Post by revco on Mar 24, 2010 0:58:43 GMT -5
I took a quick little overnight camping trip at Lake Como, about an hour drive's south of Missoula, Montana this last Saturday. Low 40's at night...nothing compared to some sub-zero camping I've done in the past here! This was my second visit to the area.
The lake shores are heavily covered in rocks, although most of it is granite and other metamorphic that isn't all that desirable for tumbling. The most notable finds were a couple decent veins of picture jasper...and the area is heavily stocked with very pure milky quartz. (Lots of quartz with orange, red, green and blue veins as well) Not a whole lot of chalcedony, but it's an occasional find. My top find from this trip was an artifact...what appeared to be a hand crafted, iron railroad or mining spike.
The girlfriend and I hiked the seven miles around the lake Sunday morning. Part of the trail was so dangerous with ice that we had to off-trail through some pretty nasty brush to find decent walking along the shorelines. Eventually, a less perilous part of the trail was located and the last three miles or so were decent, albeit exhausting. We encountered light storm conditions, right as we returned to camp. Locked and loaded, we headed for the brewery for some carbs!
The best part of the hike was a beautiful falls where Rock Creek feeds the lake. There's a perfect backpacking camp right along there...one that I would like to stay at. That and a massive rock structure (aka BFR...on an epic scale) that had cool veins of quartz and was like a rockhound's playground. Most of the lake was still frozen over in these early months...but it was neat to see separating cracks in the ice traversing the entire width of the lake.
Some days it's good to have this in my backyard.
Hope you enjoy!
Here's some pictures from the adventure:
The lake shores are heavily covered in rocks, although most of it is granite and other metamorphic that isn't all that desirable for tumbling. The most notable finds were a couple decent veins of picture jasper...and the area is heavily stocked with very pure milky quartz. (Lots of quartz with orange, red, green and blue veins as well) Not a whole lot of chalcedony, but it's an occasional find. My top find from this trip was an artifact...what appeared to be a hand crafted, iron railroad or mining spike.
The girlfriend and I hiked the seven miles around the lake Sunday morning. Part of the trail was so dangerous with ice that we had to off-trail through some pretty nasty brush to find decent walking along the shorelines. Eventually, a less perilous part of the trail was located and the last three miles or so were decent, albeit exhausting. We encountered light storm conditions, right as we returned to camp. Locked and loaded, we headed for the brewery for some carbs!
The best part of the hike was a beautiful falls where Rock Creek feeds the lake. There's a perfect backpacking camp right along there...one that I would like to stay at. That and a massive rock structure (aka BFR...on an epic scale) that had cool veins of quartz and was like a rockhound's playground. Most of the lake was still frozen over in these early months...but it was neat to see separating cracks in the ice traversing the entire width of the lake.
Some days it's good to have this in my backyard.
Hope you enjoy!
Here's some pictures from the adventure: