Post by Tonyterner on Aug 20, 2009 22:04:32 GMT -5
Our Sunday in Moab we spent most of the day in Arches National Park. We got back to the hotel at 3 and figured the day was too early to be over so Wyobrian, his brother Thunder69 (John) and I decided to do a little collecting trip. I had brought along my copy of Rockhounding Utah for just such an occasion. We headed out of Moab to an area about 20 miles south of town that had three collecting places listed in my book. We decided to try the closest first which was an agate collecting site listed as Muleshoe Canyon. I didn't realize it at the time but this was probably a good choice since the book Gem Trails of Utah states that this is one of the most extensive in the Moab area. The site is fairly easy to access. Here is the dirt road on the way in.
A little over a 1/2 mile in you need to take a smaller dirt road. This one really requires a high clearance vehicle and fortunately we were in Brian's 4WD pickup. We didn't go more than a half a mile before this road petered out. We parked and started looking.
The view from the truck.
At first we found a few white chips and were pretty excited but these soon disappeared as we went over the hill and into a dry wash.
Fortunately John and Brian followed this because it soon lead to this
Those white things are all agate. We were overwhelmed at this point. There was freakin' agate everywhere.
We started being way more choosy. Following the wash lead us to the base of this cliff and you guessed it, more agate.
John got a little tired and decided it was time to do a little texting.
I climbed the cliff to see the view and saw Brian still hard at it.
We filled our bags and were heading out when Brian spotted this huge agate. Him and I dug it out but figured it was too big to carry the 1/2 mile uphill back to the car but John wasn't so easily put off.
He carried that 50 lb agate boulder on his shoulder, head back or anywhere else it would fit. Finally Brian decided to help out and brought it the final 50 yards to the car.
We packed up and headed out. On the way out we noticed some white rocks in and along the road and stopped to check it out.
That was fortunate since it turned out to be agate. So we collected a bunch more.
We found a little sign on the side of the road that someone left in agate.
It says "John Is Sexy" so this material is now called Sexy John Road Agate.
Here's a few samples of what we got. And thanks for looking.
This was a big rock we found in the wash that looked nothing like any other rock there. I took a guess and said it was quartzite but I really have not idea what it is.
A little over a 1/2 mile in you need to take a smaller dirt road. This one really requires a high clearance vehicle and fortunately we were in Brian's 4WD pickup. We didn't go more than a half a mile before this road petered out. We parked and started looking.
The view from the truck.
At first we found a few white chips and were pretty excited but these soon disappeared as we went over the hill and into a dry wash.
Fortunately John and Brian followed this because it soon lead to this
Those white things are all agate. We were overwhelmed at this point. There was freakin' agate everywhere.
We started being way more choosy. Following the wash lead us to the base of this cliff and you guessed it, more agate.
John got a little tired and decided it was time to do a little texting.
I climbed the cliff to see the view and saw Brian still hard at it.
We filled our bags and were heading out when Brian spotted this huge agate. Him and I dug it out but figured it was too big to carry the 1/2 mile uphill back to the car but John wasn't so easily put off.
He carried that 50 lb agate boulder on his shoulder, head back or anywhere else it would fit. Finally Brian decided to help out and brought it the final 50 yards to the car.
We packed up and headed out. On the way out we noticed some white rocks in and along the road and stopped to check it out.
That was fortunate since it turned out to be agate. So we collected a bunch more.
We found a little sign on the side of the road that someone left in agate.
It says "John Is Sexy" so this material is now called Sexy John Road Agate.
Here's a few samples of what we got. And thanks for looking.
This was a big rock we found in the wash that looked nothing like any other rock there. I took a guess and said it was quartzite but I really have not idea what it is.