Garry, Woody, Jerry and I headed up to the Greenwater area to see where the snow level was, and do a little Rockhounding. We were able to get up to Forest Road 120, which is at an elevation of 4100′. At this elevation the road was actually blocked by 2 to 3 feet of snow.
Mount Ranier was looking over our shoulders on the way up.
Cloud cover over Ranier.
We thought Road 120 wasn’t to bad and started driving down it to a rockhounding site we knew of. It only took us about a 1/2 mile before we ran into more snow and broken trees across the road.
Garry busting through the downed trees across the road.
We decided to hike the rest of the way to the site, since cutting and moving all the downed trees and then shoveling the snow was too much like work.
Once we reached the dig site there was no snow. We all picked out different spots to dig and started looking for the red and blue agate/jasper that this location is known for.
Three gophers?
I did my usual prospecting trip by hiking up and down the hill surrounding the site. I didn’t find anything spectacular so headed back and finally started digging in the bank next to Jerry.
Most of the material found here is a pitted agate with little or no color. There are some red and black or blue agate/jasper seams, that make the digging worthwhile though.
This is some of the material we found.
Garry's haul
My 9 pounds of what I hope is pastel agate.
After working this spot for several hours, we decided to drive back down to a site along the Greenwater River. This site is only a short hike along the abandoned portion of Forest Road 70, and is noted for it’s black agate. We parked and commenced hiking.
Parking in the shade.
We hiked down to the dig site and started scouring the mud slide that is the source of most of the agate. I have to admit that I didn’t expect to find much here, but was pleasantly surprised to find some nice sized opal nodules.
Some common opal nodules and small agate.
We didn’t spend too much time here. Mostly we went to check it out and see if it would be worth setting up a field trip. I think this spot is a dangerous place for a large group of rockhounds. The slide is quite steep, there are a lot of rocks and boulders ready to fall down, and there is not that much material.
Overall we had a good day and were glad to get out into the field.
Thanks for joining us.
chasfire
I tried to locate this spot but I’m not sure where FR 70 ends. Just after the bridge where 70 turns to the right theres a dirt road that’s gated about 100 yards in, is that the abandoned part of fr 70? I went to the fr 72 site and was pulling out some amazing seem material with red black green and blue jasper, And I also found some 30 pound chunks of blue green jasper with some black. Most of it had gold specs included in it. Thanks for the location tip. Thats definatly a great spot.
Nate: The FR 70 site is past FR72. You go on past 72 until you drop back down to the river. Just before FR 7030 there is a wide spot where the old FR70 used to be. Park here and hike down the old road about a quarter of a mile to the big slide on the left. I found most of the material to be about 3/4 of the way up on the slide.
chasfire