Trip report - Goat Mountain and Stony Creek
Jan 6, 2014 22:37:58 GMT -5
garock, adrian65, and 3 more like this
Post by Tommy on Jan 6, 2014 22:37:58 GMT -5
It had been way too long since our last rockhounding trip (N.Cady's in November) - and too long to wait for the next one (Quartzite end of January) and the wife and I were itching to get out and have some fun. What better weekend to head into the mountains than January 3rd when there's been almost no snow, the weather is predicted to approach 70F, and the whiners were in the playoffs which means that half the people in northern CA were staying home no matter what.
We packed up my wife's 4-Runner and left hours before dawn on Saturday and headed up to Goat Mountain following the Rockhounding California book.
Beautiful scenery on the way up. That's Stony Creek at the bottom of the canyon.
Outcropping of red and yellow jasper we passed along the way. I stopped and took a couple of pieces but it was seriously over-baked as LarryS would say.
Goat Mountain ridge offers stunning vistas in all directions.
We found the exact location but it was an almost total bust - I walked the area thoroughly and all we found was some milk-white chalcedony that doesn’t scratch but honestly looks very boring. I cut a few pieces of it tonight and threw the entire bunch of it away except for one small piece that I cut a couple of slabs out of. It looks solid and has a neat pattern - although very much quartzy looking.
We were planning to camp on Goat Mountain but it was bitter cold with a sharp wind blowing over the ridge so after an awesome picnic lunch in the shelter of a snowy forest we headed down and set up camp at beautiful spot in the forest which we were quite pleased to have all to ourselves.
We hiked about a mile down into a steep valley below the campground and found a fast moving little river with snow along its banks.
This location is up much higher than the outcroppings of red jasper we passed on the way up – the ones that supply Stony Creek with an abundance of red jasper all the way out through Black Butte Reservoir and beyond – so the pickings were scarce and the footings were slippery. One rock we did find shows a lot of promise and we are excited to see it cut one day … it weighs probably close to 50 lbs (I back-packed it out) and looks to be a mix of green moss agate and various colored jaspers.
Sorry for the picture quality - hard rock to photograph to show the green moss agate in places and multiple colors of jasper.
The next day we headed down out of the mountains and had an awesome breakfast in a wonderful little restaurant in Stonyford before chasing Stony Creek to the north east. We found a nice location where we could access the creek after about a mile of hiking. At this location we didn't find a lot and we kept only a the best of what we found - beautiful and typical Stony Creek red and yellow jaspers showing the promise of poppies.
Gorgeous piece of solid orange and black jasper. This is my favorite piece of the whole weekend.
Beautiful little (3 lbs) green rock with a mossy agate center area with a sagenite-like spray.
We found a gorgeous boulder that weighed in excess of 100+ pounds – I could lift it but barely – the top of it shows a brilliant red/yellow brecciated jasper with a hint of poppies.
I managed to break off a 3-5 lb chunk shown below but it's not from a "showy" end.
We didn't have the means to hump this beauty out such a long hike so we carefully put her back in the hole she came from and covered her with rocks - said some nice words over her and departed (but not before memorizing the location) haha. We will think about that beauty until we find a way to go back and get it out of there.
There were many other sleeping beauties that we didn't attempt to set free - but none with the same beautiful markings.
This one I was working on until my honey distracted me with a red and yellow surprise she had found - was so large I couldn't find the ends to even see if I could get a hand hold.
Happy and tired we departed for home - the scenic route of course :-) The long and winding road ahead...
Thanks for looking!
We packed up my wife's 4-Runner and left hours before dawn on Saturday and headed up to Goat Mountain following the Rockhounding California book.
Beautiful scenery on the way up. That's Stony Creek at the bottom of the canyon.
Outcropping of red and yellow jasper we passed along the way. I stopped and took a couple of pieces but it was seriously over-baked as LarryS would say.
Goat Mountain ridge offers stunning vistas in all directions.
We found the exact location but it was an almost total bust - I walked the area thoroughly and all we found was some milk-white chalcedony that doesn’t scratch but honestly looks very boring. I cut a few pieces of it tonight and threw the entire bunch of it away except for one small piece that I cut a couple of slabs out of. It looks solid and has a neat pattern - although very much quartzy looking.
We were planning to camp on Goat Mountain but it was bitter cold with a sharp wind blowing over the ridge so after an awesome picnic lunch in the shelter of a snowy forest we headed down and set up camp at beautiful spot in the forest which we were quite pleased to have all to ourselves.
We hiked about a mile down into a steep valley below the campground and found a fast moving little river with snow along its banks.
This location is up much higher than the outcroppings of red jasper we passed on the way up – the ones that supply Stony Creek with an abundance of red jasper all the way out through Black Butte Reservoir and beyond – so the pickings were scarce and the footings were slippery. One rock we did find shows a lot of promise and we are excited to see it cut one day … it weighs probably close to 50 lbs (I back-packed it out) and looks to be a mix of green moss agate and various colored jaspers.
Sorry for the picture quality - hard rock to photograph to show the green moss agate in places and multiple colors of jasper.
The next day we headed down out of the mountains and had an awesome breakfast in a wonderful little restaurant in Stonyford before chasing Stony Creek to the north east. We found a nice location where we could access the creek after about a mile of hiking. At this location we didn't find a lot and we kept only a the best of what we found - beautiful and typical Stony Creek red and yellow jaspers showing the promise of poppies.
Gorgeous piece of solid orange and black jasper. This is my favorite piece of the whole weekend.
Beautiful little (3 lbs) green rock with a mossy agate center area with a sagenite-like spray.
We found a gorgeous boulder that weighed in excess of 100+ pounds – I could lift it but barely – the top of it shows a brilliant red/yellow brecciated jasper with a hint of poppies.
I managed to break off a 3-5 lb chunk shown below but it's not from a "showy" end.
We didn't have the means to hump this beauty out such a long hike so we carefully put her back in the hole she came from and covered her with rocks - said some nice words over her and departed (but not before memorizing the location) haha. We will think about that beauty until we find a way to go back and get it out of there.
There were many other sleeping beauties that we didn't attempt to set free - but none with the same beautiful markings.
This one I was working on until my honey distracted me with a red and yellow surprise she had found - was so large I couldn't find the ends to even see if I could get a hand hold.
Happy and tired we departed for home - the scenic route of course :-) The long and winding road ahead...
Thanks for looking!