Tourmaline Mine

A few weekends ago I had the pleasure of joining some members of the Golden Gate GIA Alumni Association in visiting the Stewart Lithia Mine in Pala, CA (http://www.mmmgems.com/). Blue Sheppard is the owner of the mine, and thanks to his generosity and to the organizing of Starla Turner we were invited to come have a tour of the mine. Ordinarily Blue doesn't offer tours of the mine, instead inviting the public onto the property to sort through bucket-fulls of tailings (the gravel that's brought out of the mine) in the hopes of finding some tourmaline crystals.

Before we got to go into the mine or to hunt for tourmalines in the tailings, Blue treated us to a history of the Stewart Lithia Mine, making sure to include facts about Chinese miners looking for pink tourmaline in the late 1800s.

I wish I'd had a tape recorder with me while Blue was talking. I was absorbed with what he was saying, and as hard as I tried to remember it all...I didn't. Shoulda taken notes.

Because our group was so large, we were split into two smaller groups. One group would go into the mine while the other hunted through the tailings. My group was the first into the mine. I'm quite claustrophobic, so I was nervous to venture into the mountain. Going into thick rock in earthquake country seems like a questionable decision when paired with claustrophobia. I knew I would regret it if I let my fear take control, so I took some deep breaths and went in.

It was warm (72*), and a bit humid and stuffy with all the people. Blue led us through the first series of rooms, all while telling us more about mining culture and etiquette (don't shine your light into anyone's face).

We didn't get to see any gem-quality pink tourmalines in the mine (the purple is lepidolite, and the pink is tourmaline), but did get to see some of the empty pockets where they'd been found. When tourmalines are found in the mine they get them out of the mine as quick as they can for security reasons. Way too risky to have a treasure exposed to folks who don't understand the concept of not taking what's not theirs.

The tour was wonderful, and I got through without being too scared. Until the end. When we were at our deepest part of the mine tour Blue asked us to turn off our lights and be quiet for a few minutes so we could experience total silence and darkness. At first I thought it was kind of neat...absolutely no light could come in except what we provided by artificial means. My fondness for the situation lasted for about 5 seconds...maybe. Then I started to feel panicky. I'm not sure how long we kept our lights off. Could have been as little as two minutes or as long as four. I came very close to turning my flashlight back on and just having to apologize to everyone. Many, many, many deep breaths later Blue gave the call to light up, and we headed back out to the sunlight.

So glad I did it. Trip of a lifetime.