We had a pretty small group this year, but we had a great time and found some nice rocks.

I picked out a pretty large campsite area since we were expecting a few people that ended up not being able to get there.  There was a lot of good conversation between sleep and hunting.

I arrived about 5 minutes before Dan (Danointhenw) and his pal Rick (Scorpion King) drove in. Not much of a nap.

After they set up camp we decided to go explore an area that produced some great wood for some of us before.  I was extremely disappointed to see the area either so blown over or picked over (or both) that there were few signs left that it had once been a productive area. Even the jasper outcrops were gone and for the most part, the roads were grown over to almost being untraversable.

Later, back at camp, Matt (Oxenkiller) made a late arrival.

The next day we headed out to my green wood area.  Luck seemed to be with us there.  Rick came ready to haul some big finds, and he was well rewarded for it.

Dan found some great color variations:

Matt took his home and cleaned them up a bit before taking pics:

The weather was pretty warm but not seasonally hot.  It was beautiful in the shade of the trees, where I ended up resting frequently just absorbing the scenery.

The next day the guys wanted to hunt something a little different and we headed off to glass butte, which still has plenty of good rock to go around.

We ended up doing a little climbing for the red and black that seemed to be a favorite with all of us.  Matt’s favorite was a chunk with more red than black in it.

I got the prize of the day with a chunk of gold sheen.  The swirls are inside the rock – the face is smooth although it looks layered in the pic.

The next day, with everyone else on their way home, I wanted to check out the Camp Creek site so went into Paulina to get gas from the one pump East of Prineville in a lot of miles.  I was a little shocked to find it $3.89 per gallon!

I was glad the guys had opted for Glass Butte the day before.  The Camp Creek site was hunted out to a point it hurt to see it. There were a few very small pieces of limb cast in one area that was once rich with nice ones. Even those were few and far between.  The roads, other than the main one through, are disintegrating, and it was rough maneuvering to my favorite spots out there.  Being designated a wilderness area, it’s  highly unlikely that those roads will be repaired.  So my time there was short and I said a sad farewell to another area that will belong to Oregon’s rockhounding past.

On my way to Hwy 20 I did a little exploring here and there, and picked up a few little, plain agates, but didn’t find any other areas with any concentrations of something exciting.  There was one road I traveled for a ways, but it got rough enough that I thought it might be better to explore when I had a tailgater or two with me. I’m a little beyond liking long walkouts any more.

Of course, summer is usually a rockhound’s biggest hunting season, but there’s a lot nature does to help us celebrate that night the spooks and goblins break through their vortex and invade us here on earth. If you don’t believe it – I have the proof right here.

There are some pretty spooky places attached to where people go to hunt rocks — and they aren’t all  ghost mining towns and eerie graveyards.

Where else will  you find as spooky a place to be close to dark than this location in Succor Creek, a favorite rockhound hangout. You can’t look at Screaming rock in the near dark without a chill or two running down your spine.

And exactly who is this that has been sent from the netherworld to protect a great crystal hunting area in California? If you’re in the area near dark, you can almost hear the banjo playing.

It’s not just places that are ripe for the halloween loving crowds – it’s the rocks themselves that lend us such a willing hand at decorating for fright night.

Bat cave, in Oregon, isn’t just an apartment complex for the local bats. It’s also full of jasper just screaming to be cut and included in the season’s decorations.

Where there is someone celebrating Halloween, there’s need for a Jack 0′ lantern.  This agate nodule takes on that job for Halloween rockhounds very finely.

Along with ghosts and goblins, and spooky places – Halloween isn’t complete without some form of zombified remains.  What could be more apropo for the savvy Halloween celebration than a diseased, leaky, lesioned brain?

It’s so great that nature is so willing to help chill and thrill us on the night we unleash reality and run with the demons.  If you have any natural spookers – please feel free to post them in the comments!

Happy Halloween from all of us at Rockhoundstation1.com

Life’s short –  Rock hard

In the Wells area, the wind was formidable. It surprised me, as I would not have expected it to be that windy, especially not in late summer. Along with the wind was incredible dust.  I like to travel with windows down, but after just a few minutes of back roads I decided to roll the windows up. Too late. The inside of the rig was dusted – thickly, and closing the windows just sent the dust into the air in choking clouds. So I figured out which windows to open and how far to keep the dust out of my face and things went a little better.

