The Gem & Mineral Trail: Sodalite Traditional Cache

This series of caches is about gems and minerals. The gems in this series are semi-precious stones that are sometimes used for jewelry making. The minerals in this series are common ones with some that are used to make familiar items around you. Other minerals might be encountered at rock outcrops on a camping trip or while hiking. Each cache will have samples of the subject gem or mineral (while supply lasts) which you are welcome to take, but please take only one per geocacher name.

The Gem & Mineral Trail: Sodalite

Sodalite, which is named for its Sodium content, is a blue mineral that is often used in jewelry as a semi-precious gemstone. Frequently the blue stone has veins of white calcite dispersed through it. Sodalite is chloric sodium aluminum silicate, Na4(AlSiO4)3Cl. Sodalite has a hardness of 5.5 to 6 on the 1-10 Moh’s scale. Sodalite is sometimes confused with another blue mineral used for jewelry, Lapis Lazuli, which is not as common as Sodalite.

The cache is on BLM land. Take Webber Canyon Road to Dennis Road and park at the jeep roads going north up the hill about 0.3 mi from the intersection (if you have a jeep or other high clearance 4-WD vehicle, you can try driving up the roads to get close to the cache). The container is an ammo box. The 2.5 terrain rating is for the moderately steep hike up the jeep roads to the top of the hill. In warm weather, watch for snakes and take some water along!

The other caches in this series are: Turquoise(GC2JFBE), Halite(GC2JFB1), Garnet(GC2JFBA), Amethyst(GC2JFBT), Hematite(GC2JFC0), Iron Pyrite(GC2JFCE), Citrine(GC2JGF2), Quartz(GC2JGF9), and Fluorite(GC2JFBH)

Congratulations to kiekefretter for being the FTF!

Congratulations also go to kiekefretter for being the first to complete the Gem & Mineral Trail series!!

NOTE: As of May 31, 2011, all the geocoins are gone. This CONCLUDES the geocoin challenge portion of the series. The caches will remain in place and become a regular cache series. THANKS to all who participated in the challenge and to those who have shared their stories and photos!