While many of our posts are about fishing, that’s not the only thing we enjoy. We usually have a small menu of activities to choose from, while out on an adventure.
Wandering the high desert of Central Oregon, it’s impossible NOT to marvel at its geological features. The streams we sit along, spent the last millennia cutting out those basalt-rimmed canyons.
The Cascade Range to the west and the sage steppe to the east of us is a landscape of volcanic oddities.
Central Oregon’s northern expanse of the Great Basin took shape about three million years ago (Pliocene epoch).
Volcanic eruptions and the formation of shallow lakes deposited the material that is fodder for rock hounders today.
We’ve been picking over rock formations, digging pits and screening gravel beds for years.
It’s rare that we’ll come back from an outing without some samples in the back of the car.
This week the focus of our trip was on rockhounding.
These June days are still cool enough to make scraping back layers of dirt and shifting through buckets of gravel bearable.
The journey was pulled from one many geology related books occupying space on our shelves.
Rockhounding Oregon and Roadside Geology of Oregon are constant references when planning these early summer excursions.
This time around . . . our destination is Congleton Hollow and it’s 640 acres of BLM land which is open to rock collecting.
Limb Casts are the target. When a lava flow engulfs a forest the encased tree limbs turn to ash leaving a cavity which is eventually filled with minerals that over millions of years become agates.
Green and pink stones with distinct wood grain and sometimes bark patterns are the prize. But that reward is hard dug and often results only in fragments.
The South Fork of the Crooked River runs along the lower reaches of Congleton Hollow. The upper slopes, where most of the rock searching takes place, are bare except for a scattered few juniper trees.
There are shade and grassy meadows at the base of the hill, on the banks of a lazy flowing stream.
We didn’t find a lot of Limb Casts, though JQ did lug back a large, stratified rock.
There’s no need for buckets of agates, and the point is to explore spaces. However, we always manage to leave with some rocks in our pockets.
Fun and perfect outing!