Lapidaryforum.net
Let's Rock => Rockhounding Tips, Maps, Trips Etc. => Topic started by: Greg Hiller on August 18, 2016, 07:47:20 AM
-
Planning to fly in and likely out of Boise. Have a full week (Sept 24 to Oct 1). Planning to head to the Graveyard Point area. Thinking about having a look at the Glass Buttes Site in Oregon (love obsidian, is it hard to find?). Maybe head as far west as the Richardson's ranch. Before leaving the Boise area at the beginning of the trip considering heading to Gooding (hear there's a good shop there!) and maybe on to Carey (would like to see the Craters of the Moon that we missed on the last trip).
Any one have any suggestions? We will have a rented SUV. Anyone want to join us? Will be just my wife and myself, saying in El'Cheapo motels along the way.
-
You won't have any problem finding material at Glass Buttes, the hillsides are littered with great quality obsidian in many patterns. Nearest place with any lodgings is to the east at Burns. If you have sunshine (likely), just look for sparkling rocks - or just about any rocks. If you will be going to Richardson's (and if Glass Buttes doesn't take up all your daylight hounding), you might also want to stop at Hampton Butte (just to the east of Glass Buttes), then head over to Prineville for the night. You can then hit White Fir and Lucky Strike for thundereggs before heading down to Madras and Richardson's.
There are some maps at this link (http://pebblepup.com/collecting-area-maps/prineville-oregon-maps-courtesy-of-elkins-gem-stones-prineville-oregon/). You might want to bring/invest in a good tire repair kit and one of those little pump/compressors to take along, just in case of a puncture. I've never had a tire go flat at Glass Buttes, but have at other areas (agates and obsidian can be sharp stuff). And always bring a big jug of water along - if you don't end up drinking it, you can use it to rinse off your finds.
-
Graveyard point is good.
You are close to the Owyhee jasper areas also.
Glass buttes is just a matter of deciding what you want to take.
Richardsons is fun and it is also close to the Polka Dot mine where they have mine run polka dot, amethyst sage, and pretty soon they will have blue mountain on site.
Let me know if you are coming to Gooding so I can be sure and be here. If it is on the right day I can probably go hounding with you for a day or two also.
Carey area has good moss agate and some junky petrified wood, root beer and some plume agate out by Arco and Craters of the moon is really cool.
There is a cool mine area tour you can do at Mackay (just north of Arco) with literally thousands of tons of tailings you can go through.
So many places to go, so little time!
Tony
-
>Polka Dot mine <
Is this called 'West Coast Mining'? Their web site seems to be non-functional. Do they have a shop you can purchase from or a fee-digging operation? I'd love to get some higher quality polka dot and amethyst sage.
-
Go to Tonys in Gooding!!! It's a epic place to visit. If he offers to take you hounding go, go, go!!!!! He n wife y Kris are the greatest!!!
-
>Polka Dot mine <
Is this called 'West Coast Mining'? Their web site seems to be non-functional. Do they have a shop you can purchase from or a fee-digging operation? I'd love to get some higher quality polka dot and amethyst sage.
The polka dot agate beds sign was up today at the turn-off to it. Not surprised if their website is ancient, but call Richardson's for more info on it- Richardson's I think runs it now (?? not really sure though.)
-
Couple of things that will help. One, stop at the Prineville Visitors Center/Chamber of Commerce and pick up a copy of the "Central Oregon Rockhounding Map". Last summer when we were there, we were told that there would be a new edition out this year.
Second, stop at the Highland Rock and Gem Shop just outside of Burns. The owner knows the area and can really help. He also has a series of hand drawn maps of the various rockhounding areas. His map of the Glass Buttes area is excellent showing where the different sheens can be found.
One thing about Glass Buttes. We collected there in 2008. My cab for the August contest will be a tricolor obsidian from that trip. Last summer we drove by on our way to Hampton Butte to collect. Things have changed. BLM had removed all signs; the Obsidian Rd. sign, the big information board and any other evidence that this was a major collecting area. If we hadn't had our old maps which showed it was the first road just West of mile marker 77 on the south side of Route 20, we would never have know that we were there. In fact, the day before we had driven past without realizing that we had driven past the access road. In 2008 it was well marked. Not last year and I assume it's the same today.
Happy collecting
-
Okay, I'm trying to figure out where the actual site to look for the Graveyard point plume agate. It sounds like Graveyard point is in Idaho, but the actual place to look for the agate is over the boarder in Oregon. I looked at some maps but things are pretty nebulous. I went on Google maps and tried to figure out where most of the digging is. I found a spot from the satilite images that looks like there was a lot of digging....is this the place? See the pic?
-
I thought I’d post a few photos of our trip. We started out in Boise and attempted to do some collecting in Idaho first, but we did not have much luck. We went to the sites near Sommercamp road south of Boise, but even with permission to enter the Queenstone jasper collection site we only found one very small piece of picture jasper. The sites listed in the Rockhounding Idaho book were mostly worthless in this area.
We had a lot more fun the 2nd day when we went into the Graveyard point sites in Oregon. We found material pretty much everywhere there. We thought there’d be a lot of digging and hard rock hammer and chisel work to do, but instead we found it was pretty much just walk around and find plume agate here and there just weathering out. We collected a lot of material that 2nd day, but it’s hard to know how good it will be until we slice a lot of it open with a slab saw.
