Thanksgiving Day Hounding Trip ( pics galore)
Nov 29, 2013 14:53:50 GMT -5
garock, GeorgeStoneStore, and 2 more like this
Post by Bluesky78987 on Nov 29, 2013 14:53:50 GMT -5
So, I didn't feel like staying home and eating Turkey, so I dragged my mom and her dog Jaxon out hounding instead.
Disappointed that I couldn't go with the group Scott et al took out to the Cady's, my mom and I did "Cady's Lite".
We started off at Basin Road, off I-15. Like it says all over the internet, we just followed the road south to the train tracks, parked, and walked around picking up rocks in the riverbed. Mel had recommended this trip in the past, so we thought we'd try it. The road was really good, even a passenger car could have made it just fine - looked to have been freshly graded.
However I read accounts on the internet of when it could be bad. There were sand drifts around, so I suppose those could get on the road.
We *did* have to cross the Mighty Mojave River . . .
There were a bunch of train cars parked on the siding out there, and some trains came by us while we hunted.
Guess which one is me, and which one is Jaxon, my assistant:
Found this rock right away in the riverbed.
There were jillions of rocks, almost all of them not interesting. Lots of granite, quartz, rhyolite, and some green stuff I don't know what it was. Lava rocks too. Hardly any jasper or agate at all. It was much different than other sites I've been to, where you have to sift through the "boring" jasper looking for the good stuff. Here, there was hardly any jasper or agate, but what there was, was all very interesting moss or etc. Like these:
This one is probably nothing, but . . . ? It has white and black and clear so I'll take a cut and see what's in there.
I also found this rock, which I thought was orbicular rhyolite, but looking at the close up picture, the red looks mossy or something. Will have to cut it and see. Any ideas? Mel?
Then, we headed back up the road and went around to the tourist entrance to Afton Canyon. There is a lot of greenery where the Mojave River is forced above ground by some impermeable rock layers. Looked like mostly willow, tamarisk and cat claw. It had all turned golden for the fall, pretty!
We parked at the campground, which is free for day use, and had lunch. Lots of wildlife there -- a roadrunner came begging, a raven scolded us, and a series of really annoying honey bees tried to eat our KFC. One crawled into my diet coke can! Argh! So I put a rock on top of the opening. Serves you right for stealing my coke, bee! Not sure I would want to camp there - there were mosquitos too. Maybe better when it hadn't rained recently -- there was a winter storm that drenched the area a few days ago, so maybe that made the bugs pop up, not sure. It was nice to have a handy pit toilet though!
I walked under the trestle bridge to explore the canyons recommended in the rockhounding books. I knew they'd be picked over, but just wanted to see what was out there.
Crossing the Mighty Mojave River:
First canyon:
Not a single jasper or agate rock or chip or pebble in that canyon. Pretty cool though, obvious water flow markings. I was the first person up it since the rain.
Second canyon:
At the mouth of this one I found a couple possibles: ([begin rant]Sorry for the dark pics -- it's RAINING here -- RAINING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA!!! Gaaaah!!! And yes, I am complaining on the day after Thanksgiving. [/end rant])
One-cab-wonder of red moss, just like from Lavic:
Only one Brekker:
This one I picked up "on spec" since it sounded like jasper/agate:
Zooming in on the picture it looks like there might be red moss in there. Guess we'll find out!
So I decided to walk up to see what was up the canyon. Nothing, it turns out. Again, not a shred of jasper. Not the tiniest little sliver. So freaking wierd. Usually at a "picked over" rockhounding location, there are little slivers everywhere at least. I can't believe rockhounds and boyscout troups vacuumed up every single sliver. And I KNOW I was in the place the books recommended. The view from the entrance was nice though.
The best piece I found there was perched on a post in the campground. Some kid probably found it and dad was like "No, Junior, leave the pretty rock for the next person to enjoy." Thanks Kid! I'll let you know how it cabs up!
Then, we headed out and went to the mine with the green Andesite, which used to be mined by Brubaker-Mann. Clearly nobody had worked it in ages. There weren't even any No Tresspassing signs. The directions to the place I got were CLEARLY flawed, however! Everybody said "The mine is at the head of a small dry lake." I don't know what dry lake bed they were talking about -- all I could find was a FULL ON LAKE! The lakebed was covered in at least a foot of water. It was really cool! Luckily the road was still pretty good getting in there.
The mine itself was basically a big scoop out of the side of the mountain, with green rocks everywhere.
Like Tommy's pics, the rock came in solid, stripes, swirls, I even saw one polka dot one. Many of the rocks were covered in very pretty fern dendrite thingies -- Managanese? Is there an official name for these?
Don't let your fern rock get rained on though. Bye bye ferns. Oh well.
I got a bucketfull of green rocks to try to cut. I'm worried they'll fracture though. I didn't do a very good job selecting fracture free candidates.
