Quartz Crystals

Quartz Crystals

Client: Personal project

The Mont-Blanc area is a fantastic spot for amateurs mineralogists like myself. Ever since I was a kid, I have enjoyed those quartz hunts in the mountains

Around the year 2000, I started to plan a few mineralogy trips with my friend Stéphane Dan.

During eight consecutive summers, we would scour the mountains searching for quartz crystals. We eventually got lucky a couple of times and found a few little treasures.

Most of our findings can now be seen by everybody at the crystals museum in Chamonix, but I will always remember our crystal hunts in the mountains.

  • Pink Fluorite

    Pink Fluorite

    Christophe Peray looking at his pink fluorite nicknamed "Laurent". Probably one of the nicest cristal found in France. It is currently exposed in the Natural History Museum in Paris.

    • Chamonix, France
    • September 3, 2006
  • An early start

    An early start

    The Périades early in the morning. Quartz crystals are found at high altitude and you generally want to be ready as soon as the day begins, so you generally spend the night up there.

    • Chamonix, France
    • July 19, 1999
  • The Queen of the Mont Blanc

    The Queen of the Mont Blanc

    The Queen of the Mont Blanc: that's the name Fanfan and myself gave to that massive pink fluorite crystal. 3,7kg and 19 cm of beauty that everybody can now see in the Crystal Museum of Chamonix.

    • Chamonix, France
    • July 14, 2002