Children:  Pebble Pups are always encouraged to attend our field trips.  Any age or size is welcome.

Pets: Only if kept under control.

Trip is FREE:

TRIP: to Erin Road, Clay county to collect garnet crystals 

COLLECTING: Massive Almandine Garnet crystals, samples will be displayed before trip.   Kyanite, black tourmaline (schorl), and quartzite are also sometimes found.

SPECIAL CONDITIONS: It will be hot and dry in the collecting area.  Plan ahead and bring something to drink.

BRING: something to collect in, simple digging tools, drinks, and comfortable clothing. 

DIRECTIONS AND WHERE TO MEET: 
Where we will meet: In the Winn Dixie Parking lot in Wetumpka
When:  0730 Central Standard Time

Directions to our meeting place: Follow Highway 231 north from Montgomery into Wetumpka.  Turn right (east) into the Winn Dixie parking lot.  We will be staging from here to go north to Ashland on Hwy 9.  If you wish to meet us in Ashland itself, we will be leaving town going west on Hwy 77 and will stop at the last convenience store/gas station before leaving town at approximately 0830 CST + or - 20 minutes.  Hwy 9 runs north/south through Ashland and Hwy 77 runs east/west.  The convenience store is west of the center of town approximately 1-1.5 miles on the south side of Hwy 77.  There are only 2 convenience stores west of Ashland on Hwy 77 and only one on the south side of the road.  I do not recommend vehicles larger than a SUV on the dirt county road.  It would be difficult to turn around and although the road runs through, there is an old wooden bridge to cross which may cause problems. 

Drive Time: Approximately 1.5 hours from Montgomery, .5 hours from Ashland.

Collecting Area: The area is in the Talladega National Forest.  Collecting will be along a dirt road that runs through privately managed forestry land.  Both the road surface itself, the banks, and the area near the road.  There are other materials that can be collected in this same area.  No large holes are allowed, however there are plenty of easily collected garnets.  Material is "poor" quality, however can be cabbed or used for spheres and eggs.  Has interesting red/orange appearance with healed fractures and inclusions.  A table will be set up with samples and already cut material.  There are many other minerals in the general area including several gold mines, pyrite mines, and turquoise (wavelite) has been reported. 

The Dixie Mineral Council Garnet trip was a great success for our club.  Over 30 people showed up with members from all across the southeast.  One individual actually came from Virginia, by way of Atlanta.  From our club there were Jean, John, James and his son Steve, David, and myself. 

There were plenty of garnets available for everyone and everyone had a great time.  There was a display table showing some of the local material as well as cut stones to show what could be done with the stones.  Although garnets, especially larger ones, were the topic of the day, we also found time to track down a kyanite location along the road and to pick up some fair quality kyanite specimens.  Some of the stones were an interesting quartz/garnet/mica material that polished really well.  I managed to collect quite a few chunks of what appears to be the same material, kind of a quartz/quartzite with garnet and mica inclusions.   Although the material doesn't look like much, the pieces I've cut have polished very well.  John appears to have liked the way the quartz and mica together came out.  He mentioned talking to Javed (a dealer) about putting some on his table if he could find enough. 

Black berry briars were everywhere, and a couple members of the group managed to collect several pints of black berries.  Most of the berries were eaten before they could be taken home.  A couple people brought goodies to share, which were really enjoyed. 

We also attempted to track down an old hard rock gold mine in the area and after wandering through some of those same black berry briars, we did manage to find a level spot at the bottom of a hill where it appeared that someone had dumped a load of large rocks to build a road.  No mine entrance was found, which considering how dense the brush is, that's probably a good thing because we would have found it the hard way.  From the GPS coordinates, that is almost certainly the correct location.