Dying to get out Rockhounding Again!

I  have been cooped up in this house for weeks now, and I am ready to get going again!  I have several northwest places in mind, but lucky for me, soon we will be traveling back to our home state of New Mexico for a family reunion and hopefully some successful rockhounding!

I have only been out a couple of times recently, and one trip was to Greenwater where half the gates were still closed, and up to the Carbon River mining district down the road.  We did find a few OK rocks and one awesome rock!

Those of you who know rocks and the areas I am referring to will know where I got this rock.  It is amazing!  I hate to say it, but I have kept some of our best locations secret, well, for obvious reasons. Duh!

Tourmaline Crystals, Malachite, Azurite

Now the big question is; sell this stone as a specimen or keep it and pass it on to my family.  Huh!  Good question.  I will have to think about it.

I am in particular looking forward to my trip to get back to NM and collect some great petrified wood!  It is everywhere!  I remember a Girl Scout hike into the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque, and when we stopped to eat lunch, I was sitting beneath a juniper and picked up a large chunk of what I thought was wood.  Lo and behold, it was petrified wood.  Who knew!  It may be at that point that a rockhound was born.  I still have many pieces that my Dad collected over his lifetime.  One of the things I did when we had to move my parents out of their home of 50 years, was scour the rocks in their yard.  My brother and sister thought I was crazy!

Anyway in NM we have one wonderful spot where petrified wood is everywhere and free to collect.  It comes in all shapes and sizes, some is agatized, some is crystal lined, some looks like plain sandstone.  It's amazing!

One of My Last Rockhounding Trips with my Parents

Seriously this wood is laying everywhere.  And some of it is large!

Petrified Tree Trunk

Pieces of Petrified Wood and a Cactus

Some people may wonder why I like New Mexico.  There is something really beautiful about the blue skies and being able to see forever.  I love the desert.  It is awesome.  I even love the cactus, particularly after a recent rain, when they bloom!  I don't particularly like the heat sometimes, but in the spring and fall, it is wonderful!  I also miss the feeling of history that surrounds you there.  Here in Washington it seems like everything melts back into the forest.

Old Adobe - Big Skies

Cactus After Rain in New Mexico

A Different Color

Did I forget to mention New Mexico has lots of rocks?  I must also mention the neat Pecos Diamonds we will be searching for!

Pecos Diamonds

Anyway, to make ends meet since I had to quit my job to help care for my parents, I have been selling some of my wonderful finds on Etsy.  You might want to check it out  And keep checking back.  I am going to have some great things coming back with me from NM.

Check out my minerals for sale on my Etsy shop, SouthPrairieHandmade!

Large Crystalized Petrified Wood Half Round

Goodbye 2014, On To More Rocks!

Anyone who follows this blog may have noticed that 2014 posts are missing.  Last year was an incredibly bad year for me. I started the year with a family of 5 and ended it with a family of 2.  To top it off my 5 year old Granddaughter was diagnosed with Kidney cancer.  Thank the Lord she is now in full remission.

Needless to say, I didn't get much rockhounding time in. I spent most of my time in hospital rooms and at funerals and memorial services.  RIP Becky, Mom and Dad. See you in the future. Not too soon I hope.  So now I am starting a fresh new year.

A Portion of the Foothills Trail

I have not had much time for rockhounding until recently, when my Sister-in-law and I have started walking local trails and we have really gotten the rockhounding bug. We have it so bad, we now have to pull a wagon. at least we are keeping up our bone density.

Near the Foothills Trail

We are also embarking on a brand new adventure.  Because I had piles of rocks everywhere, we decided to put them to good use. We are now selling them on Etsy.

Beautiful Polished OR Dendritic Chalcedony Resting on a Nice Piece of Carbon River Marble

We are also making E-cigarette mod stands with the bigger specimens. Drilling big holes in rocks was a big learning curve. At least I now have my own Rock Saw and Drill Press. They are awesome!  We even have giant petrified wood logs for sale for landscape use now.

Giant Petrified Log - It Would Make a Great Water Feature or Landscape Feature!

Where do we walk, you might ask?  Well we mostly walk a trail near my home called the Foothills Trail.  It goes for miles. Our favorite spot to start is in South Prairie, Washington. Thus the name of our new Etsy shop, SouthPrairieHandmade. At several points it comes near South Prairie Creek and the Carbon River. No earth shaking agates here, unless we get lucky and find one in the glacial till.  There is some awesome sandstone and carbonized petrified wood though. we have also found some great granite and marble.  Here are some examples of the E-cigarette stands, check out our shop for more examples.

NM Petrified Wood E-cigarette Mod Stand

WA Boulder Opal and Jasper

What some of you may not know, is that I am also an artist. Thus you will definitely see some of my art for sale on Etsy.  One of my favorites is a torn paper collage of cattails which were surrounded by mist one morning when we were out near the river.  You be the judge of my art. Let me know what you think.

