Quentin and I already had prospected few well know areas (« La Fée », « La Toura ») for 5 days under capricious weather, without finding anything worth mentioning. Thus we decided to spend our last 2 days exploring less accessible sectors.
While skirting the aptly named « Crete du Diable » (Crest of the Devil), I noticed a wall with numerous quartz veins. One of those seemed relatively untouched. After a few minutes I succeeded to detach a block from the vein that unraveled a pocket full of loose crystals !
It will take Quentin and I two full days to empty the pocket, our first Alpine « four »!
Cleaning the brownish chlorite covered crystals, we discovered that most of those display a delicate smoky «Champagne» color along with top luster and clearness. The crystals often exhibit supplementary faces (s, x) and re-entrant angles, indicating the presence of Dauphine law twinning.
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