Rock Hunting on the Little Naches

We went rock hunting yesterday in the Little Naches River about 40 miles from Yakima up the Chinook Pass.  This winter and spring had brought a ton of flooding to our area.  For rock hunters,  flooding can actually have a positive outcome:  new material to search through!!  I had high hopes that we would find some beautiful agates,  perhaps some jasper,  definitely some gorgeous green stones.

Oh,  boy!  The water was COLD!  My sandy beach was obliterated by torrents of water that tore through new channels cut through the immense gravel bar!  In order to find stones,  we had to make our ways knee deep in frigid run off to the dry gravel bed in the middle of the river.  It's difficult to look for agates in dry gravel.  Agates (at least these agates) have a naturally milky appearance that looks icy blue underwater,  but are difficult to see amongst other white and grey stones on dry ground.  At least that's what I thought until Tony came to me with a gorgeous palm-sized agate,  replete with a couple of well-placed veins.  It was the most extraordinary find of the day!!!  This was Tony's first real rock hunting trip with me - it seems as though the beginners have all the luck!!!

I found a nice piece of agatized would though,  a couple piddly little agates compared to Tony's.  I promise to get back into the river later on this summer.  It was just too cold and too deep!!!!  I know there are hundreds of beautiful stones under that ice cold water!!!

All was not lost.  We came back to town with several gorgeous slabs of shale,  a newfound calmness that I haven't felt since my last spelunking expedition...and some beautiful pictures of the Nile Valley.  I maintain,  there is nothing like the natural beauty of Washington state.  I sure do love it here.

Rock Hunting - An Obsession

Growing up in Southern California along the coast,  I spent much of my time at the beach.  One of my favorite things was to find seashells as I built sandcastles along the shore.  Each one was a unique little treasure,  designed as a habitat,  left behind as a thing of beauty.
As I grew older,  I grew away from the beaches and into the city.  As an adult,  I came to Yakima,  a rural area of central Eastern Washington.  This is the farthest I have ever lived from the beach.  No more seashells!
But there are different kinds of treasures here!  They are harder to find than seashells,  and research must be done in order to locate them.  They abound in a vast array of colors and compositions.  Agates,  chalcedony,  thundereggs,  crystals,  carnelian,  jaspers,  garnets,  opals,  sunstones,  geodes,  gold!
I live in a mineral-rich area with a diverse terrain.  During warm weather weekends I can be found knee deep in some river searching for water-tumbled agates that look like giant ice cubes.  During the spring I comb the flat, rocky fields just outside of Ellensburg searching for the rare Ellensburg blue agate.  If I am lucky,  I will make the trip to a prehistoric wilderness in northern Oregon where the views are just as fantastic as the vast array of minerals that are found there.  Fabulous moss agates,  thunder eggs with vugs lined with minute glistening crystals,  painted jasper, flame jasper, rainbow jasper,  blue opals with vibrant pink fire,  and huge hunks of icy chalcedony.  Someday,  I will make it deeper into Oregon to dig for baseball size garnets the color of pomegranates and sunstone shillers that glisten like the flesh of a ripe orange.  Perhaps I'll even get to that place in Nevada where opals abound.I have buckets and bins and display cases full of treasure. 
I have a rough time letting any beautiful stone pass through my fingers.  The size of my collection astonishes visitors to my home who have never experienced the adventure of rock hunting.  Some are intrigued,  others are dismayed.  Sometimes even I am perplexed.  Why this obsession?  What am I ever going to do with all of these stones?Recently,  I have begun to make jewelry with them.  Perhaps now I can justify my obsession.
PS:  I am planning to visit Red Top Mountain this year.  On top of this mountain there is a path that scales the side of a decaying wall of basalt on its route to the top.  On the peak there are craters the size of a Volkswagen bus where other "miners" have dug for the treasured thunderegg that Red Top is famous for.  One must only scratch the side of a crater to unearth a plethora of tiny egg-shaped treasures.  It's an amazing place.  I can't wait to make the trip!