COMPASS MENTUS

Day 3 arrived with the promise of rain showers.  We had planned to spend the day at Dendrite Butte, but changed our plans because of the rain.  I guess Dendrite Butte will have to wait for the next trip.

Since we were unable to make it to Dendrite Butte we ended up hiking the hills once again.

It isn't as far down as it looks.

Hiking the hills can be hard on some of us older folks, but it can also produce some nice agates.  We probably hiked more than 3 miles, and as our packs got heavier and heavier, we became more selective of what we kept.

Here is a couple of nice agates that I kept.

Moss or Plume? You can decide.

This one was mostly buried.

We were again greeted with some of natures most beautiful flowers.

Mountain Lupine.

We could see some serious rain storms heading our way, so we reluctantly headed back to the truck.  Our packs were full, but when you trip over a big agate, you can always find room to haul it out.

This one has some serious potential.

Before heading back to camp we decided to collect a few more fossils.  Here is one of the better leaves I found.

A full leaf fossil is always worth keeping.

We were reluctant to break camp, but the coming rain storms gave us just the push we needed.  Our trip was ending so we decided to spend the night in Prineville.  After a nice hot shower, and a good nights sleep on a soft bed we headed over the mountain to home.

We were surprised at the snow storm we entered on Highway 26 near Mount Hood, but didn’t experience any trouble driving trough it.  Do you think the extra weight from our three days of collecting helped us keep traction on the slippery roads?

I guess snow in May is not that unusual, but it did surprise us.

Thanks for joining us.

chasfire