Deer hunting and found opal and some cool nodules
Nov 9, 2013 1:56:24 GMT -5
Thunder69 and kk like this
Post by herchenx on Nov 9, 2013 1:56:24 GMT -5
Well I know every time I post any more I explain why it's been so long so I'll just say I've stayed too busy to do any real rocking at all lately.
I'd planned a hunting trip to west/central Wyoming with some friends all year and went a few weeks back. We drew buck tags but barely saw any bucks and ended up taking does on the last day. Plenty of them to choose from and probably next time will save the $300 and just get over the counter doe tags which are easy to fill.
The area is in and around the Sweetwater River and the Wind River Basin. On my first night as I walked in to set up I saw a hillside covered with white nodules and I grabbed a few handfulls. I saw one smashed open and it was sweetwarer-like dendritic in the middle, and was more or less opalite with some dendrites toward the outside. I haven't cut any yet but I have one piece here to show a little of the Sweetwater-like agate. This is actually a lot like the Cedar Rim agate that John (Thunder69), Brian (Wyobrian) and I found this summer along a road on Cedar Rim. I think a lot of this is the source of the typical Sweetwater agates which we also found this summer.
Another day after hiking for miles I started finding large white, chalky-looking chunks of rock all over a hillside. I saw some broken open and it was opal! Mostly white and yellow, but then a lot of orange and red showing up. Some of the chunks were pretty heavy. I wasn't seeing deer so I risked it and loaded my pockets and arms full of every bit I could find and hauled around 20# back to the truck.
Just tonight I put one side of a smaller chunk on the wheel and it looks interesting. It doesn't have any sort of flash and there is a lot of intermixed matrix but I'll see what I can do with what I have as I (hopefully) start getting some time again to get back to rocking.
Some more shots of the rough opal
Here is the whole haul (opal, agates and a broken antler I found)
The rest of the trip was a lot of fun. We camped in the middle of and endless field of sagebrush and drove all over that part of the state and it was beautiful everywhere. We got snow the first night and it was bitter cold and we ended up holing up for the night in the camper at the rest stop in Sweetwater Station after nearly getting stuck on the way up Green Mountain (our intended camping area - which was buried in snow)
Hope you enjoy the pics of the area, the restaurant (Maverick) was in Lander and where we ate several times.
This is the biggest sage brush I've ever seen. It was old and a lot of it was around 10 feet tall, almost like mesquite. My buddy Jake is over 6 feet tall for reference.
I'd planned a hunting trip to west/central Wyoming with some friends all year and went a few weeks back. We drew buck tags but barely saw any bucks and ended up taking does on the last day. Plenty of them to choose from and probably next time will save the $300 and just get over the counter doe tags which are easy to fill.
The area is in and around the Sweetwater River and the Wind River Basin. On my first night as I walked in to set up I saw a hillside covered with white nodules and I grabbed a few handfulls. I saw one smashed open and it was sweetwarer-like dendritic in the middle, and was more or less opalite with some dendrites toward the outside. I haven't cut any yet but I have one piece here to show a little of the Sweetwater-like agate. This is actually a lot like the Cedar Rim agate that John (Thunder69), Brian (Wyobrian) and I found this summer along a road on Cedar Rim. I think a lot of this is the source of the typical Sweetwater agates which we also found this summer.
Another day after hiking for miles I started finding large white, chalky-looking chunks of rock all over a hillside. I saw some broken open and it was opal! Mostly white and yellow, but then a lot of orange and red showing up. Some of the chunks were pretty heavy. I wasn't seeing deer so I risked it and loaded my pockets and arms full of every bit I could find and hauled around 20# back to the truck.
Just tonight I put one side of a smaller chunk on the wheel and it looks interesting. It doesn't have any sort of flash and there is a lot of intermixed matrix but I'll see what I can do with what I have as I (hopefully) start getting some time again to get back to rocking.
Some more shots of the rough opal
Here is the whole haul (opal, agates and a broken antler I found)
The rest of the trip was a lot of fun. We camped in the middle of and endless field of sagebrush and drove all over that part of the state and it was beautiful everywhere. We got snow the first night and it was bitter cold and we ended up holing up for the night in the camper at the rest stop in Sweetwater Station after nearly getting stuck on the way up Green Mountain (our intended camping area - which was buried in snow)
Hope you enjoy the pics of the area, the restaurant (Maverick) was in Lander and where we ate several times.
This is the biggest sage brush I've ever seen. It was old and a lot of it was around 10 feet tall, almost like mesquite. My buddy Jake is over 6 feet tall for reference.
