Collecting trip report 7-23-13 (lots of photos)
Jul 23, 2013 23:27:34 GMT -5
christopherl1234, kk, and 12 more like this
Post by Tommy on Jul 23, 2013 23:27:34 GMT -5
Fun trip - we've both been working hard and looking forward to this trip for a long while.
Day one, Saturday 7/20 - headed north to Redding, stopped by and said hi to my brother and family, then proceeded to what was supposed to be our first destination - hiking at the Castle Crags State Park. Unfortunately the temperature was already pushing 100 by the time we got there and the Rangers were advising against hiking that day so we headed east.
Pit River gorge from around 2000 ft above it. Simply stunning - we sat all alone at a vista point and ate a very yummy deli lunch we bought earlier. Just for perspective - the focal point (middle) of the photo shows a bridge across the river - it looks microscopic from the elevation we were at.
First rock-related stop was at Hayden Hill for some banded rhyolite. The books say this location is "closed" and it is in a sense - you can't get all the way up Hayden Hill or even into the ghost town anymore, but the road in and the area surrounding the closure gate is loaded with beautiful colorful sandstone/rhyolite. It won't make jewelry but I hauled out a gorgeous boulder to my truck and it's proudly sitting in a prominent spot in my garden.
Hayden Hill seen on the upper right is now actively being mined again.
Colorful stuff - the photo doesn't do it justice
We pulled in to Alturas, CA after a quick visit to the Davis Creek Mercantile in search of the permits we would need on Sunday. We stayed two nights and used Alturas as our "base camp."
Sunday morning had us up early and headed out to collect at three different locations at Lassen Creek - followed by a trip up to Davis Creek.
Interesting geological feature in a road cut just outside of Alturas.
Another road cut about 5 miles down the road - I believe the white material is gypsum. There's a lot of it in the area.
The road in to Lassen Creek area
You can see the dried up Goose Lake in the distance.
The locals wanted to know what we were up to
The first Lassen Creek area we hit was littered with smaller piece of obsidian - much of it broken off piece from the pit-diggers who came before, but we were being very selective and focussing on only taking just a few pieces that looked like they had beautiful sheen.
My partner in crime - at the third of three Lassen Creek sites
We found a good deal of petrified wood at this location
Moving on to Davis Creek we found a scene that were in disbelief of - the ground up by the claim-digging sites is literally covered with sheen obsidians - all with pronounced lines and some solid grays and others with beautiful gray and black banding as well. Again we were being very selective and we quickly filled a crate while only taking pieces showing off exceptional sheens - rainbow and silvers etc.
Day 3 - up early again and headed out to a mostly non-productive three sites in a row on the same dirt road near Cedarville. The best part of these three sites was the road and we got to do some serious 4-wheeling :-) well serious for us anyway. Parts of the road were steep and heavily rutted and several creek crossings were quite fun. We found a handful of wood and a few pieces of what I believe is opalite.
Creek crossing video if I did this right...
Creek crossing video #2
After fun morning but disappointing outcome in Cedarville we headed 180 miles south to Reno to spend a nice evening celebrating my honey's birthday. Of course we had to visit the Cabelas in Boomtown hahaha.
Impressive gun displays... Californians don't see this too often LOL
Day 4 - on a whim we headed east and then south out of the Nevada town of Fernley and got into several locations in the desert where we found lots of interesting stuff. The weather was cool and overcast with the occasional sprinkle - perfecting hounding weather.
The first location yielded quite a few pieces of agatized wood and some pieces of picture jasper and several small chunks of chrysoprase.
At the the final location of the trip we found some sort of banded material - probably onyx? Not sure and I haven't tried to cut it yet. It doesn't look to be of a very high quality whatever it is.
We headed home fat and happy through a desert gully-washer of a rain storm.
Thanks for looking!
Day one, Saturday 7/20 - headed north to Redding, stopped by and said hi to my brother and family, then proceeded to what was supposed to be our first destination - hiking at the Castle Crags State Park. Unfortunately the temperature was already pushing 100 by the time we got there and the Rangers were advising against hiking that day so we headed east.
Pit River gorge from around 2000 ft above it. Simply stunning - we sat all alone at a vista point and ate a very yummy deli lunch we bought earlier. Just for perspective - the focal point (middle) of the photo shows a bridge across the river - it looks microscopic from the elevation we were at.
First rock-related stop was at Hayden Hill for some banded rhyolite. The books say this location is "closed" and it is in a sense - you can't get all the way up Hayden Hill or even into the ghost town anymore, but the road in and the area surrounding the closure gate is loaded with beautiful colorful sandstone/rhyolite. It won't make jewelry but I hauled out a gorgeous boulder to my truck and it's proudly sitting in a prominent spot in my garden.
Hayden Hill seen on the upper right is now actively being mined again.
Colorful stuff - the photo doesn't do it justice
We pulled in to Alturas, CA after a quick visit to the Davis Creek Mercantile in search of the permits we would need on Sunday. We stayed two nights and used Alturas as our "base camp."
Sunday morning had us up early and headed out to collect at three different locations at Lassen Creek - followed by a trip up to Davis Creek.
Interesting geological feature in a road cut just outside of Alturas.
Another road cut about 5 miles down the road - I believe the white material is gypsum. There's a lot of it in the area.
The road in to Lassen Creek area
You can see the dried up Goose Lake in the distance.
The locals wanted to know what we were up to
The first Lassen Creek area we hit was littered with smaller piece of obsidian - much of it broken off piece from the pit-diggers who came before, but we were being very selective and focussing on only taking just a few pieces that looked like they had beautiful sheen.
My partner in crime - at the third of three Lassen Creek sites
We found a good deal of petrified wood at this location
Moving on to Davis Creek we found a scene that were in disbelief of - the ground up by the claim-digging sites is literally covered with sheen obsidians - all with pronounced lines and some solid grays and others with beautiful gray and black banding as well. Again we were being very selective and we quickly filled a crate while only taking pieces showing off exceptional sheens - rainbow and silvers etc.
Day 3 - up early again and headed out to a mostly non-productive three sites in a row on the same dirt road near Cedarville. The best part of these three sites was the road and we got to do some serious 4-wheeling :-) well serious for us anyway. Parts of the road were steep and heavily rutted and several creek crossings were quite fun. We found a handful of wood and a few pieces of what I believe is opalite.
Creek crossing video if I did this right...
Creek crossing video #2
After fun morning but disappointing outcome in Cedarville we headed 180 miles south to Reno to spend a nice evening celebrating my honey's birthday. Of course we had to visit the Cabelas in Boomtown hahaha.
Impressive gun displays... Californians don't see this too often LOL
Day 4 - on a whim we headed east and then south out of the Nevada town of Fernley and got into several locations in the desert where we found lots of interesting stuff. The weather was cool and overcast with the occasional sprinkle - perfecting hounding weather.
The first location yielded quite a few pieces of agatized wood and some pieces of picture jasper and several small chunks of chrysoprase.
At the the final location of the trip we found some sort of banded material - probably onyx? Not sure and I haven't tried to cut it yet. It doesn't look to be of a very high quality whatever it is.
We headed home fat and happy through a desert gully-washer of a rain storm.
Thanks for looking!