NFMS Rockhound Rendezvous 2011 - Hampton Butte, OR

Well, it was a unique experience for me to attend the NFMS rockhound rendezvous last weekend over the Memorial Day holiday. Being new to this rockhound club group thing was both interesting, fun and educational. The only other thing I can say is that the weather was absolutely horrible.

We arrived at the group camping site on Camp Creek Rd. around 7:00pm on Thursday. As we were attempting to set up our tent, the rains started and we rushed to get it up. As soon as we had it up, the wind started in and I had to literally use all my weight to keep it standing while we secured it with extra heavy duty rope and stakes. This was to be an early indication of the entire weekend. That night it was so cold we pulled out all the extra blankets and coats and whatever else we could find to keep warm.

NFMS Camp Site - Central OR

I had signed up for the Hampton Butte field trip for Friday and as it turned out that was a good plan because no other field trips made it there afterward due to the foot of snow that fell down there Saturday morning. The entire area had become a wind-whipped frozen tundra overnight.

When we arrived at the Hampton Butte collecting site everyone went in various directions to seek out the beautiful petrified wood of this area. We weren't sure what to do, so we just searched around for chips laying on the ground and whatever else we could find. We stopped by one man who had dug a hole about 3 feet deep and asked if he had found anything. He said, no, but he was told that the good stuff was about two feet down. We decided that we weren't just going to start digging without any other information and continued scouring the area. We did find some beautiful pieces.

Hampton Butte Collecting Area

After eating lunch we headed back to the parking area and ran across an old-timer digging patiently in the many mounds scattered around and he was extremely helpful in showing us how to determine where to dig and how to determine the size of what you are digging for with the use of a probe (unfortunately we had left ours at home). One woman had dug up a reddish colored petrified log across the road. It was really nice. We decided to call it quits and head to Prineville for something to probe with and come back later. Of course the weather made it impossible to come back. We didn't know that then.

Road to Hampton Butte Saturday Morning

That evening I signed us up for the Congleton Hollow (Paulina) area collecting trip. This was a good move because on Saturday morning we woke up to snow showers and bad roads. Hampton Butte was not reachable. Our trip to the Congleton area brought us up dry roads and supplied us with many nice little pieces of pale green limb casts and agates. We did not dig as we should have. Our trip leader found two large limbs of beautiful agatized wood after spotting what looked like a small buried piece of wood. We did not see any exposed wood to dig for. Maybe we should have dug anywhere. Others in the group that stopped down by the creek bed found quite a few nice pieces after digging in the sides of the creek.

After lunch we headed down from the top of the hill to the creek bed and there we found lots of river polished agates that everyone else passed up to dig for the "big stuff." We were happy. I  even found an eight inch chunk of petrified wood sticking out of the creek bed where someone else had dug. Most of the day was beautiful and sunny with occasional clouds moving through, but around 4:00pm it clouded up and started hailing. We headed back to camp and warmed up our homemade chile for the potluck. It was raining so hard and the wind blowing that we ate some of the chile because we didn't know if the potluck would happen. It finally did take place during a brief clearing of the weather. Lots of food, many beautiful finds. One couple found two complete large agatized tree trunks that looked like the Arizona Petrified Forest wood up Camp Creek. Several others had found beautiful petrified limbs at Congleton.

Saturday Sunset - Camp Site Area

Saturday evening was so cold and windy that we decided to head for bed early and pray for better weather. We went to bed around 8:00pm just to get warm.

Sunday morning dawned cold, cold, cold and windy, windy, windy. We decided at that point that we'd had "enough fun" and packed up our camp. A field trip for the group to Glass Butte wasn't planned until Monday, so we decided to stop by there on our way home to check it out since I had a map to the area that I had obtained from my rockhound club (Puyallup Valley Gem and Mineral Club).

Glass Butte, OR

Glass Butte was beautiful! We were worried we wouldn't make it up the really muddy road to the main site, but our Escape slogged through fine. The road was very muddy and rough. I had a hand drawn map of the area and the different types of obsidian to be found there but we just pulled off the road and started hunting. It was laying everywhere! My husband decided to start digging and he dug up many large boulders. He didn't want to crack them because they shattered so easily (no duh!) so we just piled them all in bags and carried them home. Most of what we got was the banded and mahogany, but one piece I picked up shone gold in the brief 10 seconds the sun came out on our way home. Who knows what all we got. All in all I would highly recommend visiting this spot just for the fact of the abundance of this neat stone.

Some of our Obsidian finds

Despite leaving two days early and braving the freezing tundra of Central Oregon, we still had a wonderful time and plan to revisit this area in the near future, hopefully during better weather conditions. For more information on this wonderful area, visit the USFS website.

Map: Glass Butte Obsidian Locations