Searching for Sapphires

After the sheep farm, we decided to spend a bit longer in the Helena area. I found a campsite for us at Devil's Elbow on scenic Hauser Lake for $15/night. 

While Asher was fishing I watched swallows feeding nestlings inside the dock railings. 

Asher has always had an interest in rocks, but lately he's developed a desire to try mining. As we traveled he was searching on our phones for locations he could go treasure hunting. I surprised Asher with a trip to the Montana Blue Jewel Mine, known for sapphires. When we arrived, they instructed us to begin filling buckets from the stone pile.

We sifted them thru three screens stacked together from largest to smallest holes.

The large rocks from the top screen we could easily look thru then discard. We kept the rocks from the two smaller screens and then ran them thru the sluice, which fills with water then pushes the lighter rocks down the belt while keeping the heavier gems at the top. The rocks that go down the belt are discarded and the heavier stuff is dumped onto a metal tray for us to pick thru with tweezers.

Once we thought we had found all that was there, we put sections of the rocks on a smaller screen and shook thru a tub of water to again move the heavier gems to the center of the screen. We dumped them again and found even more sapphires! It's a long process, but quite interesting and fun.

Not only did we find a good amount of sapphires, we also found root beer agate, hemitite, quartz, and other agates. After we were finished, the employees gave us a tour of their main mining operation. It's a similar process to what we just did, but on a larger scale and automated. The larger, heavier gemstones end up in the trays and an employee checks them on a regular basis to see what they've uncovered. 

You can't go to Montana without attending a rodeo! Fortunately our timing was perfect for the Helena Rodeo. We really enjoyed the Mutton Busting- children attempting to ride sheep like a bull. None of them lasted more than a few seconds and some changed their minds before the gate swung open. Who could blame them?! 

There were two young girls age 12 and 16 doing trick riding around the arena. Standing on top of the horse or hanging from the side. It was really impressive!