Mount Saint Helens or Bust!

Chuck and I headed out at 6:00am this morning to hike a creek on the south side of Mount Saint Helens. ?I had been to this creek before and gotten some pretty nice material, including the only piece of red jasperized petrified wood I have ever found in Washington. ?We arrived at the parking spot at 8:45am and quickly climbed into our waders and packs.

Chuck

Chuck getting ready to follow me to the creek.

It took us about a half hour to hike trough the trees and reach the creek, but as soon as we hit the water I found my first petrified wood. ?It was a complete round and excited both of us.

Petrified Wood

A complete round of Petrified Wood is always a great find.

Here is a picture of the creek we were hiking.

Creek

This creek had a lot of large logs laying in, on, and over it.

The water was crystal clear and provided a perfect opportunity to spot nice pieces.

Creek

Water this clear is getting pretty rare.

In fact this next chunk of petrified wood was laying in the middle of a pretty swift rapids.

Petrified Wood

A pretty nice sized piece of wood.

We continued up the creek, checking out all the gravel bars. ?I had to remind Chuck that we were after agate, jasper, and petrified wood not pretty or interesting rocks.

Chuck

Chuck seemed to be picking up every other rock to check it out.

This was alright by me except it tended to take up a lot of time, and we weren’t covering very much ground.

My next big find was also in the middle of a rapid. ?It turned out to be the find of the day and I was very pleased with it.

Agate

This is a very large geode with agate rind and crystal center.

Here is a view of the other side.

Agate

The second side is even more interesting.

I set this agate aside with this intent of picking it up on our way back out, and we headed on up the creek.

Chuck

Once more “up the creek without a paddle”.

We hiked for another hour or two before finally deciding to head back to the car and home. ?To get your blood flowing, here is one last picture of this great creek.

Creek

A final view of a beautiful creek.

We stopped to pick up my “find of the day” and the large piece of petrified wood, and made it back to the car at 2:30.

It was a great day even with the long drive. ?The weather was beautiful and I ended up with a pretty red scalp.

Thanks for joining us.

chasfire