When I got to the publicized site, I was amazed to see the traffic.  The first time I ever went to the location mine was the only rig there.  And so it was all that year.  This time I just shook my head and passed by all those people at the main site and traveled out further where the rock is colorful, but not the pink and yellow of the one I would go back to later that afternoon.  I was out to get some of all of it.  And I did.

With just a few days left until I head out for Oregon, and a few strength limitations, I was cautious about picking up the boulders I wanted.  If I’d had a jackhammer with me, I could have taken half a hill of beautiful stone.  As things were – I picked up only one actually too big to carry stones. The rest were of varying sizes.  From 3 fist sized to a few just small stones with nice banding.

At my first stop the stones were pretty vivid.

The second site I visited had the pink and yellow stone that the place is known for.

And of course the boulder. I had fun getting this thing back to the rig. Trust me on that one. I’ve carried heavier, but this was a struggle. It’s pretty thick and I’m turning into a little bit of a whimp.  Still – this is the one I HAD to have.

Looking forward to showing a few of these rocks after they’re cut.

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

Public response to urge renewal of the claim is critical. The Crapo family has always supported the rock hound community and made sure that anyone who collected on their claim came away with lots of good geodes. Now it’s our turn to support them so please get the word out to anyone interested in preserving this important collection area.

Please send your emails in support of renewing this important claim to the following email addresses at the BLM and bcc the bughouse at their address below, so they can see who is supporting their efforts.

Deputy State Director Lands & Minerals: Kent Hoffman E-mail: khoffman@blm.gov

Minerals Support Supervisor: Robert L Bankert E-mail: rbankert@blm.gov

Bureau of Land Management Fillmore Field Office E-mail: utfmmail@blm.gov

The Bug House E-mail: bughouse@xmission.com

Thank you,

Golden Spike Gem & Mineral Society

November 29, 2015

So……………..grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and enjoy this little picture tour of 2015 RHS1 style.

Member: Coldwatergold

Anyone who’s hung around the RHS1 forum for any length of time knows real well that if you stick a rock in front of coldwatergold it’s going to end up slabbed, cabbed, and wire wrapped. Whenever weather won’t permit him to be out playing  Jacques Cousteau in the stream on his claim or wandering aimlessly across any area he can get to in search of more rock to play with, he’s in his shop working like an elf in December, slabbing, cabbing and wrapping anything he can get his hands on.   Below is a small sample of some of his work.

I think you’ll agree that he does some pretty nice work. Of course, when you’re bringing home rock like the one below, I presume it makes it a lot easier to make great cabs, too.

Member Lizziebird

Being from North Carolina, Lizziebird really enjoys seeing  and trading for what those of us out in the west are picking up and bringing home.  We  kinda feel sorry for her – being stuck out there on the other side of the US from so many of us where she only has….um…..hundreds of minerals to hunt for must be a real trial for her.  She sent the picture below to me describing these as some of the more “everyday” finds in NC.  If these are everyday rocks for her, you can imagine what she considers a “great find”.   Below the pic I’ve posted her description of these beauties that she cabbed.

Top row, L to R, agate from a creek in central NC, pink corundum from NC mountains, blue feldspar (amazonite) from abandoned mica mine in NC mountains, pink feldspar from same abandoned mica mine in NC mountains, and white feldspar (with moonstone-like flashes) from same abandoned mica mine in NC mountains.  Bottom row is minerals from a quarry in central NC, including quartz, feldspar, jasper, epidote, and a touch of pyrite.

Member: Cobbledstone

Cobbledstone might be fairly new to the forums, but he isn’t  a newcomer to rock hunting or crafting.  He’s been at it long enough to be a little bit savvy about seeing value in rocks that others pass up.  I’m thinkin’ from the pics below he might be a little more foaming at the mouth crazy about rocks than we realized. Here he tells a little bit about his following pics:

This is my favorite creation of 2015, a necklace made out of beads that I crafted.  The material is white chalcedony that I collected out of the Willamette River.  In this area, there is some carnelian, but most of the time, the color in these rocks is only on the surface.  Lots of folks consider these white in the center rocks junk, but I went out searching for them, and selected only one ones with the nicest creamy center.  Then I made beads out of them.  It took a 5 gallon bucket of rough to produce this necklace.

Cobbledstone also makes Christmas ornaments with this beautiful, milky stone.

