STORIES: NEW AND ARCHIVED
I’ve kept a mining journal from when I was a teenager. What I hope with these pages is to share some of our family’s adventures. Some of the photos are from slides, some are from the first digital cameras, and some are more recent from cell phones. I have about forty from old web pages but, as you know, most of my days are spent mining and getting minerals ready for shows, so these pages come at the end of normally long days. Hopefully I can post some of the older stories (I may correct errors, but that will be all) as well as post some newer pages. Enjoy. Let me know your thoughts in an e-mail. Joe Dorris
Mining Takes From Summer 2021
SUMMER 2021: We operated on both the Smoky Hawk and the Sky Hawk. This will not be an article per sey but some shots and takes from the summer. Many of these specimens will be offered a year from now. Pieces we are preparing for the upcoming shows came from last...
Season 2008 and Smithsonian Pocket
Season 2008: The below article was first published on former web pages and is reprinted here as I wrote it. Some updates have been added as indicated and original photos may have been replaced with different photos which were taken at the time. The "Smithonian...
Ramblings Around the Book Cliffs (Grand Junction) Colorado, May 2021
I was able to take a short trip to the Book Cliffs in search of barite. Found a couple
Betty Jean Pocket Summer 2019
2019 season, a fantastic specimen was recovered from Site D on the Smoky Hawk Mine.
Summer 2005 – Story of the Legend and the Legacy Pocket
An incredible specimen now resides at the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum. This is its discovery story.
Christmas Pocket 2000, Blue Smoky Claim
December 2000 we hit one of our first major amazonite with smoky quartz pockets on the Blue Smoky Claim.