Carey Plume....newest acquisitions...

The last one is real awesome

DROOL.... That 2nd and last one...WOW.

Those are beautiful but how about pictures of the other two types? HMMM

Love those. Thanks for sharing

That's some great looking material!

Those are beautiful Steve! Congratulations! You know, I just can't seem to pass up a piece of Carey plume when I see it, even though I've still got a few pounds of it.

OK, Nate, get your coffee and sit back because here's my story about Carey plume:

The year was 1961 or 62. I don't remember exactly, but I know we were in a fairly new 1960 VW Beetle and I was in high school. Dad and I took off from Kennewick, WA early on Saturday morning for a weekend rock hunt in Central Oregon. It was always good to go to Prineville because Dad had a friend down there by the name of Hoot Elkins and Hoot would always tell us some good places to go rock hunting and often drive out to the site with us to make sure we found it. Hoot also provided a nice public service to the Prineville Chamber of Commerce by filing C of C claims on newly found areas to keep them open to the public.
We had heard of one of the nicest plume agates you could get called "Carey Plume", so we decided to go there to see if the dig site was open. It was open so we drove in. The site was located on a private ranch but you could fee dig there for $2 per person per day. When we asked if there was a limit on how much you could take out we were told that there was no real limit and nobody had gotten any quantity to speak of for the last 15 or so years. At that time the dig holes were all concentrated near the lower part of a gulley and we chipped around in these dig holes for several hours finding nothing but some small chips.
The owners of the dig (I'm pretty sure it was still the Carey's at this time) had the upper area bulldozed to remove some of the overburden in preparation for a group coming in the following weekend. Dad had managed to park the Beetle up near this bulldozed area for some reason rather than on the road below. It was getting close to dark and Dad said it was time to call it quits and head for home so I started walking towards the Beetle carrying the heavy bar. Like a lot of kids, I was jamming the bar into the rock as I walked along when all of a sudden it sunk into the ground. I pried with the bar one time and something popped out. It was a small piece about the size and shape of a half of a golf ball. The rounded top was covered in little quartz crystals. I excitedly yelled for Dad to wait up as I ran towards him with this piece in my hand. When I showed the piece to him he immediately decided he wanted to see where I had found it, so we went back to the spot.
We took the rock hammer and carefully dug around the area where the little piece came from to find to our amazement that we were on top of a huge vein of agate, all crystal covered! We only had a few minutes before dark but managed to pry out a couple of beautiful pieces before we had to leave. We were quite excited about this find. When we got home Dad showed the pieces we had collected to a good friend and neighbor, Harry Wrangham, who was president of the Lakeside Gem & Mineral Club (Kennewick, WA) at that time. Dad and Harry managed to make a return trip to the Carey Ranch within a week or so, but I never got to go back and dig more because of school and work. They did REALLY well for one days-worth of digging. On their way home, Dad and Harry stopped and showed Hoot Elkins their finds for the day.
I talked to Harry about 40 years later and he told me that he and Dad had dug out so much Carey Plume the day they were there that they had to leave a big pile of it beside the area where they parked the Beetle, because they just didn't have any more room in the Beetle to haul it. I can only imagine how the next rockhound to the dig site felt when he found that pile!
I also talked to Judy Elkins (Elkins Rock Shop, Prineville) a few years back and she told me that Hoot and "Shirts" Quant (Quant's Rock Shop, Prineville) went into the Carey plume site and camped there until the seam was exhausted, or too deep to safely dig. Judy said she and her Mom would take food and water to Hoot while he dug out the Carey plume, for over two months. I think Judy said it was 67 days that Hoot and Shirts were at the site, but I'm not certain of the exact number of days. I just remember that Dad and Harry went back to the site once more and weren't allowed to dig because the hole was too deep to be safe.

Dad, Hoot, Shirts and Harry are all gone now, but I still have that first little piece of Carey plume in my dresser drawer and it always brings back fond memories when I see it.

I still consider finding that plume vein, THE highlight of my rockhounding days. I hope you enjoyed the story.

Garry

WOW !! what a great story and memories . Thanks for sharing them Garry

Wolf

awesome........you always have the best finds....wow

Yes Steve. You're right about staying and digging at the ranch. I've thought many times over the years that a couple of weeks of digging could have paid for my college education. The vein was about 1 1/2 feet wide. I had no clue how far it went until I went back later in my adult years and saw where they had taken an excavator in to follow the vein down. It looks like they followed it for about 75 to 100 feet long and 20 to 30 feet down. That hillside is almost unrecognizable now.
Garry