Cattails in the Mist Torn Paper Collage

This is What We Saw That Morning

Anyway, stay tuned for many more rock hunting adventures and rock art. We are now working on jewelry.  My husband actually want us to make some bolo ties out of our rocks. Who woulda thunk it?

Winter Rockhounding in Oceanside Oregon

Sorry I have been a bit remiss in my postings. I have been busy with a wedding, creating brooch bouquets for another wedding and making collages. More to follow on these topics on another blog. Stay tuned.

It's getting to be that time of year again here in Washington, where I've got to find places to go rockhounding that won't be buried under snow. It's a hard job, but someone has to do it... so here goes.

A Foggy Evening in Oceanside

We go to Oregon. Yep, the Oregon coast to be exact. The winter is the best time to go agate hunting on the beautiful beaches of Oregon. We usually try to pick a weekend in January or February, when the storms and waves have a had a good chance to wash away the sand and expose the rocky layers beneath.

Our favorite spot is a little town called Oceanside. It's hidden on a dead end, right on the coast with a beautiful lighthouse on the bluff up above. The neat thing about Oceanside is that it has a hidden beach you can only reach through a tunnel under the mountain, or during a very low tide. We like Oceanside because it isn't as well known as Newport, It's closer than Newport and Tillamook is only a few miles away.

Tunnel Entrance on South side of Mountain Near Oceanside

We usually rent one of the many beautiful beach houses there in Oceanside and the rates are lower during the late winter. My kids love to rent a boat and go crabbing in nearby Netarts Bay. Then we all have crab for dinner.

The Hidden Beach Near Oceanside - The Tunnel Opening is in the Center of the Picture

We find plenty of agates too. All different colors, sizes and shapes. The trick is to go during a record low tide and follow the tide out. You can also find fossils and petrified wood there.

Tumbled Agates Found in Oceanside, Oregon

Here are some links to pictures of agates others have found here:

http://people.oregonstate.edu/~wilsolau/agates.html

http://blog.oregonlive.com/terryrichard/2007/06/seeking_out_secret_beaches_at.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65325541@N00/4076124779

Also, keep your eyes peeled for this green rock. It tends to blend in with all the black rocks along the beach. I'm not sure what it is, but it seems to polish pretty well.

Unknown Green Rock

For  house rental information, I usually use VRBO. It's a great website to find exactly what you need, and renting a house means we don't have to spend money on restaurants.

Beautiful View from the Bedroom of one of the Homes we Rented in Oceanside

Oceanside, Oregon is a beautiful and fun rock hunting destination.

Oceanside Beach at Sunset

Salmon Creek Again

 Well, we enjoyed our last trip to Salmon Creek so much, that we just had to go back. We really want to find some of the bigger agates I keep seeing people find. Anyway, the day was gorgeous and we headed out again with a late start (as usual).

I decided we should check a different, less well known area of Salmon Creek, so we headed towards Merchant Road from highway 505. After we crossed the Salmon Creek bridge I noticed that the areas on the south side of the bridge had been clearcut very recently. We decided to stop and check it out, since so much ground was visible.

View Down Logging Road from Highway

We got out and headed down the road and right away discovered small chips of carnelian. I decided to check out all the tree stumps we passed, and sure enough I found this interesting little bit of river polished petrified wood.

Petrified Wood Hiding Near Tree Stumps

As we moved down the road towards the river, we started finding more and more pieces of carnelian in the road, where the rain had worn gullies in the road. I even found some really nice jasper.

View of Road Towards River and Highway

When we noticed how late it was getting, we decided to turn around and head back. Of course I had to check out one more spot where the loggers had made a clearing above the road. This was where I found my 10lb piece of petrified wood. I don't know how I knew to dig it up, but I'm glad I did. It almost looks like a big piece of a tree root. Wish I had a rock saw!

Who Knew This was Petrified Wood?

After heading back to the car, we decided to drive a ways down Merchant Road. Just around the corner was this neat old farmhouse and barn.

Old Farmhouse

Old Barn

All in all, we did pretty well for the day. We got home very late and tired, but the day and the outdoors were both wonderful.

Our Finds For the Day

Here's a closer view...

Close-up View

For further trip reports on this area, view the links below.

http://www.brianpen.com/Journal/Journal_2009February.asp

http://home.comcast.net/~wams1939/trips/Salmon_Creek.htm

http://mcrocks.com/ftr06/RichardPrice-February06.html

http://www.gametrails.com/wordpress/?p=270

Salmon Creek Agates and Carnelian

Because my beloved Greenwater is under snow at this time of year, I have been looking for alternate places to hunt for good rocks.

