Chuck is driving and we round the corner on the Forest Service road and the road is blocked by loggers and logging equipment. ?Our attempt to reach Pinto Creek just ended. ?Pinto Creek is mentioned in one of ?Bob Jackson’s volumes on Rockhounding in Washington, and we wanted to check it out. ?Time to implement Plan B.
Waterfalls are abundant along this road.
Plan B consisted of heading back down the mountain to Yellowjacket Creek. ?Plan B ran into a snag when we noticed this sign.
This creates a problem in Plan B.
Fortunately we had Plan C.
Plan C!
The Cispus River! ?I had heard that there was agate in this river, and all you had to do was wade and check out the gravel bars.
We had brought our waders so the wading part was covered, and as you can see there were plenty of gravel bars to be checked out. ?We park and head out.
Chuck getting started.
I was the one to find the first keeper. ?It was a small red and yellow jasper. ?Shortly after that I located a unique egg shaped piece of sand stone. ?I liked the pattern and shape so I kept it.
I didn’t even have to shape this egg.
This was quickly followed by a small piece of sand stone with dendrites in it. ?I also elected to keep this one.
Dendrites are usually keepers.
We continued up the river, and when I finally met up with Chuck, he showed me his keepers. ?Two really nice jasp/agate pieces.
These are the find of the day.
They were really nice and had some nice moss in clear agate. ?This got us excited and we continued up river with renewed hope of better finds.
Alas we were disappointed. ?We didn’t find any more keeper material. ?It was getting time to head back so we climbed the bank and headed through the trees to the road. ?I did find this nice piece of fungus , that I just had to snap a picture of.
I don’t think I would want to eat this.
It took us about an hour to make it back to the car. ?Once we reached the car I realized that I had lost my camera. ?We promptly headed back down the road and fortunately it was laying in the middle of the road, so all was not lost.
We had a great time and I think this river needs to be explored again.
Thanks for joining us.
chasfire
Beautiful gravel bars! So full of promise . . . .
Have you ever explored the tributaries of the Lewis River a little further south? Cedar Creek or Clear Creek, etc?
Melissa: The promise is surely there. Yes, I have explored most of those tributaries. I grew up in Vancouver and spent a lot of time around the south side of Mount Saint Helens. There is a lot of material to find down there, I just wish I could spend more time there.
chasfire