Last Saturday I got together with Jason Estes and John Howell to do some rock hunting in the McBride creek and Succor Creek areas of the Owyhee Mountains on the Oregon-Idaho border. Jason arrived at my house at 7:15 that morning and by 8:00 we were leaving John’s house and heading to Highway 95.

The first place we stopped was a location about 5 miles south of the turn off for McBride Creek that was just to the East of the highway and literally on the Idaho-Oregon border. As we explored the area John and Jason were in Idaho and I was in Oregon; we were within sight of each other the whole time. This location was said to have petrified wood, agate and thunder eggs. We did find some agate and petrified wood but most of it was small tumbling material. A few pieces were a little larger but not large enough to make anything with so they most likely be broken up for tumbling.

The next stop was mile back into Idaho on the same side of the road. This was another location for petrified wood and agate. As we got closer to the waypoint we realized that it was just over the hill from the first location we stopped at. Before we arrived at the waypoint we came to a gate that we would have to open before continuing. There were a lot of cattle on the opposite side of the gate so we decided not to continue since it was likely that the material would be the same as that found at the first stop and we didn’t really want to bother the cattle.

Next we headed back to McBride Creek and started heading towards Succor Creek. As we drove John pointed out many roads and told us where they went and what materials could be found at the locations. We then decide to take a back road around Three Fingers Butte.

I had a GPS waypoint for a location in this area that I have been wanting to checkout for quite some time so we went there first. Within minutes of arriving at this location we started find good jasper in the dry stream bead. There were pieces of all sizes at this location. None of us had been to this site before so we were all happy to have found a new collecting area. The following pictures show a few of the smaller pieces from this location that I worked with Sunday.

As we left this new location we commented on how a fence that went through the area looked very new. We then headed for another area where there are many locations to collect rocks. As we approached the collecting areas we found that the road was blocked by the same fence that we were commenting on at the last location. This blocked area contains many well known places like Wild Horse and Blue Mustang. If these spots are still under active claims there are going to be some very irritated claim owners.We then decided to head to Succor Creek Park. Along the way we went past some blue opal claims and found that the new fence went all the way over there on the opposite side of the road from the claims. I mention this because people who know this area will realize how long this fence is. I don’t know if this is a BLM fence or a rancher’s fence but it is blocking a very large area with many known rock collection sites. Either way it would have been nice to know that it blocked many roads before we tried to use them. There are no signs or warnings of closed roads at all.

When we arrived at the park none of us wanted to stop since it was early evening and we were all very tired. We headed back to Caldwell to drop off John. When we arrived at John’s house he gave us tour of his rock collection and working areas since Jason had not been there before. I have seen john’s collection many times and every time I learn something new as he shows new materials. After that Jason dropped me off at my house. It was almost 8:00 P.M. I was so tired I just put my stuff away and went inside to clean up and have some dinner before going to bed, ending another rock collecting adventure.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 10:52 am 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.