Lapidaryforum.net
Let's Rock => Prospecting => Topic started by: Gergis on May 01, 2018, 09:10:44 AM
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I've never been out collecting any petrified wood before so me and a good buddy Cashmere made the 2 1/2hr trip over to eastern washington/vantage area by the famous saddle mountains just off of the Columbia river. We went off directions from the blm website which were easy peasy. Stopped at a few spots on the way up "R" road and poked around and saw no signs of wood. Made it up to the top and found a couple of very large holes that appeared to have been worked on for some time with small chips scattered all over but didn't look recently worked. We carried on for a few miles east on the ridge but it seemed like most of the digging was back towards the top where we first came to the top of ridge so we turned around and started making our way back. We found a spot that looked untouched so we decided to open a couple holes up. Found some small but decent pieces for the tumbler but nothing to write home about. After a hour or so of digging we hadn't come up with to much so we packed up and headed for a large hole we spyed earlier. In that hole was a very large piece of mixed bogwood that folks had been picking out so we followed suit and started exposing more of the log and breaking out nice chunks of good opalized wood between more less desirable "cooked" pieces and ash layers. I'd say we both ended up with about 15lbs of good opal material. Not exactly what I thought it was going to be like after hearing all sorts of crazy stories of giant logs laying everywhere and folks taking bulldozers and shit up there. It really seemed like most the area is unexplored by rockhounds or more likely that there are better spots than where we went or maybe the rockhounds in that area actually fill in their holes. Anyways here's some pictures of our finds from a nice warm breezy spring day in eastern Washington. Enjoy!
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180501/1b3b0f56ab0c79ff8ac8a194608eb98b.jpg)(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180501/5518d2c386cd15b9c645f0234b00744e.jpg)(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180501/aa5d9d3ee593128fd3792c4e7b4a9019.jpg)(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180501/f9d3b7fca34deac611701d22de28a080.jpg)(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180501/3a15d0263a5583f2e62f5ada40f84470.jpg)(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180501/4ac5c78fa17ed8226d48dd77d1767967.jpg)(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180501/1bb2f9bee29acfe112785f8265d71d65.jpg)
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It's checkerboard ownership with much of it private and off limits.I am disappointed that no scorpions tested you.
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Very nice pieces there should polish up good well done.
Dave
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Lovely stuff! Sounds like a successful hunt.