Post by Jugglerguy on May 11, 2014 10:28:27 GMT -5
The ice map finally showed that Little Traverse Bay was free of Ice, so my son Bryan and I headed to Petoskey yesterday in search of Petoskey stones. I was there a few weeks ago for about an hour and picked up some between the ice and shore, but this was an all day trip. The weather was predicted to be partly cloudy with 5-10 mph winds, so everything looked pretty good. We left the house by 5:45 for the two hour drive to Petoskey. Bryan has his learner's permit, which made for some excitement. He got to log 375 miles by the time we got home.
About a half an hour before we arrived, I noticed that it was really windy. Not a good sign for collecting in water. We left early to avoid the wind. When we arrived in Petoskey, my fears were confirmed. It was blowing hard and the waves were big, much bigger than they look in the pictures. The water was also about a foot deeper than in was when I was there before because the wind had blown the water into the bay. Bryan's expression shows pretty accurately how we felt at this point.
We put our waders on and got in the water, but it was way too rough to have any chance of seeing rocks. The waves were almost knocking us over. I called home to ask my wife to check the weather. The winds were supposed to gradually taper off to about 5mph by 830 at night, so we decided to check out some other spots while we waited for the winds to subside.
We stopped by a spot that mibeachrocks recommend, but we couldn't get in the water here either and the beach rocks all seemed pretty porous. As you can see, the wind and our moods had not improved yet.
Bryan spotted a Petoskey stone in the break wall he was standing on in the previous picture, but the rock probably weighed almost as much as my Jeep.
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Just down the road we stopped a park and found a couple rocks. It's right next door to a place called Bay Harbor that you can see in the background.
Bay Harbor was built on an old quarry for limestone that was used to make cement.
Those condos on the left of the above picture are on top of a huge quarry wall.
Next it was off to Fisherman's Island State Park. We didn't have any luck there last year, but we were killing time, so we decided to stop. There is a stream at the far end of the park that, according to a book I have, can produce Petoskey stones. The waves weren't quite as bad here, so I put on my waters and long neoprene gloves and waded in Lake Michigan at the mouth of the stream for a few minutes but found nothing. So I decided to wade upstream a bit to look on some shallow gravel beds. The stream is narrow enough that Bryan jumped over it at one spot. Mostly it was about 6-8 feet wide. A couple teenagers had shown up and were fishing near where we parked, so I got out and walked around so I wouldn't disturb their fish. Upstream further, I started seeing some fairly big fish with bright orange on the sides. I'm not a fisherman, so at first I thought they were some sort of trout. Then I got a closer look and they appeared to be suckers. I've never seen suckers with orange on them before. Then I spotted four of them under an overhanging log. I walked right up to them and they didn't move. I decided to try to grab one, and got it on my first attempt. There was a much bigger one, but it swam off. I walked the fish back to the two fishermen and asked if they were after suckers like the one I was holding and they wasted no time getting upstream. I donated my fish to their bucket.
Our next stop was at the tiny town of Norwood. We got some banded chert on the beach there last year, so we thought we may as well grab some of that since we only had about two Petoskey stones at this point. We met a couple from downstate who were also looking for rocks on the beach. We loaded up on banded chert and found a couple Petoskeys too. We also met another couple who just seemed to be out for a walk, but were also rock hounds. The man told us about a beach in Acme, which was about another half hour down the road. It was farther than I had planned to go, but since we didn't have much else to do, we decided to check it out.
On the way, I thought we should check out Torch Lake because a recent newspaper article mentioned that there are a lot of Petoskey stones found there. We found two public accesses, but only one stone. It's a beautiful lake though.
We checked out a couple other spots along the way to Acme, but didn't find much. When we finally got to Acme we picked up a few rocks in Lake Michigan. Grand Traverse Bay was more protected, so we were able to see the rocks pretty clearly. We found a few Petoskeys and a couple other rocks for the tumbler. There were some pretty orange rocks that appeared to be chert, but I'm not sure. It was about four o'clock at this point and Bryan was getting anxious to get back to Petoskey to the beach we started at.
It was about an hour drive back and the water had settled down quite a bit. We had had a few hours to wade around and found about half a bucket of Petoskey stones. It wasn't as many as I was hoping for, but it was a nice end to the day. Bryan really likes this particular spot. Note the improved expression.
Here are the rocks we brought home. Some favosite and other fossils that I think will polish up:
The orange chert and some quartz from Acme:
Unakite:
Bryan found this chain coral at our last stop in Petoskey. I've been wanting to find some of this, so it's one of my favorites.
Some chert for the tumbler. This is a one gallon bucket so it looks bigger than it is.
You may be wondering why I look for Petoskey stones in the water. There are several reasons. The wave and ice action move the rocks around, so that's where new rocks show up. The beaches take less effort to find rocks, so I figure those get picked up first. But a big reason is that they're easier to see in the water. Some Petoskey stones don't show their pattern unless they're wet.
