stones Mining Journal

Juniper Ridge Fire Opal
Link: juniperridgeopal.com

The road into the Juniper Ridge opal mine was a little bumpy. Violent sloshing noises from the five gallon water cooler echoed in our ears as we made the trip in. Joe one of the partners in the mine drove ahead of us and led the way. We began the journey from the Quartz Mountain snowpark wich is located up the highway a spell from Bly Oregon. When we arrived we parked and Joe introduced us to the mine and pointed out the various colors of material located around the digging area. I knew where I wanted to dig right away it was an area on the right side of the pit. He had pointed out the areas where the reds and yellows were but they were deep down in the pit with the walls over your head. After I chose my site there on the right side he showed me how to dig in and work my way down. The tools I brought with me however were useless because the rock was hard and compact, too compact for a standard rock pick. My mother and my Aunt used their picks to chip away at the earth with some success. Luckily for us the mine provided chisels and sledge hammers for us to use. The chisels were a foot long and pretty beefy just the thing we needed to break the rock and dirt. I learned that digging out the opals in one piece is a little like trying to get out a piece of glass that is set in concrete, very difficult. Joe told me that the bigger chunks of rock you can get to break off the bigger the opals you will recover. So I spent the day breaking off the largest chunks of rock I could muster. I found a lot of very good stuff in the spot I had chosen although I'll have to admit there were times when I wanted to quit because the work was so hard.. My mother worked most of the day trying to free one red opal the size of a saucer stuck in the wall about a foot or two in. She would never have gotten anything if it weren't for Joe using a chisel and hammer to remove a large section of wall that was blocking her way. She ended up with the nicest color of the day, her pieces were only large chips off the block but they were gorgeous pieces. Shirly found some nice material but nothing spectacular this was because using a chisel and sledge hammer was not the easiest thing for her to do. We worked from about 8:00 am to about 3:00 pm and called it quits. My arms were sore and the grip of my right hand was stuck in about the same size and shape of the handle of that sledge hammer, but hey, at least my bucket was full!