Last week seemed to drag on forever as the anticipation built for the weekend’s trip to Hog Creek. Friday finally arrived and late in the evening I started to get my gear ready for the trip. My equipment was still in the truck of my car from the recent trip to Reynolds’s Creek. I also programmed the GPS to guide the group to the location and got directions from Google Maps. I had been to this location once before but was not confident in remembering how to get there. It would have been horrible to get in the general location and not be able to lead the group to the final destination.

I woke early Saturday morning and was ready to go by 7:00. I was hoping to get some things done while I waited for Jason to arrive but only sat on the couch in a daze. Jason arrived at 7:50 and I showed him some examples of what we would be looking for. After that we loaded my equipment in his Jeep and were off to pick up Doug. The stop at Doug’s house was quick one. Doug showed us a vibrating tumbler that he had converted into a flat lap before we loaded up his equipment and hit the road.

The directions I got from Google Maps were excellent. The GPS was turned on for the last two miles to make sure we found the correct turn off. There ended up being only one turn off so the GPS was not really needed. This turn off is mainly a ranch road/trail so it is not listed in Google Maps.

Apron arriving at the dig location I did a quick search to make sure it was the right location. I found the first crystals with just a few feet of the jeep. The three of us quickly got our gear and headed down the hill to find more goodies. After an hour or so everybody took their rocks back to the jeep and decided that it would be good idea to go to the bottom of the hill to see what was available there.

Every time I have done a downhill exploration the people involved always discus that we should quickly go to the bottom so we don’t end up hauling rock down then back up the hill. It never works that way.  By the time we were half way down the hill some of the buckets were full. We did leave them behind so we would not have as far to go with them. When we arrived at the bottom of the hill we found that there was not much material. We then started to work our way back up the hill. By the time I returned back to the bucket I left behind I had another full bucket.

Once everybody returned to the jeep we discussed exploring more. By this time everybody was beginning to hurt from hauling rocks so we decided to call it day. Doug suggested that we use a different route to return home. The return trip did seem shorter.

After dropping off Doug, Jason and I returned to my house. Jason had a few rocks that he want to have me cut so I showed him how to use my saw and let him do the cutting. The first rock he cut was a very interesting piece that he had found North of Eagle, Idaho. It was an agate that had wonderful banding in it. The piece also had a lot of pitting in it so it would not have made a good cabochon but after polishing it turned out to be a great specimen piece. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of this material. After that Jason cut a few pieces from our trip. One of these pieces had an incredible crystal pocket in it. The finished piece can be seen in the photos below. For a better picture of this rock check out Jason’s web site http://www.1rockhound.com. He also has his own write up of this trip posted on his web site.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Field Trips, Interesting Places. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.