I headed toward back roads to do some exploring.  There were a few that were pretty well maintained.  The offshoot 4WD roads were not as well kept. Many were washed or pitted enough that I couldn’t drive them. There was a lot of jasper (a NV usual no matter where ya go).  I’ll spare the usual pic of a red and yellow jasper and show you a few of the lively greens from the area.

The one in the middle is actually blue rather than green. It’s also got a strange texture to it. It’s almost as opalite like as jaspery. In the long run, though – it’s jasper.  The big green chunk to the right of it really excited me for a minute.  It looks like wood. It’s not, though.  It’s just the way it layered in the mountain that gives it that look.  Still a nice chunk of jasper, though, so I was pleased with it.

There was a lot of opalite up there.  One location had a lot of this pink opalite. This piece is about 6 inches across. Some of the opalite is very brittle and will shatter easily. Some is rather hard – this piece has a fracture or two but it basically a hard piece.

There was a lot of obsidian up there.  There were also a lot of Apache tears – many were the size I’m holding. And yeah – I do know my hands are dirty.  Playing with rocks does that.  I’m thinking anyone interested in this article probably spends as much for soap and emery boards as I do. One of the hazards of the field.

While I did spare you all another pic of the red and yellow jasper which seems to appear almost every place you go in NV……at least Northern NV – I did feel it proper to add a picture of the Nevada agate from there, which also seems to be scattered across the upper part of this state. This was a pretty common find, but had some patterning that seemed might be pretty when cut.

After leaving Wells, I descended south to the Ruby Mountains.  When you get back up into those mountains, you’ll find some absolutely beautiful scenery.  Even during the late summer, these mountains were very green and, in spots, actually lush. There’s a lot of lakes in the upper regions.  There’s also a lot of pegmatite.  I was hoping to find a little beryl when I was up there, but that didn’t happen.  I did go to two locations where beryl has been found, but one would have taken digging, and the other was just expansive. I did hike around and found a few rocks with garnet type crystals in them, but didn’t see any beryl.  I’m pretty sure a few more days in the area might have turned up some, though.

The rock in one of the areas was almost more granite than pegmatite.  It was a blue green, though, that would be perfect coloration for beryl. This is from the location that I thought digging might reveal some crystal.  As you can see, the smaller sample actually looks more like massive beryl than quartz. Haven’t really tested it yet, but don’t need to test to see that it will make a nice cab.

The pegmatite from the other area a few miles north of this one is laced liberally with mica. I picked up a few small mica books around an inch across or so. Not huge, but nice chunks for decorating gardens.  Not sure if you can see the little crystals in the following pic or not, but they seem to be low grade garnet. I could be wrong.  I would think anyone in that area that puts in the time might come up with some nice crystals of some sort or other.

The next day found me in Ely at Garnet Hill. I proceeded to the park area at the top of the hill where I was incensed by what I found. I’m amazed that this area is still open to the public. The top of the hill is covered with digging holes. Many, many trees have been rooted and people have left the holes without filling them back in.  Really – people that careless should not be allowed off of sidewalks.  What they think they’re doing is way beyond anything I can fathom.

Anyway – I walked around for a few minutes, shaking my head at the mess. The whole top of the hill is  nothing but rock fragment, and underneath just rocks to chip at. I stopped at one beautiful little tree that had been rooted and filled the hole back in.  I did find one fairly nice garnet while filling the hole up, so got a little reward for trying to save the little tree.  Then I proceeded downhill and hunted via my usual method for finding garnet. I got a relatively nice score. While the pic doesn’t show the color, these are an intensely deep wine red.  I might be able to get the color to show after cleaning off matrix rock and cleaning them up a bit. As you can see, they’re generally nice sized garnets even if the beautiful color doesn’t show up.

As I was leaving a family with two little girls had parked and were just starting the hunt. These little girls were extremely excited and there was no way they were going to be digging in that hard rock above, so I showed them how to hunt for the stones on my way out.  I hope they got a few nice ones.

