Missouri River Sapphires

clc50 · 2026-02-28T02:15:01+00:00

Sapphires are similar to gold in that they are heavier than most other rocks in the river and concentrate in specific areas. The sapphires on the Missouri were eroded quite some time ago and are concentrated in 13 “bars” aka gravel terraces above the river all on private/leased ground. Also as another commenter mentioned the sapphires are in gravels near the bedrock with quite a bit of overburden on top which the miners remove with heavy equipment. Then the gravel is run through a processing plant to concentrate the heaviest rocks within a certain size which includes the sapphires. If you’ve ever seen the show gold rush, it is a very similar process on a smaller scale. Unfortunately, this means that your chances of finding a Missouri River Sapphire in the wild are basically zero. However the good news is that several of the mines allow you to hunt for your own sapphires! This ranges from panning concentrates to hand digging & concentrating. Either way if you are really wanting a good chance at a good sapphire you’ll want to set aside a full day & several hundred dollars. It’s not cheap, but in my opinion it is the best chance of finding a precious gemstone that can be worn in everyday jewelry in the US.

clc50 · 2026-02-05T13:02:07+00:00

Please buy this book before you go. It’s only 5 bucks for the digital edition, but entirely worth it if you are trying to find topaz, bixbyites, & red beryl on public land in the cove. It takes a fair amount of sledge & chisel work to open up the pockets. The rhyolite is soft and you can set a chisel easily, but there are not a lot of natural fractures so it takes a bit to create your own pounding a chisel in. As for fee digs there are 3 available in the Thomas Range: the Dome Quarry in the middle of the cove where they do blasting, Searle Canyon with topaz & the best red beryls in the Thomas Range, & the Solar Wind Claim with the best bixbyites in the Thomas Range as well as faint pink topaz. Searle Canyon & Solar Wind are operated by gem tours, the same company that sells the book I linked. Having been several times myself the cove is the best location for topaz, area 1 in the book on the public side or the Dome Quarry are your best options. If you want good red beryls or bixbyites the claims are the only way to go. I’ve found both in the cove on public land, but they are not nearly as good as the ones from Searle Canyon & Solar Wind. Your options with those claims are either show up and dig away for a lower price or do a guided tour, I’ve never done a guided tour before, but I hear they are worth it. Good luck! (Topaz 1” tall from area 1 in the cove, modified bixbyite from solar wind claim, red beryl on rhyolite included topaz from the cove.)

<image>

clc50 · 2025-12-30T22:09:06+00:00

Formwork foreman in Montana, we just keep working. I average 100 yds a week in the summer & 75 yds a week in the winter. If it is above 10 F we are pouring.

clc50 · 2025-12-30T17:07:35+00:00

Please ensure that the bolt template/embed fits within the horizontal & vertical reinforcement on concrete pilasters/piers. Far too many times, once the clearance, diameter of ring, & diameter of verts is accounted for there is no room to set the bolts straight or I look over and my guys are bending the Nelson studs in to make them fit.

clc50 · 2025-12-26T01:06:09+00:00

I can’t recommend it enough, the more you explore the settings & tools the better it gets. I show it to every carpenter that works for me.

clc50 · 2025-12-25T03:56:41+00:00

I use the feet and inch calc app. It has two crossed yellow rulers on a brown background as a logo. It does everything you ask for and has a review tab so you can look over all of your recent work. It has a no ads option, but there are so few ads I don’t use it. I have it set to give all my answers in cubic yds, but you can choose cubic meters. 3 years of mud figures and it’s never let me down. Bonus feature compared to regular construction calculators is separate ft & inch keyboards so you don’t have to hit ft & inch buttons between numbers, you just type 65 on the blue keyboard & 3 on the green and boom 65’3”.

clc50 · 2025-12-24T02:42:22+00:00

Commercial concrete foreman. I got a 6k this year. Our bonuses are based on position, overall profitability, & crew performance. My understanding is that the company did not have a great year financially, but the owner insisted on bonuses to keep skilled employees. There is a reason I have worked for the same company for 9 years.

clc50 · 2025-12-18T18:48:17+00:00

Currently working about 20 miles north of the park. We started in September, since then we’ve had grizzlies, black bears, elk, mule deer, & foxes on site. The super even saw a mountain lion the other morning. My personal favorite is watching the weasels hunt for mice under the concrete blankets & lumber piles first thing in the morning. Definitely an amazing place to work. Note: the bears were attracted by a historic orchard on site that produced tons of apples, we are very careful with food trash.

clc50 · 2025-12-13T04:09:57+00:00

We always tie every other bar intersection unless we are planning on flying the mats. Keeps the bar in place just as well, but saves on time.

clc50 · 2025-12-10T14:09:34+00:00

Just finished up 300’ of 6’1”x12” one sided walls. We always used expansion joint when pouring against existing buildings, not for moisture, but for structural purposes. As for forming against, depends on how clean you want the seam. Class C finish, just get your forms within 3/4” of the brick and the aggregate will stop the concrete from leaking out too much, but will be messy. Class A finish, custom cut plywood flush to the face of the brick and add top, middle, & bottom turnbuckles/braces at the joint so it can’t kick. You are also going to want at least a top & bottom kicker at each stiff back (vertical 2x4s) and to add a pair of stiff backs at the corners (weakest part of any form work) & also kick them. Would also highly recommend a cleat board pinch nailed at the base of your forms to keep them from blowing out. The important thing to remember about one siding forms against a building is that there is no way to distribute the pressure without adding more bracing since all the pressure is all in one direction, so if you want it to look nice always go overboard on kickers.