3rd day we collected a bit farther north of the Graveyard sites in Oregon. Slow going in the morning, but in the afternoon we did quite well. At another site where we granted permission to collect on we found sticking out of the ground a very nice plume agate with some white and peach colored plumes and a bit of black tossed in for good measure. That’s the photo with the pick. It was a fair bit of digging to remove, but WELL worth it. After digging some more we were able to get a few more pieces out, but it got harder and harder. I imagine the vein goes on for quite a ways. When we got it home I found that the material was extremely hard with very few pits, and polished up to near glass finish. I decided that for my tastes it looked best cut somewhat thin and then backed with a different translucent stone, or just glass. This way it looks less muddled, and if mounted with an open back the colors will likely really show through. There’s a photo of one cab I made so far from this material.
4th day we headed to the Glass Butte site in Oregon. What a fantastic place. At first we were wandering around and finding quite a number of pieces, but a lot of it was so-so in quality. My wife liked the bubbles appearing in the jet black obsidian she named ‘Cosmic’ obsidian, but I figure all those bubble will be hard to get the cerium oxide out of when the time comes to polish a cab. We did not realize that we were just not in the right places. After driving around a bit we were astonished to see the material that could be collected. We were able to find silver sheen, gold sheen, some of what you might call fire, every form of mahogany, and some not bad rainbow. The rainbow required a wicked road trip to get to, but was worth it. The one type we could not find, but had been shown of a piece of was what I’d call ‘gold spot’ obsidian. Just could not figure out where that was despite getting some hand waving directions from some very nice folks we met. The photo shows the ‘rivers’ of obsidian that occur in many places at the site. I was amazed to see that you can actually see these ‘rivers’ on the satellite images. Also in the photos is a slab I cut from some of the gold sheen, one from the rainbow, and a cab I cut from some of the ‘fire’.
After Glass Butte we headed to Prinville, OR and attempted to collect material based on their ‘Rockhounding’ map. Pretty disappointing. We spend a full day at the Richardson’s ranch near Madras. Collected from the two rough site they still recommend (sunset jasper and rainbow jasper I think they called it). We also of course dug about 40 lbs of thundereggs, mostly from the ‘moss agate’ bed. It was super easy digging in the wall at the moss agate bed, but the green colored eggs (the ones that are supposed to have the moss in them) were a lot harder to dig out. We clearly got a few good ones, but I’ve not cut any of these open yet. The photos are of the brown colored eggs. Some really fantastic patterns in some of these. Bands, crystals, yellow and brown bubbles, etc. There’s a cab in there of one that I cut.
On our way back to Boise we stopped by the Succor creek area and went to the site for the Thundereggs. Really tricky driving, and we decided we could not drive even the four wheel drive car up all the way to the dig site. Anyhow, we got quite luck and found exactly the right spot to dig. There’s a photo of my wife at the bottom of the hole we were finding eggs in. Again, fairly easy digging, but it looked like things were about to collapse. Again we got a couple dozen lbs. of eggs in just a few hours. I sliced a number of them open. Lots of blue agate, a few with bands, crystals, some small brown/yellow bubbles and some dendrites here and then.
-
Pink/peach plume agate in the ground as my wife found it.
-
Digging out the pink plume agate. A photo also of what it looked like when we slabbed it weeks later, and a cab I made from it.
-
Gold sheen mahogany slabs from Glass Butte. Also some cabs I made. Some pieces you could almost call Fire obsidian.
-
A slab of the rainbow obsidian, and one of the silver sheen (almost greenish).
-
Some of the slabs we made from the Richardson's Ranch T-egg, and one photo of a cab (wild stuff no?) I made from one of these slabs. I love the way everyone is different. Never know what you are going to get until you cut 'em open.
-
Some slabs of the Succor Creek T-eggs, and a cab or two I made from them.
-
Oh, some more from Richardson's ranch.
-
One last cab I made from one of the Succor Creek eggs with some crystals in it.
-
Oh, and here's the hole we were digging in at Succor Creek...pretty deep!
And finally a photo of one of the 'rivers' or seams of obsidian at Glass Butte. You can even see these 'rivers' on the satellite images of Glass Butte.
-
All in all a really great trip. Tons of fun and many bulk rate boxes of rocks sent back by the USPS. It will take time to see what we got in the other materials we collected. My saw oil is already all brown from the T-eggs!
-
You picked some great spots. Thanks for the photos. The t-eggs are really fun to cut - with little indication of what might be inside. Those eggs with the little orbs are fantastic :smiley:
-
Great trip report, love the photos of material! Richardson's is pretty great for reliable material. That's some stunning obsidian pattern and love the eggs!
-
What a perfect trip. Always great when you go to a new spot and still hit it big. Love all the different variety of material collected. The Mahogany / Midnight Lace is beautiful and it looks like it has a bit of Gold Sheen in the Mahogany areas. I think Knappers go crazy for that material. Grats on the collecting and material.
-
Steve, yes, most everything went well on the trip. Of course when I got back I was carrying one of the bulk rate boxes loaded with 40 lbs of rocks down a couple of steps and managed to twist my ankle sufficiently to put me on crutches for two days. But that’s mostly healed up now.
-
Man now I wanna get out to some new spots real badly! Great looking plume and awesome chatoyant mahogany obsidian! Great looking cut stones as well Greg!!
Sent from my LGLS990 using Tapatalk
-
I found the following video on Youtube to be very interesting regarding rockhounding in Oregon/Idaho. For those that have a specific interest in polishing, I recommend the last 15 minutes or so of the video showing how the use of hook and loop pads and automotive compounding are the products of choice for the final polishing of cabs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrPel8lHPiA