I left Ely to continue my trip via hwy 50.  My next stop was Eureka, and I found I hadn’t brought my information on the area.  I wanted to hunt for the trilobite fossils in the region.  So, I stopped in town to ask around. I talked to several people but nobody seemed to know what the heck I was talking about. For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on I found the place a little eerie and opted out of staying for the night and continuing my hunt there in the morning.  Someday I might go back when I am not traveling on my own and have my information about the area with me. At any rate, I headed for Austin.

It was almost dark when I reached Austin and there was only one room left in town.  I was considering taking it, when someone had heard me say I’d camped all nights but one on my trip.  She asked me if I knew there were hot springs there.  Hot springs? Oh yeah – I’d rather do that!  She gave me the directions and I spent most of the night sleeping on top of my rig where I fell asleep watching that spectacular sky out there in the middle of nowhere, parked by a nice hot tub of running water.

The next morning found me in a little cafe in Austin having a chat about blue agates with an interesting man with sharp intelligent eyes, and a long silver pony tail. He reminded me of Gandolf and I immediately liked him. After lunch and some stimulating conversation, I headed out to look for Airy Mt agates……….which are not on Mt Airy. Go figure.  I’d never have found them with just the information I had.  The man at the cafe had over-estimated my eyesight when he gave me a landmark to look for, but at least I was on the right road.

Not seeing the landmark, I doubled back and saw something out in the distance that I thought might be what I was told to look for. So I headed down a 4WD path.  I got up even with the marker, but saw I was on the wrong path. Still – I wasn’t planning on staying on the road anyway, so got out of the car.  I immediately picked up two blue agates off the path and decided that whether I was in the exact location or not, I was close enough and did a little hiking……….and a little picking up rock.  I had pulled these out of a bucket of water take the pic so the cement is a little wet, but the agates are basically dry in the pic.

When I had had enough hunting, I made my way back to the rig, and as I got ready to leave, I suddenly saw the landmark that I’d been told to begin my search at.  The next time I go out to the Austin area I will know where to start my hunting. And I will go back there.  I will also be studying up to see what else can be found in the vicinity.  With a hot springs and blue agates, I’ve got at least one night and one day covered.

So all in all, I had a pretty great trip.  There were a few disappointments and a lot of very great views and great rocks and hot springs to offset them. I’m hoping the weather holds long enough for the next trip I want to take to explore the Black Rock Desert.

Until next time;

Life’s short –  Rock hard

The rocks were really not located at “sites”.  They were just scattered around the landscapes so I did a lot of driving and stopping here and there and wandering around.  Most of the rock were almost stereotypical for what I’ve seen in the state so far.

There was a lot of light green potch (common opal) that mostly was the type that shatters into a million pieces if struck. Yet now and again there was some that was mixed with agate and held up a little better.  In the rock below there’s a mix of green agate and green opal and some inclusions that may make some nice cabs or slabs.

The agate is mostly multi-colored, with a host of earthtones.

Petrified wood also is scattered throughout the region, however, I was not able to find a source. The wood is pretty well agatized and on most of it there is enough banding that it will make good cutting and cabbing material.

This piece of jasparized wood is absolutely lovely in person and has this type of banding on every side, making it hard to decide which way would be best to cut it.  Maybe I’ll just polish off some of the white agate coating and leave it in one piece.

There were also a few spots with fossils on the trip, but these were from South of Winnemucca at a little side jaunt I took on the way home.

And, of course, here’s an obligatory picture of some red and yellow jasper, because, God knows, you can’t go very far in Nevada without picking up a hunk or two of red and yellow jasper.

So there’s the sample of what can be found in the north central regions of the state.  Now it’s time to decide which area to explore next.

Until next time;

Life’s short –  Rock hard

This year’s hunt was led once more by Tony Funk (member catmandewe), and he’s proven once again to be the ultimate in rock tour guides. I thank you, Tony for yet one more spectacular meetup!

So – without further discussion — here’s the rocks!

