Crystal Park, Montana

Rockhounder's heaven

By DARYL GADBOW of the Missoulian

Folks who dig crystals dig Montana's Crystal Park

CRYSTAL PARK - The prospect of finding buried treasure is always just one shovel scoop away here in this public sandbox high in the Pioneer Mountains of the upper Big Hole Valley.

The treasure is the quartz crystals that are scattered liberally through the decomposed granite of the unique 220-acre site that's been reserved by the Forest Service for the popular hobby of rockhounding.

Crystal Park is the only mineral area set aside on National Forest System lands specifically for recreational mineral collection, said Katie Bump, lands and minerals specialist with the Dillon Ranger District in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.

Between 4,000 and 5,000 people visit Crystal Park each summer to dig for the six-sided crystals, Bump said.

Curtis Foster of Dillon, who is serving as a volunteer host at Crystal Park this summer, said he has met visitors from nearly every state and several foreign countries. "A lot of them are just passing through,'' Foster said. "Then they pick up a forest map and see that you can dig crystals here. That idea attracts them.'' Many of the visitors are western Montana residents who come back year after year, he added. Crystal Park's two paved parking lots each have a capacity of 40 to 50 vehicles, Foster said.

Quartz crystals are hexagonal (six-sided) prisms, with a pointed "face'' at each end. The crystals found at Crystal Park can be clear, cloudy, white, gray or purple. They can be smaller than your little finger or up to several inches in diameter. Gray, purple and other colors are caused by minerals within the quartz. Gray crystals are known as "smoky,'' and the highly prized purple ones are called amethyst. Single crystals are most common at Crystal Park. But they can be found in pairs or clusters. A lucky crystal digger might find a "Japan Law Twin,'' a pair of crystals joined at an unvarying angle of 84 degrees, 39 minutes. Another prize is a "scepter,'' a larger crystal on the end of a smaller one.

Most of the crystals have little value other than as collector's items, said Bill Sherwood, a member of the Butte Mineral and Gem Club, which worked with the Forest Service to create Crystal Park as a public recreation site. "I knew a guy who found a scepter, a perfect purple one,'' said Sherwood. "He sold it for $50. Then the guy who bought it turned around and sold it to a fellow for $200. And he took it to Tucson and sold it to a fellow there for $1,200. So they have value, if you find someone who really wants 'em. I've had people offer me money for my crystals. I wouldn't sell 'em, although I might give 'em to somebody.''

The Butte Mineral and Gem Club, which has about 80 members, has long recognized the recreation value of Crystal Park, Bump said. The club began filing mineral rights claims at the area in the late 1950s. In 1976, the group entered into a cooperative agreement with the Forest Service for the management and development of Crystal Park for public recreation. The club contributed funds for a boundary fence and portable toilets.

In the 1980s, interest in crystals skyrocketed, according to Bump. And word about Crystal Park began to circulate, aided by several articles in rockhound magazines. Suddenly, she added, the parking lot at the site was overflowing, and digging activity boomed. The Forest Service realized that better facilities were needed.

The road to Crystal Park, from Wise River to Polaris, became the Pioneer Mountains National Scenic Byway in 1986. And along with the highway improvements, said Bump, came an opportunity for recreation area development. Crystal Park was one of the Forest Service's top priorities.

Also in the late '80s, a commercial mining operation claimed the mineral rights at Crystal Park. The new claims took precedence over the Butte Club's. In 1990, the Forest Service proposed withdrawal of Crystal Park from commercial mineral development. In March of 1992, in his first official action as Secretary of Interior, Bruce Babbitt signed an executive order withdrawing 220 acres at Crystal Park from entry under the mining laws.

Since 1993, the Butte Mineral and Gem Club and the Forest Service have jointly managed and developed the area. A paved trail, allowing wheelchair access, was built through the site. Improved toilets, interpretive signs, picnic sites and a well were installed. Brochures describing Crystal Park were printed.

