Rockhounding Okanogan County Washington

Recently took a four day trip to eastern Washington and had a blast. It was like a trip through history. We found the most amazing mines, rocks and gold/silver/copper ores. 

The area we concentrated on was the Ruby (City) area, but we started our quest at the Alder mine near Twisp. This gold, silver, copper, zinc mine was mined up to the 1950's and it is a huge mine. 

Upper Level of the Alder Mine Near Twisp, WA

We checked out the ores at the top level of the mine in the "open stope"  area where they "mined to daylight" and saw many colorful rocks and ore samples. 

Alder Mine Ores Overlooking Stoped Area

We walked around and checked out the upper levels of the mine until some other adventure seekers showed up at the levels below. I didn't find any agates, so I was done anyway. :-)

Very Colorful Ores - Alder Mine, Twisp, WA

We decided to move on to our next planned stop which was near Loop Loop City towards Conconully, WA. We headed into Okanogan National Forest up Loup Loup Canyon Road to the Ruby Mining District.

We stopped to view the famous China Wall - the first attempt at a mill for the Arlington Mine in 1892. It is quite impressive, and still standing strong in the middle of the forest. I just wish that idiots had left their paint cans at home. Who drives into the middle of the forest to tag something anyway?

China Wall off of Loup Loup Canyon Road

Our next stop was the Last Chance Mine. My mine book had said that there were colorful rock specimens on the ore dumps here. Boy, were they right! Malachite and azurite and colorful quartz everywhere. It was amazing. The rocks were so plentiful and beautiful, that we didn't know what to pick up. What a wonderful find!

Lots of Pretty Rocks!

The mine was caved, just as well, we wouldn't have entered it anyway. Just outside the old entrance was a beautiful pond where someone has used a backhoe on it.

Pretty Man-Made Pond Below the Mine

This was such a great find we decided to move on up the road, and we headed for the Arlington Mine. It was mostly a silver, lead, gold mine. The road was horrible, but we made it without any problems. It is near the top of Ruby Hill and has some great views. The lower adit is completely caved and has become a gurgling fountain.

The Caved Arlington Mine Adit - Now a Fountain

Here we got our biggest surprise yet. Buried in the woods, below the mine is the ruins of the mill with most of the machinery still in place! It was amazing.

Arlington Mine Mill - With Ball Mill Still in Place

Even more amazing was the ore lying around the mill. They were just beautiful. They were VERY heavy. Must be something good in those rocks. I still didn't see any agates though :-)

Arlington Mine Ore

All in all it was a wonderful trip and I know we'll be going back next year especially since I have since read that one of the 100's of mines up there was known for pink garnets! 

Wonderful View, Horrible Road!

Jade Hunting Deer Creek/Pilchuck Creek Washington

So, We had a long weekend and decided to take a trip to Okanogan County WA. I did a little research and found that there were lots of places to hunt for Jade in the Creeks below SR 20. So off we went.

Logging Road Bridge over Pilchuck Creek

Our first stop was along Pilchuck Creek off of a logging road below Lake Cavanaugh Road. We didn't spend much time here because there was an open gate on the road and we almost got locked in once on Tree Company Forest Land. There was a beautiful camping spot on the Creek and we did find a few pieces of Jade but as I said, we didn't spend much time 
here.

Looking down Pilchuck Creek from the Bridge

Next, we headed down Lake Cavanaugh Road and pulled off at a good spot along Pilchuck Creek and started looking. We found quite a few good pieces.

Beautiful Spot to Look for Jade

We spent about an hour here picking and choosing what we thought might be jade, and I found a couple pretty yard rocks that may be what they call grossular garnet around here.

Lots of Rocks to Sort Through

The jade is rather elusive. It can weather to have a red or white rind around the pretty stuff inside. You usually can't break it because it's so hard and then if you do, it shatters. We just tried to carefully look at the rocks and determine if there was anything worth lugging back to the car.

From here, we headed up to Deer Creek at Oso. This is supposedly one of the favorite hunting spots for rockhounds. We discovered that the railroad trestle bridge that Gem Trails of Washington recommends to access the opposite side of the creek is closed. We drove down SR 530 over Deer Creek and discovered access from the parking lot of the closed down Oso General Store right past the bridge. It was an easy walk down to Deer creek next to the bridge.

Oso General Store Parking Lot

We found a few interesting rocks here, but not a lot of jade. The hunting was better on Pilchuck Creek. We didn't have time to check out Finney Creek, but it's supposed to be good also.

Deer Creek below the Bridge

When we got home, I'm still not sure what is what, and even apparently die hard jade collectors have a hard time positively identifying their finds, so I will just say that I'm sure there must be some jade here somewhere.

A few of our Finds

I know that we found enough for me to want to go back again and hunt for some more. Meanwhile, I definitely need to get a rock saw. Just so I can see what is inside these beauties.

Jade or Garnet?