The pile of green in the center of this pic are Garry Green wood.  The one with the visible green ripple leaning on the wall in back is from the green jasper stop.  Sorry – I can’t remember what the heck the name of that jasper is.  It’s green. That much I can tell ya.  I got lucky when I was hauling those two big hunks of Garry green out of the canyon when a few members of the party drove by in Trucks and gave me a boost with them the rest of the way up the hill.  They were a lot heavier than they looked and it would have taken me all day to get them up on my own……….but I really wanted em.

Here’s a few close-ups of this beautifully banded wood.

While this next one is not the color you expect to see when you’re hunting Garry Green, it was my favorite find from that location.  I was surprised that there’s actually a lot of blue up there mingled with the green.

This next shot is a little blurry, but I just wanted to show the color of this agate so tried for a close up. OOPS.  It’s called purple cow and it’s not a real translucent agate, but it is purple. I also got a piece that is much the same shade of lavender as the lavender quartz I got last year, but a little more translucent. The piece in the pic below isn’t the most purple of the agates found by the group that day, but it’s an example of the color.  Despite it’s blur, I think it gives you the idea of what purple cow is.  Hopefully, someone else will have a more clear pic of  a little more lively colored piece of this stuff to offer.  

This next shot is from another wood location Tony took us back to.  This is a highly opalized wood – and I was delighted to find some actual tiffany fire in it.  At first I thought it was just flash from a fracture, but later inspection proved it was not fracture. While there was only about an inch long area of color in this one – I’m hoping, if I get back to that area again to find more of it. A lot of the color (on the right side) doesn’t show up the way the sun hit it – but you can see a little of it.  That blue area all the way to the right end contains color.  On the left, some of the beautiful banding in this piece is visible, too. As you can see, I haven’t mastered close up shots at all.

This last pic of wood from the McDermitt area I found at the mouth of a canyon that I very much wanted to get into.  There was a herd of range cows with some very young babies that had other ideas about me traipsing around their water hole, though.  I liked the colors, none the less,  and will go back to this area whenever I return to the McDermitt area in the future and try again. I have a feeling there’s some nice wood hiding down that canyon.

Okay – that’s my favorite of my McDermitt finds.  Now here’s a few miscellaneous pics of stuff I’ve wanted pics of for awhile now.

Above the rock pick are a few of my finds from my hunt in Central Washington a year and half ago.  I’ve got a few close ups of this wood just below this pic.

The top of this one isn’t going to slice, but I have a use for it anyway.  The rock about 4 inches from the top is pretty solid and I have plans for other uses for that once I get it sliced from the top. Gonna have to find someone with a big saw for this one. It’s a foot across and a little over that deep.

The next one is a little more solid, but I have other uses besides lapidary for this piece, as well.

As you can see, this Washington opalized wood is a multitude of earth tones.  All this wood made me fall in love with opalized wood.  Still love agatized wood, too – but this stuff is just really special in my book.

The next two pictures are also opalized wood – but,  are from Nevada.  These are from the hunt I went on with John (member Orygone) and his side kick, Patti when our 2015 meetup was canceled due to weather.  It wasn’t the best weather that day, either – but at least we were close enough to solid road that we were able to hunt despite the rain. The pictures don’t do a couple of these boldly banded pieces much justice.

While I didn’t see anything opalized in Washington that wasn’t earth-tone – there was a little more variety in Nevada.

This next rock I got in the same area on that hunt with John and Patti.  I’m not sure what it is – rhyolite, jasper, opal?  I sure do like it, though.

Next pic is some banded wood that Bob (coldwatergold) and I found not too far out of Dayton last spring when he came out to see a friend of his who lives there.  Some of this stuff has more color to it, but it is predominantly white with darker banding.

Okay – the last two pics are of rock from my local area out here in NV.  The first one is just an example of the jasper out here. There are other colors, too, here and there fairly local – but there’s tons of this red and tan stuff everywhere.

And this last pic is because we have several members who live out around here or visit sometimes and I get sooooo many questions about Lahotan blue lace agate.  This is the blue that is here. I guess some of it works into some really neat cabs, but the color of the blue is not that bright blue found elsewhere in the state.  It’s blue, but it’s a muted blue, and is not a highly translucent rock, either.

So – that’s all I got, today folks.  Hope you enjoyed the virtual tour.

