Some of the agates have a very nice blue tone to them. Very pretty. My garden will benefit from these beauties.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Red Top Mountain Agates
These are the treasures that we found on Red Top Mountain yesterday. The agate in the bottom right portion of screen is about the size of a jumbo russett potato.
Some of the agates have a very nice blue tone to them. Very pretty. My garden will benefit from these beauties.
Some of the agates have a very nice blue tone to them. Very pretty. My garden will benefit from these beauties.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Red Top Mountain 06/12/2010
Our day started out with the notion that we would go check out Denny Creek or Hansen Creek to dig for crystals today. Well, that didn't exactly work out like we planned. The "Gem Trails of Washington" book that we were using as our guide is apparently a little outdated. Most of the digging sites are either privately owned or owned by Burlington Northern.
While we were driving around the forest service roads we came upon four guys who were hanging out 3/4 of the way up the mountain. We weren't sure what was up, so we rolled down our windows. One of the guys came up to our truck and asked if he could offer the two of us a cold beer. We told him thanks, but we were good. Then he told us to have a nice evening. This was at 11:00 in the morning. Very random and thankfully harmless.
After heading back down the mountain, we were going to try hiking up to what we thought was Weyerhauser property and open for digging when we met the private owner. He explained about the changes in ownership between Weyerhauser and Burlington Northern and that there is only confusion now, regarding where individuals are allowed to dig.
So, we re-directed our day and ended up going to Red Top Mountain to dig for agates.
We could not have asked for a better day. We gathered up our tools and backpacks and trekked in one mile to where the agate beds were. We chatted with a few people that were on their way out, who were happy to show us the specimens they found and pointed us in the direction of where they were digging.
Randy & I found a couple of holes that had been started by others before us and got as comfortable as possible. We started digging around 2:15.
The first holes we were in did not prove to be very satisfying so we moved to another location. I went with my gut and somehow felt that the hole I chose was going to be a good one. I had no doubt when I found an agate the size of half a grapefruit almost immediately.
Randy moved into a hole close to me and started finding specimens too. Mother Nature played a little trick on him though... he thought he was onto something big and after awhile he realized what he thought were crystals had actually been ice chunks. We got a good laugh out of that.
I found several pieces that reminded me of russet potatoes. Really big agates. We dug for about 3-1/2 hours before we decided to head out. Didn't get back home until after 8 p.m.
I don't yet know what any of our specimens look like, since they were covered in a thick layer of red clay dirt. Tomorrow we'll be giving them a good cleaning to see what treasures we brought home.
While we were driving around the forest service roads we came upon four guys who were hanging out 3/4 of the way up the mountain. We weren't sure what was up, so we rolled down our windows. One of the guys came up to our truck and asked if he could offer the two of us a cold beer. We told him thanks, but we were good. Then he told us to have a nice evening. This was at 11:00 in the morning. Very random and thankfully harmless.
After heading back down the mountain, we were going to try hiking up to what we thought was Weyerhauser property and open for digging when we met the private owner. He explained about the changes in ownership between Weyerhauser and Burlington Northern and that there is only confusion now, regarding where individuals are allowed to dig.
So, we re-directed our day and ended up going to Red Top Mountain to dig for agates.
We could not have asked for a better day. We gathered up our tools and backpacks and trekked in one mile to where the agate beds were. We chatted with a few people that were on their way out, who were happy to show us the specimens they found and pointed us in the direction of where they were digging.
Randy & I found a couple of holes that had been started by others before us and got as comfortable as possible. We started digging around 2:15.
The first holes we were in did not prove to be very satisfying so we moved to another location. I went with my gut and somehow felt that the hole I chose was going to be a good one. I had no doubt when I found an agate the size of half a grapefruit almost immediately.
Randy moved into a hole close to me and started finding specimens too. Mother Nature played a little trick on him though... he thought he was onto something big and after awhile he realized what he thought were crystals had actually been ice chunks. We got a good laugh out of that.
I found several pieces that reminded me of russet potatoes. Really big agates. We dug for about 3-1/2 hours before we decided to head out. Didn't get back home until after 8 p.m.
I don't yet know what any of our specimens look like, since they were covered in a thick layer of red clay dirt. Tomorrow we'll be giving them a good cleaning to see what treasures we brought home.
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