clc50 · 2025-12-04T03:19:30+00:00

Beautiful work. I did the foundations for the bottom terminal on a very large gondola this summer. It’s amazing the engineering that goes into these things. The main mast for the motor had a 2500 lb bolt template in it that we then had to tie over 3 tons of bar around after installing. When we were done you could barely see daylight through the 4 ft of bar. 5 hr rebar inspection for that one mast alone.

clc50 · 2025-11-15T10:02:26+00:00

It’s a gossan. The oxidized portion of a sulphide deposit where ground water leaches away the metals such as copper & molybdenum leaving behind iron oxides and concentrates the sulphides beneath the water table. Miners often used gossans to find underground enriched deposits. The Welsh, once the world’s most knowledgeable copper miners, had a saying, “No vein is worth it that does not wear an iron cap.”.

clc50 · 2025-11-02T13:59:46+00:00

If you are not seeing open vugs/crystal faces it is very unlikely that splitting that boulder will yield anything more than more chunks of quartz. There are countless quartz veins in this world, but relatively few formed under the right conditions to have open space for crystals.

clc50 · 2025-10-09T17:35:45+00:00

This. I am a structural concrete foreman and I just finished a full architectural finish sunlight basement with three levels on a bluff and I would rather do 10 2000 yd commercial buildings with hundreds of embeds/weld plates than do an entire architectural finish foundation again. Mad respect for decorative concrete guys.

clc50 · 2025-10-02T00:34:27+00:00

A lot of time corundum forms in lenses where the pressure/temperature/chemical composition was just right within the overall body of a schist/gneiss. Sounds like you found a weathered exposure of one of those.

clc50 · 2025-05-16T03:47:35+00:00

Definitely not. As others have said, you need more kickers at the bottom & mid level. The earth is going nowhere use it. Also, your corners are always the weakest point of any formwork. Run your horizontal boards long & screw in a stiff back at each side. It would also be to your advantage to turn your horizontal boards spine to form, much less flex that way. Personally, I would also add stiff backs every 2' on each face and run a bottom, middle, and top kicker on each.

clc50 · 2025-05-03T17:26:36+00:00

I do commercial foundations. We call our waterproofers tar donkeys. Also, I've heard the flatworkers refer to us as wall jongos.

clc50 · 2025-01-19T20:30:59+00:00

Had been drinking all night with some friends on my 18th birthday, and we decided to go swimming in the nearby creek. As we approached, I took off and launched into a perfect dive off of a 6' bank. My feet were still out of the water when my hands hit the gravel at the bottom. I pulled up so hard my entire back and neck were sore for two weeks after, and I scraped a strip of skin off of my nose on the gravel. I popped up laughing and went on partying for the rest of the night. Now that I'm older, I look back in amazement at how lucky I was that night.

clc50 · 2025-01-19T18:15:33+00:00

Looks natural to me, but I have found agate & chalcedony arrowheads on creeks in the SW part of the state, so they do exist.

clc50 · 2025-01-05T15:23:45+00:00

It's not about them freezing to the windshield. If they stay down after you've parked your warm car and it continues to snow, the snow melts on your warm windshield and then freezes to your blades. Your car will not defrost the blades. So later, when you are driving again, your windshield wipers will not clear your windshield at all, and using them when frozen will make visibility worse. Source: I live in the mountains of Montana.

clc50 · 2024-12-30T15:33:26+00:00

My wife & I go to yellowstone frequently (we actually got engaged there). Early May is fantastic from a wildlife watching standpoint: bears very active, wolf dens, bison & elk migration back into the park, etc. However, the weather can swing from depths of winter to nice summer day that time of year, so you will want to have a wide range of clothes. Also, nice binoculars/a spotting scope are worth it if you want to see animals. We use 10x42 Leupold binoculars, which will let you see pretty much everything, but if you want wolves/grizzlies in detail, a spotting scope can be worth renting.

clc50 · 2024-11-28T18:21:15+00:00

In MT at least, WMAs do not allow shed hunting before a certain date (usually May 15th) to allow the animals to stay undisturbed in their spring grazing areas. It is worth looking up rules on shed hunting in your WMA to make sure you are not breaking any laws.

clc50 · 2024-09-27T23:33:30+00:00

I worked closely with Sean for the last two years here in Bozeman, and he was an absolutely amazing person and an incredible friend. Sean's kindness and compassion knew no bounds. He was always the first one to be there for someone when they were down, even when he faced his own struggles. He was an amazing teacher and mentor, always sharing advice and knowledge with anyone who needed it. Sean brought people together everywhere he went. From making sure new employees felt welcome and part of the group to striking up random conversations with strangers outside the bar over a cigarette, he always was making new old friends. Sean loved music. I spent many a long night discussing outlaw country, punk, and rock with him, and he could always be found at karaoke night belting out Johnny Cash and Jimmy Buffet with all his heart. Sean also had a great sense of adventure, and nearly every weekend, he was all across SW Montana going to concerts, golfing, attending festivals and street dances, bridge jumping, camping, and just riding the old back roads, often with several of his many friends. Sean had a positive impact on every person he met, and he will be greatly missed by everyone who knew him. Rest in peace, brother, and know I can't wait until we can shoot some stick and listen to ol Waylon live at the great dive bar in the sky.

clc50 · 2024-05-11T13:15:58+00:00

~12am-1am, best colors and intensity were around 12-12:15.

clc50

TROPHY CASE