Peregrine Rocks and Trading Post Blue Forest & Hampton Buttes Sept 2008 Page

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Sept 15 - 24, 2008 Primary goals: dig Blue Forest Wyoming petrified wood, visit Battle of Little Bighorn National Monument and dig Hampton Butte Oregon petrified wood.

Summary: 4,000 miles, eight states and nine days! 4 days of digging. Several days of sightseeing. Lots and lots of driving, ;-).

Although the dog-King sure liked his position and view! hover for larger detailed image.

Day 1: Karen (with her parents, Louis and Pat, and our dog Jasper) picked me up at work on Monday morning at 6:00a. I had worked Sunday night and was just getting off work. I spent the first four-or-so hours sleeping in the front passenger seat. I think we stopped in Vacaville for a fast breakfast. We drove on to/through Reno, then on to/through Salt Lake City and finally stopped near Park City, Utah.

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Along the way, we grabbed these couple of interesting photos from the passenger window while driving. Just as we came into the Salt Lake area, it was approaching dusk and the reflections of the mountains on the Southwest part of town into the water was very neat. We also tried to get a nifty photo of the full moon rising over the mountains and reflecting into the water but those photos didn't turn out at all. hover for larger detailed images.

Day 2: On to Green River, Wyoming and the nearby Blue Forest collecting area. We followed the directions given in the guide book - which seemed quite accurate (unusual because many of the directions for the Nevada, Oregon, California and Arizona giudes are NOT at all accurate). We had been told by a couple of different folks that they thought this area was "dug out." Well, on the surface that may be true. The area is very very dug up, looks like a war zone almost. We first parked and walked a couple of different spots.

We didn't see so much as a chip of anything that resembled petrified wood. But there was lots of evidence that people had been digging. Many of the holes were as deep as 4 or 4 1/2 feet. Good lord I was not looking forward to digging down 3 or 4 feet. While Karen, Louis, Pat and Jasper scouted around I walked down to where I spyed another couple digging in the hopes of getting a few hints. Turns out that was a pretty good idea. They had a log they were working on that appeared to be 10 or 12 inches in diameter!

They explained how most of the good material is down inside some hard dried clay material. To find the best, you have to dig away the top soil (~2 feet worth) to reach the clay layers. Then the clay must be broken up and cleared away. Hopefully then inside the clay you will find the algae coated wood (the algae coated the trees and branches when they fell into the ancient sea; later both were petrified inplace together). Karen had found a description online about how we should be careful with the algae because trying to clean it off with hammer/chisel will often break the wood instead. This couple said that this was true, they recommended Iron Out to clean the algae - when I get a chance to try it out I'll post an update.

So, with their hints in mind I walked back to our chosen area. Karen had found somebody's previous diggings where it appeared that the end of a branch might be showing. "Hmmmm, I think maybe that might be a good place for us to start digging" she said. So, I climbed down into the hole and started to dig around the end of the branch. The picture below shows me standing in the hole, after a bit of digging. When we started, the edge was right up against where my knees are. hover for larger detailed image.

Karen and I took turns digging around what turned out to be a very nice looking branch. It was coming out in large pieces, one is almost a foot long and 4-5 inches in diameter with beautiful orange calcite crystals growing out of it. We pulled three or four pieces out of this tunnel we had dug. The tunnel was about as far as I could safely reach with my arms fully extended. And it looked like this piece continued. So, we cleared the topsoil away. That is the two action pictures. hover for larger detailed image.

We dug in this hole all day and found a pretty good amount of material. The following few pictures show more pieces of the branch as we dug them out. Remember that the rock pick is probably around 10 inches long, so you can get a good reference to how big that branch really is.

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Day 3: We returned to the Blue Forest area, and were heading back to our same hole. As we turned off onto the final spur heading up onto the mesa, Karen wanted to get out and scout a few more holes. "What is that awful noise" she exclaimed! I jumped out and we both realized that the front passenger tire was quickly going flat! I backed the SUV back to the larger gravel road so that we would have a better place to swap tires. Have you ever had a flat in a rental out in what feels like the middle of nowhere?!? Well, now I have!

Louis and I changed the tire while Karen and Pat and Jasper scouted around. We decided to stay close to the SUV rather than walk (or drive) out to the previous day's hole. Karen found another promising hole with part of a branch sticking out so that is where we dug. Turned out to be another very good hole.

In the late morning a pickup pulled up and stopped. Folks climbed out and said Hi. Turns out they were Ed and his wife (crap, I've forgotten her name, sorry) from Oregon on their way back from the big Denver Mineral Show. Ed had dug at Blue Forest several times, sometimes getting material and other times not. This was the first visit for his wife. Well, this was also about the time we were planning to leave (we had stayed a couple hours longer than planned but we had our limit now). So, I talked to Ed and told him we were leaving, but that we had to leave a hole with a nice log still showing. His wife pulled out an AMAZING forked branch they later showed us at another show.