I have been reading quite a bit about agates, petrified wood, jasper and carnelian being found in the Salmon Creek area, so when we finally had a decent day and time off, we headed down there.

Needless to say, we got our usual late start. Then we discovered that we couldn't find our makeshift probe (a fireplace poker), so we had to make do with a flimsy probe I made for locating old outhouse holes (yeah I know, weird huh?).

We headed out towards Salmon Creek around 12:00pm with about 75 miles to travel. Since it was I-5 most of the way, we made good time and arrived around 1:30pm.

With about 2 1/2 hours to look (we had to be in Tacoma by 6:00pm for a family dinner),  we packed up and headed out from the end of Salmon Creek Rd. near Toledo according to an older map I had. With the deep ruts placed across the road to block four wheelers, we decided to leave our trusty wagon behind. I figured the area would be fairly well picked over, but we decided to check out every stream we passed on our trek through the woods.

http://www.gametrails.com/Maps/salmon%20creek.pdf

At the very first stream we came to, near an old dilapidated bridge, (Cougar Creek) we headed down to the gravel bars and immediately began to find agates. I was shocked! The water was fairly low and we could see the rocks really well. Of course the sun coming out and highlighting the clear stones certainly helped.

Cougar Creek Bridge

While I hunted near the bridge, Michael went upstream a ways. He seems to be particularly drawn to black rocks for some reason. He kept finding what he thought looked like obsidian. Maybe black agate?

Michael Looking

Every few steps I took, I'd find something else worth keeping. There were lots of small chips of carnelian, which I left behind. With the water being so clear, it was easy pickings.

Nice Gravel Bars

We saw quite a bit of red jasper, which we also left behind. I've got lots of that from Greenwater.

It looks like I missed some.

After we had halfway filled our handy Home Depot aprons, we decided to head further down the trail. Somewhere along the way we zigged instead of zagged and ended up at the top of a fairly large waterfall and a dead end. I tried to get a picture from standing above the falls but with really muddy banks to the sides, I decided not to risk falling. 

Looking around the area, we noticed quite a few chips of carnelian laying around, but we didn't really feel like digging, so we turned around and headed back to Cougar Creek and looked below the bridge for a while. We found a few more keepers and decided to head back to the car. I did find one really interesting piece of petrified wood that has red and black coloring with crystals along the sides.

All in all it was a great day. We will definitely be back to this area in the near future. With my Alaska sister coming to visit next month, we now have a place to take her that isn't under snow. I have also found further information on better (and less well known) spots along Salmon Creek to check out.

A Few of Our Great Finds

For further trip reports on this area, view the links below.

http://www.brianpen.com/Journal/Journal_2009February.asp
http://home.comcast.net/~wams1939/trips/Salmon_Creek.htm
http://mcrocks.com/ftr06/RichardPrice-February06.html
http://www.gametrails.com/wordpress/?p=270

Greenwater Agates

OK, so I know I have been rather remiss in my postings. I have been out rockhunting, but just haven't had the time to post anything lately.

Back in July of 2012, my family all gathered here in Washington for a family reunion. What is a good reunion without a rockhunting trip. Since Greenwater is close by we took a couple trips up there to try our luck.

We headed up FS Rd 70 and decided to try a well known site with about a 1/2 mile walk to a BIG landslide. Most everyone advises to only go here after a good rain or early in the season, but we have always found lots of pretty stuff here and it didn't fail us this time.

The trip in was beautiful. It was a great day for getting out and enjoying the woods. My Dad had a great time, but boy did we wear him out.

Dad On The Trail

When we got to the rockslide, there was plenty to find and everyone found something. The landslide is full of agates, jasper and even wanna-be petrified wood, which Michael proudly brought home as his prize. It's partially rock, partially wood. Kind of neat.

Almost Petrified Wood

There is a giant agate there, waiting for someone with a miracle to take home.

Big Agate

Everyone was looking all over the area and finding lots of different stuff. Did anyone see this one?

Another Big Agate

Even the kids were looking and finding.

Lots of good rocks

We found lots of agate and jasper. Even some pretty green colored jasper.

Green Jasper

All in all, it was a great trip and as usual, we came home with more than we left with.

Our Agates and Jasper Finds

For other blog posts about this area, check out these links: 

http://www.gametrails.com/wordpress/?p=354
http://www.gametrails.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Greenwater.pdf

Check out our rare purple/green Greenwater agate slab for sale at out Etsy Shop.

Rare Blue/Green/Purple Greenwater Jasper

Saddle Mountain Washington

 After returning home from New Mexico, I figured I'd just take it easy for a while and recharge my batteries. But as luck would have it, I somehow ended up with a four day weekend off and nothing to do. My husband, a diehard camper had missed out on a planned trip earlier because of my unexpected trip down to New Mexico, so we planned a spur of the moment trip to Central Washington to search out nice rockhounding spots.

