New Mexico Rockhounding - Parson's Mine - Nogal Mining District

Day one of travels.  We were headed to Ruidoso NM for a reunion, so we decided to take a trip through history and headed up CO15 Road to Forest Service Road 400 to FS Road 108 outside of Nogal (Nogal Canyon Road), which cuts through the mountains and comes out near Bonito Lake.  This whole area is pockmarked with mines and history.  For an interesting read about this area check out this NM Archaeology Report of the area.  It is full of murder, thievery and mayhem!

The best mine site we checked out was the site of the Parson's mine and mill site.  It was wonderful.  The drive was cool, beautiful and fairly uneventful.   Contrary to what the description of Parson on Ghostowns.com says, the mines have not been dynamited as far as I can see.

Unknown Foundation

Road into Canyon with Mine

Parson's Mine - Getting Close

Parson's Mine - Getting Closer

View Inside Mine - Looks Pretty Stable

Parson's Mine Boilers

Parson's Mine Mill Site

Parson's Mine Separator

We didn't really find much here, but my husband did find what appeared to be a nice green fluorite crystal specimen.  I think the area has been fairly well picked over.  If you dig enough, or get away from the main areas, you may find something nice though.  It was getting late, so we called it a day and headed on to Ruidoso.  We will have to come back some day and check out some of the other well-known mine sites in the area.

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!

North Fork Snoqualmie River

Last Friday was such a beautiful day, and I was off, so I just had to get out. Looking for rocks at this time of year can be difficult due to the snow. But a couple weeks ago I stumbled across a neat Geological Survey Report about the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area and it made me want to check out the North Fork Snoqualmie area. I figured that the elevation would be low enough for me to get to without snow and it's not a huge distance away. So off I went.

The first part of the North Fork Road was a nice gravel road, but that soon changed the further I went.

North Fork Snoqualmie Road

As soon as I got up the canyon, it turned to mud. Pretty deep mud. But I kept going anyway. Pretty soon my car was covered in mud. I passed quite a few areas where it looked like the road had been washed out and repaired. I stopped to check out the rocks and take some pics on the way.

Small Creek at a Washout - Should Have Looked Closer at the Red Boulder

Unfortunately as I got close to my destination I ran into snow. I was only .2 miles from my target mine, but the snow just got too deep. The canyon that it's in just doesn't get much sun.

The End of the Road

One of the mines I wanted to see was on the other side of the creek, and I noticed that unless I had on waders I would never get across now. It's just too deep.

Lennox Creek

So, I turned around and headed back towards North Bend. I stopped and checked out the North Fork Snoqualmie River for awhile. It too was running pretty fast. 

North Fork Snoqualmie River

I had read a report that there was a mine up above this area that didn't have a road, so they tried floating their ore down the river in barrels. Needless to say a lot of them didn't make it and you can find the ore in the river sometimes. Unfortunately I only found one little rock that has a bright speck of gold on it. I actually picked up the rock because I liked the colors in it, greens and red. I also found a nice piece of serpentinite (I think) for a yard rock.

If You Look Real Hard You Can See the Gold Speck - Hah!

Following a brief stop there I headed on back down the road. After crossing the Sunday Creek Bridge, I noticed a small stream coming down from the hill, so I stopped and got out to look over the rocks. I found a nice piece of pink feldspar (I think) here, and a heavy piece of quartz. 

Small Unnamed Creek

Needless to say, I didn't hit the jackpot here, but I sure got to enjoy the beautiful day, scenery and weather. 

Mt. Si - What a Beautiful View! 

I will definitely be back after the snow melts.

My Finds - Not Sure what they are - But They're Pretty!

9/6/13 Update:

Just took some rocks out my polisher and found that some of these polished really well. What do you think? It's not really jasper, more like sandstone, but it polished nicely to this point. I figured it would break up into pieces...

Kind of looks like Picture Jasper