Before we left I found some Prong Horn Antelope wandering by and tried to caputure a couple photos. Amazing that out in this fairly barren country, only low sage brush and similar plants, how well the Antelope blend in. I took at least four shots and this is the only one where you can really see them. We soon packed up and headed back to Green River to get the tire repaired.
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The tire shop determined that the tire was NOT repairable. Apparently whatever rock we hit had actually split the inside of the tire, about a 3 inch long slice. From the outside it looked like a large nail or something but the inside was destroyed. So, Pat paid for a replacement tire they had, which actually was nearly an identical tire lucky for us. We had them put that replacement in place of the spare and away we went towards Cody, Wyoming via Jackson Hole.

Who would have guessed that mid-week in September all the hotels would be full around Jackson? Turns out there was some "Big Oil" convention in town. EVERY hotel we tried was booked full. Tired, not wanting to drive anymore, we gambled and drove to the actual Teton Village of Jackson and managed to get a room at The Inn at Jackson Hole. Not only did we get the last room available, it was a suite-with-a-loft AND the Inn is pet-friendly. Jasper was given a new dog toy by the staff! I just love to take photos of the moon, this view is just to the left of the Inn.
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The next day, we did a little sight seeing, I mean we were in Grand Teton National Park so we had to,right? Obligitory, not so good photos of the views...hover for larger detailed images.

...and a mama and baby moose. Then we continuted on our way to Cody where we arrived in and after a couple of tries got rooms at a hotel that I didn't write down the name and can't recall. hover for larger detailed image.

Day 5: Louis got dropped off at the Cody Museum while Karen, Pat and I went looking for Indian Shops, Antique Shops and Pawn shops. We were looking to find some bargains on Plains Indian beadwork and maybe some Parfleche. Several hours later, after being competely skunked, we picked up Louis - even though he really wanted more time to explore the museum (yeah right, I'll bet he just wanted to talk to more people there,lol).

From Cody we headed towards the Battle of Little Bighorn National Monument (BLBNM). We actually made pretty good time, enough so that we took a quick spin towards the park entrance so we would be oriented for the next morning. We stopped at a couple of touristy trading posts and then went onto Harden, Montana to find a place to spend the night. The Super 8 Motel was really pretty nice there.

Day 6: We visited the BLBNM. I'm amazed at how many people fought just this single battle. It is a pretty driving tour, with a small guide-booklet and a description of how the battle progressed.

Next came another long block of driving. We ended up staying in Missoula Montana this night.

Day 7: More driving combined with thunder storms along I-94, yuck. From Missoula we headed for Burns, Oregon via Pendleton, Oregon (~600 miles). Along the way Karen spotted a bull moose, standing in some grassy area RIGHT NEXT to the interstate. I don't think I've ever seen a bull moose in the wild before. That guy had a huge rack too! But we were passed him so quick we were not able to snap a photo, dang it!

So, the goal was to make it to the Pendleton factory before they closed so that Karen and Pat could pick out a couple of things that they were worried would be best to see in person rather than order from catalog or online. Well, we made it with about 30 minutes to spare. Karen bought a couple of couch pillows and some fabric. Pat bought a purse. From there we headed to Burns, Oregon.

Day 8: Collecting at Hamtpon Butte, Oregon. We didn't find much our first day. This was actually our third time here and so far we have always left with nothing. This year we decided to spend a bit longer here and really find the wood. We follwed the directions from the Oregon Gem Trails but all we could find was holes where people had dug but not even any chips of material. This was worse than digging for Blue Forest wood. We spent a lot of time walking and eventually found some small pieces and chips on a hill a bit away from the main digging area. By this time it was getting late and we decided to come back in the morning. Night at Bend, OR.

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Day 9: Collecting at Hampton Butte, Oregon. We started where we left off and dug where we found the small pieces the night before. We started pulling out bigger and bigger pieces. Most pieces were 8" to 15" under the surface. We didn't find any spectacular logs with bark but we did find some pieces that were 8" wide and 12" long with greens, yellows and reds. Here are Karen and Louis carrying back a nearly full bucket of wood. We stayed the night at Lakeview, OR.

Day 10: Home via Alturas, Susanville, Lake Almanor, Belden (BURGERS!!) and then trucking home. Another long day of driving but lots of good scenery, a Bobcat at some hole-in-the-wall museum-looking-place and a BEAR eating in a meadow near Susanville.

EOS.