We decided to head to the Yakima River area because it was pretty cool in the Rosalyn area and Yakima sounded warmer. Unfortunately I didn't do my homework on the rockhounding areas and we almost ended up with nothing but a nice camping trip along the river (not so bad). 


We ended up setting up camp at the Bighorn Campground late Friday night. All the river spots were taken by all the rafters and fishermen, but we had a really nice spot anyway. I highly recommend this campground over the many other BLM sites we passed, because it had a lot more shade than the others further South.

Nice Shady Camping Spot at Bighorn Campground

The next morning, rather than tubing down the river (which did look like a lot of fun), we decided to go rock hunting. I had an old book which told about petrified wood along Umtanum Creek. It had little other information. It just said search the canyons and river beds to the south of Umtanum Creek Trail. So we headed down the river to the Umtanum bridge.

Yakima River Rafters - Looks Like Fun!

Umtanum Bridge

It was easy to find the suspension bridge. It's the only one across the river. As soon as we got to the other side, we ran into two out-of-breath hikers who told us to beware of the rattlesnake up the trail. Well, that did it for us. Even though we were both raised in New Mexico and never gave a thought to rattlesnakes, we suddenly became super aware of the possibility and did not have the courage to leave the stupid trail to look for petrified wood. We just couldn't do it! Meanwhile, Bandito decided that the upper 80's was too much for him and settled into the creek at the first spot we came to.

Bandito Laying in the Creek

We found a few chips of petrified wood laying under the railroad bridge at the beginning of the trail and near a washout area up the trail, but we were just too conscious of the snake danger to get off into the brush and look, so we just found a shady spot near the river and rested awhile and headed back.

View of the Yakima River Valley from the Umtanum Creek Trail

I have since done my homework and now know where to look, but that trip will have to wait for cooler weather when the snakes aren't around.

The next day, Sunday, we had two choices of places to hunt. I had read a bloggers report about petrified wood up the Old Durr Toll Road, and Saddle Mountain, which was about an hour away on the other side of the Columbia River. I did have specific directions to Saddle Mountain, but the Old Durr Road was closer, so we headed that direction first. Here is an interesting description of this historic road: BackroadsofNorthAmerica.com.


It was a cool day as we started our  drive down the road. There was a great view of rolling hills and farms along the way.

Farm House on Durr Road

Several miles down the road we were greeted with a huge sign with the notice that a Discover Pass was required. This notice should have been posted at the beginning of the road. We decided to just continue on.

Now You Tell Us a Discover Pass is Required?

The road was VERY rough and had spots where melon-sized rocks had been put down for traction. There were some spots with steep drop-offs and we had to cross Umtanum Creek without the benefit of a bridge. All in all, it was not too bad, and I wouldn't classify it as a 4-wheel drive only road. You do need a high clearance vehicle with really good tires though. After inching along for several miles, we finally came to a 3-way intersection and decided to stop. There was an old ranch gateway just sitting out in the middle of nowhere.

Gateway to Where?

After searching around the area, we only found a few small pieces of petrified wood. Later I would discover we were searching the wrong side of the hill. Just our luck! We decided to head back and get over to Saddle Mountain where I had good directions. It took us quite a while to get back down Durr Road and over the Columbia River, but we made it in a couple of hours.

Saddle Mountain is a well-known rock hounding area on BLM land outside of Mattawa. The petrified wood found in this area is what is known as "bog" wood. The theory is that there were piles of downed trees in a swampy area and a lava flow came along and buried it. Then over time, the minerals turned the trees into stone and then the lava started to erode and expose the wood. Whatever the theory, there is sure a lot of wood out there!

As soon as we reached the first area we found pieces of wood laying around everywhere. We immediately started following the pieces to some good sized dig holes. Michael, a firm believer in digging, started going at it. Me, I reconnoitered the area looking for the best spots to dig. I found so much without digging that I just kept collecting.

Can You See The Petrified Wood?

When we left, we felt bad about picking up the small pieces we first found because the wood was everywhere! at the second spot, we found a huge hole with trees visible embedded in the rock. I know Michael was thinking he was glad he hadn't had to dig that hole!

I Have to Dig That Deep?

The agatized wood inside the hole was beautiful. We chipped at it a while, but decided it was just damaging the whole log and there was plenty of large pieces laying around for our needs.

Agatized Logs at the Bottom of the Hole

All in all, our trip to Saddle Mountain made the day a huge success and we were really glad we headed out there. We'll definitely have to make another trip in the fall. I know that for sure after reading this trip report from the Kitsap Gem & Mineral Club. Meanwhile, we were completely happy with our finds for the day.

The Pile of Our Finds

Close-up View