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Nevada Rocks

Nevada Rocks

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Nevada made a perfect trip for me as I was starting to foam at the mouth for some rock hunting fun, yet needed some easy hunting while I recuperate.  There’s a few spots I know that I can drive up to the rocks and hunt without having to walk or carry anything too far.  My special thanks to the guys for carrying my pack for me.  I’d have not gotten nearly the special stash I did without just a little help from friends.

There were two spots I rock hunted that had the rocks that I’ve been wanting for some of my crafting.  Those were Fernley for green jasper, and Lovelock for opalized petrified wood.

Fernley Green Jasper:

This jasper runs from light to a dark pine green.  Much of it is hard enough for lapidary, however, some is a little glassy to cut easily.

This one is mossy up close.  This one is for slabbing.

I like the dark greens the best.

A lot of the color mix is just surface and do not run throughout the rock.

Lovelock Opalized Wood

Much of this wood is too glassy for lapidary and breaks easily.  I use it for crafts and displays…….however, there are pieces that are perfect for cabbing, too.  It’s so beautiful, that sometimes display is all someone would even want to do with it.

I sure hope to get back to Nevada again this summer.  There’s just so many places to hunt, and such beautiful material.

Cuts and Closeups of Recent Favorite Finds

Cuts and Closeups of Recent Favorite Finds

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A few weekends ago I ventured over to Clayton’s (member CCanfield) house to get some cuts of some of my Central Oregon wood  finds.  I have several specimens  that will be shipped when finished so will have more pics then, but thought I’d post the ones I have already. They aren’t polished yet  because I really am not sure what I will do with them.  Sell them?  Make things?  Display them as is?   Anything is possible.

The first one wasn’t cut.  It’s still in one massive piece.  I have a closeup of it now, though.

Remember the pic of this rock?

Blue petrified wood

This is what it looks like up close and personal:

Clayton really liked the pink crystals scattered along the one side so took a close up of those as well:

Next – I had found some multi-colored, jasperized wood as well.  Here are pics of different varieties from two different locations in the general area of my green/blue wood site.   While some of this stuff is pretty brittle, the lines in this piece are all healed fractures.  It’s tough with a piece that you like as well as I do this one to decide whether to cab it or just leave it in one piece.  This one is about 2″ by 3″ — one of the smaller pieces, but one of my favorites.

I love this next piece, too.  It’s about 8″ by 6″ and this cut is about 3″ thick.  Most of the fractures are shallow but one does go through almost to the other side.  It seemed to cut okay, though.  The bark is pretty obvious on the sides but I don’t have a pic of that:

colored jasperized wood

This one was from a closeby location that has a little different coloration than the above jaspers.  This particular specimen is 5″ by 2.5″ and about 2″ thick.  The fractures are also either healed or shallow.  This is basically limb cast. The bark is very jaspery and quite prominent all the way around the piece.   I talked on the forum about hauling a boulder back to the car – it’s this color of jasper wood and is around 13″ long, 9″ wide and thick.   It was severely heavy and took everything I had to get it into the rig…..and a little help at the last creekbed to get up that last hill.

This is the end cut of a piece I showed before – from just down the road from the other two sites.  It’s basically a broken round.  It’s 7″ by 4″ at the wide point, and around 3″ thick.  I wish I’d gotten the side cut, too, but wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it yet. The fracture is very light and might just be a scratch from the saw.

The next cuts I have coming from Clayton aren’t from the same  location.  They’ll be cuts from agates I got after our meetup last spring near the ID/OR border, and one or two from the Ochocos.

I want to give a special thanks to Clayton for cutting these for me, and for taking me on a hunt for wood in his own home area.  I still had one in the rig when I took some pals out the last time and they each picked it up and said “nice piece”.  I was glad when I had to tell them it wasn’t from where we were that I had some sites they could get good stuff from, Ha.

Until next time………

Life’s Short – Rock Hard.

RHS1 2014 Meet-Up Trip Report – Succor Creek

RHS1 2014 Meet-Up Trip Report – Succor Creek

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The 2014 meet-up was a great success. It was wonderful seeing everyone’s smiling faces.

Um, oops.  Here we go.

Of course, the joke gets a little lost when you consider how you actually find  the members where they’re out in the field. RHS1 members are real good at recognizing other members both coming and going.

Members started rolling into the Succor Creek campgrounds mid-week for Memorial day weekend. The  general region and campground hadn’t changed too much since I lived in the region almost a decade ago.

By the time I got there on Saturday, the others were already driving with full loads of rocks from Graveyard Point and a few other sites near the Oregon/Idaho border that they visited in the day or two before I arrived.

This year’s leader, Tony (member, catmandewe) was thoroughly familiar with the region and led the crew to huge amounts of some of the areas best agates and jaspers.   The blue opal thundereggs dig seemed to be the generally favorite site, and was the first I got to join in.   The sun was hot, but the digging was easy and the prizes were beautiful.

After the relatively easy drive to the thundereggs, we set off on a little more rugged trip out to a few jasper sites, one, a pink jasper site which Tony set for claim while we were there. The region is some of the most beautiful desert I’ve ever seen, and it was hard to keep an eye out for ruts and rocks in the road with the panoramic beauty to absorb while driving.

During the day we collected pink, blue and brown, and multicolored jaspers.  While I picked up mostly jasper I could carry in my bag with ease, some were looking for sizes that would be suitable for bigger projects.  They found what they were looking for.  The region has no lack of jasper boulders.

Saturday night back at camp, members unloaded the rock they had brought with them and we had a rock swap.  Everyone was more than generous with the caches they brought out for the others to choose from.

By Sunday the crew was getting a little worn from their days of hunting, and a few headed home, while others headed back to get some more of those beautiful blue opals.  I got to head into town to get a tire changed out.   I wasn’t the only tire casualty on the trip.

I got back in time to join a few of the die-hard members out at the opal diggs, but wandered off to regions south of the park where I used to love to hunt.  Unfortunately,  the areas have been listed in books and were pretty well picked over when I got there.   Some of the back roads were steep enough and rutted enough I thought better about trying out on my own, so with sunlight waning, I returned to camp and talked with a few old friends and a few new ones at the fireside.  A lot of the members had already left, and those remaining were well worn and very happy.   Everyone left with as much rock as their rigs would carry.

My thanks go to the members, mirage, drocknut, boxofrocks, coldwatergold, Tom, orygone, and bsky4463 (I hope I got everyone)  for posting their  pictures so you could enjoy our meet-up vicariously.  A special thanks to Tony (catmandewe), owner of www.IdahoRockShop.com for setting up such an awesome tour for us this year.   It’s going to be a hard one to top next year!