The mine was in a fantastic location -- great place to camp. Look at this view!
This should be a car ad. Too bad it wasn't a Porsche.
Today I plan to cut. Fingers crossed. It was a fun day, thanks for looking!
Disappointed that I couldn't go with the group Scott et al took out to the Cady's, my mom and I did "Cady's Lite".
We started off at Basin Road, off I-15. Like it says all over the internet, we just followed the road south to the train tracks, parked, and walked around picking up rocks in the riverbed. Mel had recommended this trip in the past, so we thought we'd try it. The road was really good, even a passenger car could have made it just fine - looked to have been freshly graded.
However I read accounts on the internet of when it could be bad. There were sand drifts around, so I suppose those could get on the road.
We *did* have to cross the Mighty Mojave River . . .
There were a bunch of train cars parked on the siding out there, and some trains came by us while we hunted.
Guess which one is me, and which one is Jaxon, my assistant:
Found this rock right away in the riverbed.
There were jillions of rocks, almost all of them not interesting. Lots of granite, quartz, rhyolite, and some green stuff I don't know what it was. Lava rocks too. Hardly any jasper or agate at all. It was much different than other sites I've been to, where you have to sift through the "boring" jasper looking for the good stuff. Here, there was hardly any jasper or agate, but what there was, was all very interesting moss or etc. Like these:
This one is probably nothing, but . . . ? It has white and black and clear so I'll take a cut and see what's in there.
I also found this rock, which I thought was orbicular rhyolite, but looking at the close up picture, the red looks mossy or something. Will have to cut it and see. Any ideas? Mel?
Then, we headed back up the road and went around to the tourist entrance to Afton Canyon. There is a lot of greenery where the Mojave River is forced above ground by some impermeable rock layers. Looked like mostly willow, tamarisk and cat claw. It had all turned golden for the fall, pretty!
We parked at the campground, which is free for day use, and had lunch. Lots of wildlife there -- a roadrunner came begging, a raven scolded us, and a series of really annoying honey bees tried to eat our KFC. One crawled into my diet coke can! Argh! So I put a rock on top of the opening. Serves you right for stealing my coke, bee! Not sure I would want to camp there - there were mosquitos too. Maybe better when it hadn't rained recently -- there was a winter storm that drenched the area a few days ago, so maybe that made the bugs pop up, not sure. It was nice to have a handy pit toilet though!
I walked under the trestle bridge to explore the canyons recommended in the rockhounding books. I knew they'd be picked over, but just wanted to see what was out there.
Crossing the Mighty Mojave River:
First canyon:
Not a single jasper or agate rock or chip or pebble in that canyon. Pretty cool though, obvious water flow markings. I was the first person up it since the rain.
Second canyon:
At the mouth of this one I found a couple possibles: ([begin rant]Sorry for the dark pics -- it's RAINING here -- RAINING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA!!! Gaaaah!!! And yes, I am complaining on the day after Thanksgiving. [/end rant])
One-cab-wonder of red moss, just like from Lavic:
Only one Brekker:
This one I picked up "on spec" since it sounded like jasper/agate:
Zooming in on the picture it looks like there might be red moss in there. Guess we'll find out!
So I decided to walk up to see what was up the canyon. Nothing, it turns out. Again, not a shred of jasper. Not the tiniest little sliver. So freaking wierd. Usually at a "picked over" rockhounding location, there are little slivers everywhere at least. I can't believe rockhounds and boyscout troups vacuumed up every single sliver. And I KNOW I was in the place the books recommended. The view from the entrance was nice though.
The best piece I found there was perched on a post in the campground. Some kid probably found it and dad was like "No, Junior, leave the pretty rock for the next person to enjoy." Thanks Kid! I'll let you know how it cabs up!
Then, we headed out and went to the mine with the green Andesite, which used to be mined by Brubaker-Mann. Clearly nobody had worked it in ages. There weren't even any No Tresspassing signs. The directions to the place I got were CLEARLY flawed, however! Everybody said "The mine is at the head of a small dry lake." I don't know what dry lake bed they were talking about -- all I could find was a FULL ON LAKE! The lakebed was covered in at least a foot of water. It was really cool! Luckily the road was still pretty good getting in there.
The mine itself was basically a big scoop out of the side of the mountain, with green rocks everywhere.
Like Tommy's pics, the rock came in solid, stripes, swirls, I even saw one polka dot one. Many of the rocks were covered in very pretty fern dendrite thingies -- Managanese? Is there an official name for these?
Don't let your fern rock get rained on though. Bye bye ferns. Oh well.
I got a bucketfull of green rocks to try to cut. I'm worried they'll fracture though. I didn't do a very good job selecting fracture free candidates.
The mine was in a fantastic location -- great place to camp. Look at this view!
This should be a car ad. Too bad it wasn't a Porsche.
Today I plan to cut. Fingers crossed. It was a fun day, thanks for looking!