I poured over the Google Earth pictures of Bernier Creek trying to find out if it would be worth it to hike above the beaver dams. ?What I found was two separate mud slides that converged about a mile above the bridge where I parked my bike on the last trip. ?Today turned out to be a perfect day for exploring, so off I went. ?I parked my bike further up the road from the bridge, and headed upstream.
Old Trusty waits patiently.
In Volume 3 of Bob Jackson’s Rockhounding Washington series, he states that locating the Beaver Creek site was difficult. ?After today’s trip I can agree with him. ?I started out with the map from Jackson’s book, a Weyerhaeuser tree farm map, USGS quad maps, and USGS aerial photos of the area.
Beaver Creek, from the aerial photos looks like it is nothing but swamp, but downstream from the bridge looked like there was plenty of gravel.
Potential gravel bars.