Today I decided to take a trip to the Toutle area to dig for carnelian and sagenite.? However, as I got closer I changed my mind and rode my bike into an area of gravel pits and cliffs.? It was rumored that there is blue agate at the base of the cliffs in this area.

I parked and headed up a logging road, the first half mile of which is steeper than I am able to ride up.? It does level out though and is quite easy to ride.

It didn’t take me long to get into the area of gravel pits and check for agate.? I didn’t find any agate, but I did locate some small pieces of common opal.

I continued on up the road and parked near another gravel pit with large cliffs above it.

I did climb up to the base of these cliffs, on the way up I located some small pieces of opalized wood.? They were on the surface and had some interesting black and white patterns.

Here is what the one pictured above looks like polished.

I took a break at this point in my climb and looked back to where I came from.? You can see my bike if you look closely.? It is in the upper part of the left center, just to the left of the end of the white dried out tree branch.

I returned to climbing up to the base of the cliff, and about halfway there I found a large piece of opal.? It was root beer colored and had a lot of small opalized limbs attached to the surface.? I think it might have been a root ball at one time.

I decided that it was to heavy to carry out and continued my climb.? I reached the base of the cliff and noticed that there were some fossilized wood pieces imbedded in the cliff.? These turned out to be mostly ash and disintegrated when I touched them.

I continued along the face of the cliff, but didn’t find any thing of interest.? I was starting back when I decided to revisit my decision concerning the opalized root ball.? I went back to it and broke it in two so that it would be much easier to carry and hauled it down to the bike.

I don’t think I would have carried it all the way back to the truck, but having the bike made getting it out painless.

I searched around the base of the gravel pits and didn’t find any blue agate, but did find some more common opal in some blah colors.

I arrived back at the truck at about noon, and had a little lunch before heading home.

I had to go by one of the smaller creeks I like to check out, so I decided to stop and see if there was anything worth picking up.? I hiked down to the creek and along the creek for about a half mile.? There didn’t seem to be much in the creek, but I did find one nice sized agate on the bank.

This agate looked at first like it was just jasper, but it is quite translucent and since it weighed about 3 pounds, I hauled it home.

Once again I had a wonderful day and hope you enjoyed it with me.

chasfire