Until next time;

Life’s short –  Rock hard

Opalized wood can be a little more cantankerous to work with, being a little brittle, but some pieces are still solid enough for lapidary, and even the brittle pieces that won’t hold together for sawing or cabbing are still quite beautiful for display or crafts.

This picture shows a piece of opalized wood from Central Washington. It is actually solid enough for a saw, but I have other plans for this one:

While much of the opalized wood I’ve found in Nevada resembles the Washington varieties, some is a little more vividly colored than I’ve found elsewhere.  This next pic is one of my current favorites from Nevada:

This particular piece will never hold up to a saw, but can be buffed up a little to take off a few areas of diatomaceous earth and will be used in my crafts instead of slabbed or cabbed. Other pieces I have from this area have more of the earth-tone colors of the rock in the first picture, and many are solid enough to undergo cutting.  My only problem with the area I was hunting in is that a few pieces that I really, really want to bring home are just too big for me to get out of the gulch, even though my jeep is strong enough to carry a several hundred pound piece of wood. I’m thinking by the time we get snowed out of the area, I might just have figured out how to get at least one of them into my rig and home.

While much of the wood from Washington retains it’s rings and the look of wood, I’ve found that some of the wood from Nevada has more intricate patterning, such as you can see in the picture below:

While this piece has a little bit of fracture on the surface, it will mostly hold up to a saw and these patterns are not magnified. They are quite visible when holding the rock so the solid areas will make wonderful slabs and cabochons.

While agatized wood is more solid and more lapidary friendly, the opalized woods just seem to have some color and character often lacking in agatized wood. I’ll be going after some more of this beautiful wood again this year and am hoping that a few RHS1 members will be in the area to share the trip out with.

Until later, remember:

Life’s short – Rock hard.

For those of you who can’t read an article without pictures – here’s the obligatory pretty rock pic for you:

Now onto important business.

Here is the letter I received today, in full minus the signature.

Well it turns out that where he told me to take a left – he took a right. I had been to the area before but stopped where the road turns into a footpath. So I’m muttering “Really Clyde? Really?” to myself and figured, it was Clyde, so I followed the footpath a ways then when I got to the dry creek bed I figured not even Clyde would do this and was about to turn around when I saw some wooden bins and what looked like a livestock care area — so I did the creek bed and found it a good hunch because that livestock area connected to the road he actually TOOK.

When I got to the rigs I parked and started walking up hill a bit, checking out the terrain. They were coming back down for lunch so we chattered and ate, then I grabbed my crowbar to go back up. They made jokes about the crowbar, and I just grinned. Then we started finding stuff.

Here’s the first thing of any significance that I found:

Then Clyde sees a chip of wood and starts digging it out. I saw he was really digging so went down to see what he had. He was talking about not knowing how to get it home. I took one look at it and said “oh, you’ve got to get that one home”. About that time Dean came up and looked at it and said “oh, you’ve got to get that one home”. So Clyde dug and dug. Then he started griping about “how am I gonna dig this out?” To which I just reminded them about laughing about the crowbar – stuck that thing down behind the wood and gave it a little tork and out it came. It took both to get it out of the ground. Clyde went back to get a wench rope and Dean and I walked around and picked up wood until he got back. They tied it up and started dragging it. I was no help. Being 100 pounds and on just a few hours of sleep, I figured I’d go find a clear path for them to drag it down. My idea was just get it to the road and they could drive to pick it up.

They had other ideas and took it uphill a tad to go the straightest route to the rigs. So I get to my jeep and am watching them take a whole different route. On top they stopped and were discussing how to get that thing down. They were really having a hard time of it. Of course, I’d already driven a footpath and I’ve never REALLY tested out the skit plates. Frankly, I was scared one of those guys was going to hurt themselves, so I figured that I’d better drive up there and haul the rock down. Sure easier than dealing with a guy with a back out or a heart attack in the middle of nowhere. So I looked for the clearest ground to go up and drove up.

When I got up the hill Clyde was walking in front of me so I’d let him take a few steps then I’d scoot forward a few steps. How those two did not see me, I’ll never know, but I followed Clyde quite some ways and neither knew I was there. My jeep is fawn color, but still, you’d think they’d heard something. So finally I just honked the horn and that took both of them off the ground a little bit. After startling the bejeebers out of them, though, they both broke out in grins that were priceless.

