April 24th, 2021 Saddle Mtn Field Trip Report

On Saturday April 24th, we had 20 people and 9 vehicles head up to Saddle Mountain for petrified wood. The weather was a bit on the cool and damp side, but we found lots of material. I found a few chunks worth cutting, and a bucket of pretty nice tumbler material. A mixture of colorful agatized/jasperized pieces and “wood like” fragments/chunks. Now I just have to wait for my tumblers to free up from their current loads.
Afterwards we went to the diatom pits to see what opal chunks we could find. We had to scout around a bit, but there were some nice pieces in the discard mounds. 4 of us loaded up what I’m estimating to be a 300 pounder into Ron J.’s truck. I think that was the only rock he took home that day. I’m anxious to see what it’s like after it gets cleaned up.

Submitted by Roger Danneman CMS Field Trip Guide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Updated: May 8, 2021 — 7:10 pm

Presidents Message

  • Digging It!  Thanks to everyone who came to the club camp out at Teanaway campground near Cle Elum last month. After a brief spell of rain the first night, we were blessed with sun, clear skies, and rockhounding the rest of the weekend. And a big thanks to Roger Danneman for doing all of the trip organizing, and keeping us all warm and well fed during the weekend. This month I’ll be giving a talk at our club meeting about how to use Gaia for rockhounding. If you have specific questions, please bring them along or feel free to email …

Meeting Announcements

  • Noelle Barnes will present Using Gaia for Rockhounding, an overview of the features and tricks associated with the app Gaia and how you can use it for GPS, saving waypoints, navigation, photo tagging, trail recording and more. Show and Tell: Bring the rock(s) that have the best “story” – and tell everyone how you found them and where!

  • Club board member Paul Ahnberg will talk to us about the impact of wildfires on our lives – from protecting your home to staying safe while out rockhounding – and what we can do today to help mitigate our risk. Paul will combine his knowledge gained from learning at both the WSU Green School (Master Gardener) and WSU Climate Steward programs. Show and Tell: Bring something you found, from a place that you know has since been impacted by floods or wildfires – or was impacted shortly before you arrived. Tell your story!

  • December’s date and time is coming soon. We will update this page as soon as we know more.

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