Dry:
Wet:
This is about a four gallon bucket half full of Petoskey stones. From previous experience, most will be thrown out because the pattern won't be good. It's really hard to tell without doing a quick test on the grinder.
About a half an hour before we arrived, I noticed that it was really windy. Not a good sign for collecting in water. We left early to avoid the wind. When we arrived in Petoskey, my fears were confirmed. It was blowing hard and the waves were big, much bigger than they look in the pictures. The water was also about a foot deeper than in was when I was there before because the wind had blown the water into the bay. Bryan's expression shows pretty accurately how we felt at this point.
We put our waders on and got in the water, but it was way too rough to have any chance of seeing rocks. The waves were almost knocking us over. I called home to ask my wife to check the weather. The winds were supposed to gradually taper off to about 5mph by 830 at night, so we decided to check out some other spots while we waited for the winds to subside.
We stopped by a spot that mibeachrocks recommend, but we couldn't get in the water here either and the beach rocks all seemed pretty porous. As you can see, the wind and our moods had not improved yet.
Bryan spotted a Petoskey stone in the break wall he was standing on in the previous picture, but the rock probably weighed almost as much as my Jeep.
[/a]
Just down the road we stopped a park and found a couple rocks. It's right next door to a place called Bay Harbor that you can see in the background.
Bay Harbor was built on an old quarry for limestone that was used to make cement.
Those condos on the left of the above picture are on top of a huge quarry wall.
Next it was off to Fisherman's Island State Park. We didn't have any luck there last year, but we were killing time, so we decided to stop. There is a stream at the far end of the park that, according to a book I have, can produce Petoskey stones. The waves weren't quite as bad here, so I put on my waters and long neoprene gloves and waded in Lake Michigan at the mouth of the stream for a few minutes but found nothing. So I decided to wade upstream a bit to look on some shallow gravel beds. The stream is narrow enough that Bryan jumped over it at one spot. Mostly it was about 6-8 feet wide. A couple teenagers had shown up and were fishing near where we parked, so I got out and walked around so I wouldn't disturb their fish. Upstream further, I started seeing some fairly big fish with bright orange on the sides. I'm not a fisherman, so at first I thought they were some sort of trout. Then I got a closer look and they appeared to be suckers. I've never seen suckers with orange on them before. Then I spotted four of them under an overhanging log. I walked right up to them and they didn't move. I decided to try to grab one, and got it on my first attempt. There was a much bigger one, but it swam off. I walked the fish back to the two fishermen and asked if they were after suckers like the one I was holding and they wasted no time getting upstream. I donated my fish to their bucket.
Our next stop was at the tiny town of Norwood. We got some banded chert on the beach there last year, so we thought we may as well grab some of that since we only had about two Petoskey stones at this point. We met a couple from downstate who were also looking for rocks on the beach. We loaded up on banded chert and found a couple Petoskeys too. We also met another couple who just seemed to be out for a walk, but were also rock hounds. The man told us about a beach in Acme, which was about another half hour down the road. It was farther than I had planned to go, but since we didn't have much else to do, we decided to check it out.
On the way, I thought we should check out Torch Lake because a recent newspaper article mentioned that there are a lot of Petoskey stones found there. We found two public accesses, but only one stone. It's a beautiful lake though.
We checked out a couple other spots along the way to Acme, but didn't find much. When we finally got to Acme we picked up a few rocks in Lake Michigan. Grand Traverse Bay was more protected, so we were able to see the rocks pretty clearly. We found a few Petoskeys and a couple other rocks for the tumbler. There were some pretty orange rocks that appeared to be chert, but I'm not sure. It was about four o'clock at this point and Bryan was getting anxious to get back to Petoskey to the beach we started at.
It was about an hour drive back and the water had settled down quite a bit. We had had a few hours to wade around and found about half a bucket of Petoskey stones. It wasn't as many as I was hoping for, but it was a nice end to the day. Bryan really likes this particular spot. Note the improved expression.
Here are the rocks we brought home. Some favosite and other fossils that I think will polish up:
The orange chert and some quartz from Acme:
Unakite:
Bryan found this chain coral at our last stop in Petoskey. I've been wanting to find some of this, so it's one of my favorites.
Some chert for the tumbler. This is a one gallon bucket so it looks bigger than it is.
You may be wondering why I look for Petoskey stones in the water. There are several reasons. The wave and ice action move the rocks around, so that's where new rocks show up. The beaches take less effort to find rocks, so I figure those get picked up first. But a big reason is that they're easier to see in the water. Some Petoskey stones don't show their pattern unless they're wet.
Dry:
Wet:
This is about a four gallon bucket half full of Petoskey stones. From previous experience, most will be thrown out because the pattern won't be good. It's really hard to tell without doing a quick test on the grinder.