They loaded that wood into the back of my jeep and I smiled and told them that I didn’t want any more weight in the rig and made them walk back down. LMAO — I’m sorry guys. I had to do it. It was just too funny. Of course, by that time they were so glad to have that rock down the hill without any more sweat, they didn’t even haggle about it. Anyway – here’s the piece that they went through all the torment over – gotta admit, it’s an awesome rock.

Here’s a pic of what an afternoon out there looks like in general:

Back at camp we sat around a roaring fire, ate, and laughed until we hurt. It’s a fun group and we do a LOT of laughing when we meet up.

Here’s what the camp looked like. That fire pit was awesome. It was really COLD there those two nights and that fire made life pretty complete. That and the food. We seem to always get some good chow going when we get together, too – and we had lots of it.

The next day we checked out a few places but it rained here and again and Clyde’s rig wasn’t liking it any too well so we went back to camp, but I took off again to check around. Found a back road in to the area so went back to get Clyde and he and I took off to see where that road went. We came out on the road we were on earlier and stopped to hunt at one place that was bordering a deep canyon, and found the road into that canyon. We decided to do that the next day.

But the next day we were rained out – so the trip cut got cut a day short. That’s okay, though – we’ll meet up again this summer. We have too much fun together not to.

When the lands of the Lake Superior area were purchased in 1842 and digging and blasting for metals began with lust, the people became interested again this legend. By this time the Indians, who felt these actions were an affront to the Great Spirit, were not talking. The existence of a magnificent vein was confirmed by Benjamin Armstrong, the son-in-law of Chief Buffalo, who claimed that one elder of the tribe would be sent for silver and come back with it after a few days, but this elder had claimed that the Spirit was angry and had caused him to forget where the location was although he could still describe it somewhat.

In the late1880’s another Indian was credited with knowledge of the location of the silver. Old Ice Feathers, a hermit who lived on an island in Lake Namekagon and would later become known as Chief Namekagon, was known to have taken handsome caches of silver to three men in Ashland. Sam Campbell, a timber cruiser who lived a few miles from Lake Namekagon, had heard tell that the Chief had started out with these three men to show them the location but turned back when a black bear crossed their paths, an omen of ill boding according to Chief Namekagon. The chief was found dead, possibly murdered, not too long after that near Marengo Station. Whether the location of the silver had become known to another before his death has not been revealed. Many others have searched and some claimed to have known at least bits about it though. Unfortunately stories of silver always seem to place the mine in different locations.

One farmer named Johnson told of sheltering and feeding the Chief for a night during bad weather. The Chief had no silver with him at the time, but had silver with him when he got to Ashland the next day. The placement of the mine has resultantly been thought by some to rest between the old Johnson property and Ashland. Did the Chief hear Johnson approaching and hide silver he had in his possession, though, or did he actually acquire it on the way to Ashland from Johnson’s property?

Another story is that of a logger named Hoeppner who claimed to have found the mine and showed the proof, a chunk of silver the “size of a man’s hand”, to a friend. Hoeppner had claimed to have successfully tracked another man to the silver. He and his friend were unable to locate the place again, however. This story places the lost silver close to Copper Falls State Park, and north of Bad River Gap.

Many thoughts have been aired throughout the last century and a half about possible locations and there is no lack of rumors and legends of the knowledge of the silver. In a land so rich in mineral, there is also a possibility that more than one lost mine exists. The only detail that holds from one story to the next is that the opening of the mine is just big enough for a person to squeeze through, then widens into a cavern.

While people periodically turn up with caches of fine native silver and claims of knowing the location of the vein, for some reason the location still seems a mystery. Perhaps the Indians were correct in thinking that it was the anger of the Spirits that makes those who find it forget how to return there.

If you decide to take a trip to Wisconsin to look for this lost silver location, be ready to keep some foolproof notes on the location if you find it. Perhaps you will want to fill your bag with this fine silver as well, just in case you, too, find yourself confounded about how to get back to it again.

©2010, Sally Taylor

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