It was over 90 degrees and my son and I wanted to do a little rockhounding in NE Washington. ?There is no better way to cool off than to wade a river or creek looking for agates.

Low water levels reveal lots off gravel.

I have been recovering from an unfortunate lapse in brain function. ?I was using a table saw when my concentration slipped, and I ended up breaking and mangling three of my finger tips. ?Fortunately it was on my left hand and I am right handed, but one still uses their off hand for quite a lot of things.

It has now been four weeks since the incident, and I was raring to go.

The Sanpoil River is only accessible along a short stretch. ?It also crosses onto the Indian Reservation, so we needed to be very careful what our exact location was. ?This time of year the water level is quite low, which makes wading the best option for seeking agates.

Sure looks inviting.

I don’t know how many people look for agates instead of fish along this river, but Scott and I started finding agates soon after reaching the river.

These are small, but interesting

I hadn’t brought any waders, but with the high temperatures I didn’t hesitate to wade right in wearing my sandals. ?We did find a lot of quartz cobbles which we left, but this was one I decided to keep.

There might be some agate in this one.

The best one I found looked like a sandwich of agate and maybe quartz.

This one will be interesting to clean up.

This portion of the Sanpoil River is in a steep gorge which blocks the evening sun so the temperatures stayed mild, but the mosquitos were mean. ?They were small and spent a lot of time in stealth mode. ?We didn’t even know they were there until we felt the sting of their bite. ?Next time I will be using lots of deet.

We finally had to head back to where we were staying so we wouldn’t miss supper. ?We didn’t get to spend a lot of time on the river, but we had a great time.

Thanks for joining us.

chasfire