Chuck and Becky, of Central Oregon fame, convinced me that we needed to go back to the Skokomish River. ?We chose today for the trip, and headed out at 7:30am. ?It only takes about an hour to reach the parking area, so we had plenty of time to get our gear together, climb on our bikes and head down the trail.

Making last minute adjustments.

We were able to ride our bikes most of the way to the spot on the river where we wanted to start, but one part of the trail is steep enough that we elected to walk down it.

The trail here is quite steep, and only expert mountain bikers would ride down it.

Fifteen minutes later we were at the point we wanted to start searching the river. ?We left our bikes next to the trail, put on our waders and hiked down to the river.

Heading to the river.

We searched the first gravel bar with the idea of teaching Chuck and Becky what to look for, and then we began a minute examination of a lot of gravel.

That’s a lot of gravel to search.

Chuck and Becky are into more than just jasper, and picked up a lot of interesting looking rocks. ?They also realized, after an hour or so, that they would have to start being more selective. ?We were a long way from the truck and rocks become heavier the farther you have to carry them. ?I wandered along with Chuck and Becky, occasionally picking up a nice piece of orbicular jasper.

Different type of orbs in this piece.

As well as my own interesting rocks.

This is one with the matrix attached to both sides of a dendritic quartz piece.

My final haul was smaller than Chuck and Becky’s, but I was happy with what I found.

I think this is a nice bunch of material.

We continued heading up river, occasionally having to cross from one side to the other, as well as climbing over a few log jambs.

Crossing the river numerous times is part of this adventure.

A helping hand is always welcome.

When we finally decided to head back to the truck it was nearing 1:00pm. ?We had reached a point where we would need to cross the river again or call it quits. ?We decided on quits, and just as we were heading toward the trail we saw the best find of the day.

This is one large piece of jasper.

This piece looked like it would have a few orbs, as well as some nice multicolored jasper, in a 40 pound block. ?We exclaimed over this rock, all the while knowing we would not try to haul it out today. ?We were just not prepared to pack out all of our other finds in addition to a 4o pound rock. ?So this piece is still on the river, waiting for us to return for it.

After finding this piece it didn’t take us long to hit the trail and make it back to where we left the bikes.

Getting the bikes ready for the return trip.

Along the way I had to stop and take some pictures of some of the magnificent old trees growing along the trail.

The tree behind Chuck and Becky is at least 10′ in diameter.

The ride back to the truck was uneventful, except for the occasional crash, broken bike rack, and miserable hike up the switch backs, pushing our bikes loaded down with heavy rocks.

One of the worst parts of the return trip.

We arrived back at the truck at about 3:00pm, loaded down with nice material, feeling content, and glad we could spend the day in such beautiful country.

Thanks for joining us.

chasfire