A mid-week visit to Crystal Park last week found dozens of crystal hunters busily digging here and there around the 220-acre site. The diggers were old and young, including several families with small children, who were especially eager to dive into the dirty task at hand. They all seemed engrossed in their work, patiently digging, scraping, probing and sifting the coarse, sandy soil with a variety of implements. All of them seemed to have perfected their own personal style of crystal hunting.

"You might take one pick swing, and there'll be an amethyst,'' said Sherwood, who has found the purple crystals up to five inches in diameter at Crystal Park. "And the next hole you can dig down 10 feet, and it's just a hole.''

"The best way to dig,'' said Foster, a veteran crystal hunter, "is to scrape the wall of the hole carefully with a small trowel, and use a screwdriver to pry out the crystals. You can find 'em right under the surface in the grass roots, or down deep. I had a friend up here last year who got into a pocket of amethyst, and he found 200 pieces in that one little area.''

The quest for crystals has a mysterious allure, according to Bump. "It's hard to resist digging,'' she said. "It's sort of addictive. My brother is an executive type. He brings his kids out to visit in the summer. Last year I said, 'Let's take the kids out to Crystal Park.' He says, 'Well, what do you do there?' I said, 'You dig for crystals. And he says 'Well, what do you do with them?' He was just real skeptical about it. Then, when we got him up here, he wouldn't leave. And he wouldn't let the kids use his sifter.''

A ridgetop in the center of the park clearly is the favorite digging area. It is pocked with craters, trenches and mounds of freshly deposited earth from the extensive excavations. "This looks like a war zone,'' said Sherwood.

Bump pointed out several holes that had been turned into tunnels, a very dangerous situation, she said.

"That's Curtis' job - to stop people from digging a cave and crawling into it and having it cave in on top of them,'' Bump said. "People get excited, get digging and don't pay too much attention to what's going on. Before they know it, they've got a cave-in.''

Rules established for Crystal Park include a ban on tunneling. The rules are listed on signs and in brochures available at the site. Other rules include use of hand tools only, and a five-day-per-person season limit on digging.

An area on the site that is covered with lodgepole pine is closed for safety reasons, Bump said. Digging around the trees has undermined their roots, causing them to topple over unexpectedly. Eventually, Bump said, the Forest Service might remove the trees and open the area to digging.

Another hazard involved in digging crystals, said Foster, is altitude sickness. He said he's seen a number of visitors from the flatlands who became ill from strenuous activity at Crystal Park's 8,000-foot elevation.

Sometimes there is competition among visitors for locations that are considered to be the prime crystal-digging sites, Foster said. "I've heard about fist fights over prime holes,'' he said. "But I haven't seen it yet.''

The supply of crystals at Crystal Park apparently is virtually inexhaustible, according to Sherwood.

A company looking for molybdenum on the site before it was withdrawn from commercial mining took drill-core samples 150 feet deep, he said. "They were still in amethyst crystals that far down,'' said Sherwood. "So there is a supply here we'll never run out of.''

The Forest Service has planned on the supply near the surface lasting 30 years, said Bump. "It's pretty dug up,'' she said. "As people turn over the ground six to eight feet down, we're probably going to have to expose more surface area. Eventually we could get to the point where we use machinery to do that. But we're not to that point yet, even though a lot of the area is dug up. Some people worry about that. But as long as we keep it to hand tools it's easily reclaimable.''

As a recreation area, Crystal Park is unique in the National Forest System, Bump said, because the public is actually invited to mess up the resource within limits. And she said that aspect is an attraction for many people.

"I think people think it's neat that it's OK to be kind of destructive,'' she said. "There's a lot of interest in rockhounding in this country. And the Forest Service is just starting to get ahead of it, and plan for it, to give people an opportunity to do it.'' Crystal Park will be a model for the agency's future efforts to provide recreational opportunities for mineral buffs, she said.

"A lot of other places are being worked on,'' said Bump. "Other forests call us and ask how we did it. You have to have all the right elements come together - a perfect place, and a dedicated group like the Butte Mineral and Gem Club. The Butte club is extremely persistent and dedicated.''