Member: Oxenkiller

For some members who are lucky enough to live close to the rocks or have the fortune of having time to get to them, finding the stones still remains their favorite pass time.  Member Oxenkiller isn’t one to pass up an opportunity to be out there looking. Little does he realize that hanging around RHS1 as much as he does, it won’t be long before he starts getting an unquenchable craving to start making things out of stone, too. With finds like the ones in his pics below, none of us are going to be surprised when it happens.

Member: Markphoto3

On RHS1, Markphoto3 is our go-to guy for spheres. He does beautiful work, and a few other members are fortunate enough to have one that was done by him.  I’ve hunted with him, and can tell you that this guy covers territory in the field like a bloodhound on the trail of a deer. You never realize how far he gets in just a little time until you pick him up on his way back and go rescue his backpack where he had to drop his too-heavy-to-carry-all-that-way load. The method in his addiction works for him though as you can see by these beautiful works below.

The first of these pics is my favorite because it’s made from the wood from a site I discovered earlier. Yes – that green rock is wood!

While Markphoto3’s specialty is spheres, he also does other things with his rocks – such as this set of bookends made from a Richardson’s Ranch thunderegg.

Member:  Hotrocks

I spend  more time talking to, and visiting and hunting with, Hotrocks than any other member of RHS1.  She’s my niece.  She was accidentally addicted to rock hunting one thanksgiving when I was at her mom’s house and was going hunting She was  interested in doing that in preference to the usual family thing that year so I invited her to a crystal hunt and she’s been off and running, hunting, cabbing, etc. ever since.  Not too long ago she and her sweetie started up a side business in custom leather craft and the rocks they cab now adorn leather items such as bracelets, journals, purses and so on.  Below are some pics of some of their latest creations with cabs from some of their Nevada finds:

Member: HeySal – um, that’s me.

While I did get out hunting this year, life was throwing me some curves and I didn’t get the crafting done that I wanted to.  I did manage to make one wire tree as a gift for my niece. I had a pic of it posted somewhere, but it wasn’t that great a pic and  Jess just sent me a decent shot of it so you can actually see what the tree looks like.  The base is black agate from Washington, the rock the tree sits on is blue opal I found at our 2014 meet-up at Succor Creek in Oregon, and the pink “buds” are pink garnets I found in Idaho, so the tree is about as all over the place as I tend to be myself sometimes.

So – as you see, throughout 2015, RHS1 members were pretty busy rockhounds no matter what life,work, and weather were throwing at them.  We don’t expect to be slowing down any in 2016, so come on in and join us.  The more the merrier.

Life’s short – Rock hard.

When I got to the area I did some general scouting around, then decided to head up to crystal peak.  The main road is daunting for those of us who are a bit uncomfortable with heights and ledges. I was happy not to have encountered any traffic on the narrower passages with nothing on one side but air.

The main road was a little rough from the recent rains and a few of them were shut down completely, but I managed to get to an area that proved out to be a good one.  The hunting was a bit rough with a lot of shrubbery in some areas to hike through or around, and a lot of steep inclines to scramble.  It took me the better part of the weekend to hit some “pay dirt”.

These pics were taken at night, which was the only time I had access to a photographer, so the sheer beauty of these rocks in the bright summer sunlight isn’t there, but still, I think these provide a little taste of what I brought home with me.

This is a pic of my favorite find of the weekend.  It’s around eight inches across and weighs about 10 pounds. This is the famed rose quartz from the region – very glassy in person, quite fracturey but I’ll be able to get chunks of sufficient size to make nice cabs, and a few spots glassy enough to facet.

That’s the largest, but I have a pack full of smaller chunks.  A lot of the rose is in layers between smoky or white quartz so it’s hard to tell the quality before actually splitting it out of the rest of the rock. There are some white inclusions in some, so I am hoping to be lucky enough to have gotten a lens or two of the fabled  asteriated rose.

What I didn’t expect is that some of the rose isn’t rose – it’s lavender and also glassy.  I don’t feel the color of these stones shows up as well in the pics, but they are gorgeous in sunlight. These stones are only a few inches in size, and the lavender will also have to be broken out of the surrounding chunks. Several are visibly big enough to make a cab or faceted stone from, though.

