Across the Sapphires we go!

We left the Bitterroots and traveled over the "summer only" Skalkaho highway.

The dirt road is narrow and winding, as you can see from the pic above. What you don't see is the sheer drop-off on the right that complimented the scenery nearly the entire way. Sorry...it was bad enough just knowing it (and a very soft road shoulder)was there was bad enough without having to look that way to take pictures!
We eventually reached Skalkaho Falls. It's been 28 years since I was last here and it is still awesome.

Climbing still higher, we finally reached the top of the pass.

Continuing down the other side, we stopped to check out a couple campgrounds before eventually reaching our destination, the Gem Mountain Sapphire Mine.
We spent about four hours washing, shaking and searching through buckets of gravel to find gemstones.

First you pick out a bucket of gravel that looks "lucky."

Then you put a couple scoops of gravel into a screen box, take it to the water trough and wash & shake, wash & shake, etc..

You bring that back to a table and quickly flip it upside down onto the surface. If you are lucky, a great-big sapphire will be staring up at you, because they are heavier than the rest of the gravel. We weren't quite that lucky....
The next step is to pick through the remaining gravel with tweezers to find smaller sapphires that did not settle to the bottom of the pan.
You look...

and look...

and look some more.

We did find several that could be faceted, but nothing that exciting.

It's an interesting one-time thing to do.
Tomorrow, we return to Crystal Park where we can dig as much as we want for $2.50!