The next rock didn’t seem to know what kind of quartz it wanted to be.  The crystals are a mix of pink, citron, and smoky crystals. It’s quite an astounding thing to look at up close. This one deserves a much better pic.

I also picked up some smoky quartz that was fairly well rutilated, but will have to do some cleaning and examining before I can say anything about the quality.

While there, I started to explore around the Mt Adams area. The roads in this area were not friendly at all. The recent rains have them very rutted, and in some spots pretty muddy, so I didn’t get real deep into that area. I did, however, find a few old mines and sorted through the tailings.  There’s a lot of blue and green mineral there (copper mines, I would figure from that).  The chrysocolla,  malachite, azurite and other minerals were only in very thin veins and coatings. Pretty for display but not what you would actually purposely go hunt for.  If I were in the area again, I’d check to see if there was better quality deeper into that mountain area…..if the road quality would allow.

All in all, with the road conditions what they were, I felt pretty lucky to have been able to bring back the fabled rose quartz of the Diamond Mountains and am looking forward to working with it. I’m also hoping to be surprised with a few lenses of asteriated rose, but won’t ask for that much luck for a first time to the area.

For those who are really disappointed about the meet being canceled – I met John and Patti (member: Orygone and wife) in Lovelock, and even that far south the rain made things a little hectic.

We’d already gotten some good hunting in when John decided to drive through a puddle.  My rig is light and had no place to hook a monster like that truck to so Patti and I drove to cell phone reception and called John’s rescue friends.  They had him out in 20 minutes from call to tow, so we were able to finish out the day at another fun and interesting location.

The biggest find of the day was a great piece of opalized wood that John was able to get out of a ravine.  The pictures don’t do this much justice – it’s gorgeous and a little more colorful in person – and probably a lot more so after cleaning.

This piece is about an 80 pound boulder.  There were a few that were probably a couple hundred pounds that I would have loved to take home.  There were plenty of others, though, that were actually small enough to carry – and we could have collected beautiful tumbler pieces all day.  As it was, I got a couple of backpacks of beautifully banded greens, yellows, oranges, blues, and reds. Below is a sample of the multicolored nature of this wood.

The last spot we went to had wonderstone, agates, and a more jaspery wood.  The colors were incredible.  Below is a piece with a lot of pink in it.

There was also a lot of yellow wood.

All in all – we got some great rock, had a great time, and a few laughs when John drove into the puddle.  I hope some of the other RHS1 members get a chance to get to Nevada this summer. If you like rocks – it should be on your bucket list.

My thanks to John and Patti for showing me a wonderful day even though the meet was a bust.

Then there’s Tony Funk (RHS1 member catmandewe). He doesn’t just put up his own booth – he stakes territory!

What the heck is Tony going to do with that much space? I had to ask, of course.  I got  a big answer:

I have several tons of rough, thousands of slabs, and quite a bit of

used equipment. I am also a Diamond Pacific dealer and can get customers a decent discount on equipment or material from Diamond Pacific which is right next door.

New stuff this year is a fresh batch of Amethyst Sage dendritic agate, a large Oregon Opal Butte thunderegg that was just split open with some killer opal in it, Sugilite from the Calahari Desert, some old stock Needles blue, Bruneau jasper, Morrisonite jasper, Davis Creek sheen obsidian, and much more.

Not only is the rock going to be spectacular – it looks like he’s planning on some live action while he’s there, too.

If you want to get in on some of the action down there, here’s Tony’s show address for you.

Desert Gardens Gem and Mineral show in spaces A22/B22 in the front row right next to theDiamond Pacific building.

 

Mike Quinn (RHS1 member MikeyRocks) is also going to be part of the show there and has staked ground at:

D-17-18 in Desert Gardens.

We haven’t heard hide nor hair from Mikey since he started getting his excrement coagulated…I mean…um…..getting his stock ready for the show, so hope we’ll get some pics from Mike before everyone heads down to Quartzite to see what deals they can grab.

Don’t be surprised if you just happen to run into a few of the other members from RHS1 hanging around the place, too.

The more the merrier – drop by and say hi to a few of our favorite guys at RHS1 while you’re at the show.  They are extremely knowledgeable and entertaining.  It won’t take you very long to find out why we love em so much!

We’ve also found out that Diane (RHS1 member Drocknut) will also be visiting the guys there, so would like to put out a public service request to please keep your trees leashed at all times.