Post by LarryS on Aug 2, 2013 1:31:25 GMT -5
Howdy all. We’ve been laying low for a while because both of my 86 year old parents passed away and I’ve been busy doing the executor stuff. Life for us is starting to come back to somewhat normal and we haven’t been rock hounding for 8 months! Not good! Thought we’d start it out with a bang and head out to good old Lavic and make a 2 day’er out of it. Yesterday we hung out in Barstow and started out at the Mojave River Valley Museum, my favorite. Then we stopped at the BLM main office and East Mojave headquarters. We had a blast looking over all the displays and buying books. Then of course you can’t hang around Barstow without stopping by Diamond Pacific. All the old original owners have recently passed away and the family is operating it now. Don’t know the gal’s name but obviously she was family. We chatted for a long time and Goober enjoyed the a/c comfort and all the attention he was getting from strangers. The gal mentioned about the family claim they had in the Calico’s where they had great honey onyx that was deep underground. The BLM use to charge them $2500 per year to keep the claim open but they increased it to $25,000 and they were forced to bury it. Yep, that’s how the BLM is taking over the desert now days. Gal mentioned all the hot spots that are located in the Cady’s and the locations are all secret. Yep, just like a good fishing hole, nobody mentions the locations because she said once word got out, the clubs will clean them out in a weekend. We have our secret locations and believe me, they’re nowhere near the sites the books mention. If I tell you, I’d have to kill you! It takes 4 wheel drive and some walking to find these glory holes. 2 wheel drive, you’ll be walking a lot and just picking up crumbs!
As with all the locations that the Gem Trail books mention, they’re pretty much picked clean of larger slabable rock. If you’re into tumbling, no problem. This is probably our 9th or 10th time out at Lavic and pretty much covered the whole area. Also have done extensive 4x4 and on foot exploring many miles around the area. We have found maybe a dozen hot spots that still has good material, mostly brecciated jasper. Since the temperatures out there have been 80/105, we arrived at 6:00am to get things started.
I’m sure the Marines or BLM will be closing off this area soon. Just a matter of time. Bring a hack saw and cut this sign down. You can get big bucks for it at Quartzsite!
We headed to the southern section of the main collecting area. There’s 3 washes extending down and we always came in from the most southern route and drove and or hiked up. This time we drove down the middle ridge and parked, hiked from there. If you look on Google Earth, you’ll see where someone spelled out “Jesus Rocks”. Further south about a mile, someone wrote “USCG dogs, etc” but I’m sure it spelled USMC for the Marines. We heard lots of loud booms from them playing with their big guns. As with all military bases, you can't see them in action because the impact zones are far away from public view. You can Google Earth and see the locations where the impact zones are. At Lavic, it’s on the other side of the far mountain range, about 10 miles away. Closest I’ve ever seen military impact zones is in the Chocolate Mountains, down near the Salton Sea where the Navy bombs the crap out of that range. Closest I’ve seen is 5 miles away and it’s fun watching the jets at night shoot missiles, watching the flame/smoke trails and the flash when they hit. Plus they’re zipping around doing dog fights. I’ll stay up into the wee hours of the mornings watching. Great entertainment while camping.
Jeep a tiny spec off in the distance, southern collecting area looking north towards Cady’s.
We did extensive exploring, went way beyond our favorite collecting sites and found many new honey holes. Most of Lavic is picked clean from decades and countless thousands of people collecting. If you’re into tumbling or settle with the usual solid red or yellow jasper, there’s still plenty to be had. But if you’re choosy like us and are looking for the rare brecciated variety, that takes a lot of work. I found a tiny piece sticking out of the sand and dug it out. More I dug, more I found.
Both Goober and I were getting hot and tired around 10:00am but we kept digging for about an hour before we called it quits. That’s when we do all our rock hounding/exploring inside the Jeep with air conditioning.
I already have a couple hundred pounds of Lavic that needs to be slabbed on my patio so I was very selective on what we gathered. Picked up about ½ bucket which is enough for now. Looking forward to slabbing this up and see what’s inside.
Larry, Diane & Goober
As with all the locations that the Gem Trail books mention, they’re pretty much picked clean of larger slabable rock. If you’re into tumbling, no problem. This is probably our 9th or 10th time out at Lavic and pretty much covered the whole area. Also have done extensive 4x4 and on foot exploring many miles around the area. We have found maybe a dozen hot spots that still has good material, mostly brecciated jasper. Since the temperatures out there have been 80/105, we arrived at 6:00am to get things started.
I’m sure the Marines or BLM will be closing off this area soon. Just a matter of time. Bring a hack saw and cut this sign down. You can get big bucks for it at Quartzsite!
We headed to the southern section of the main collecting area. There’s 3 washes extending down and we always came in from the most southern route and drove and or hiked up. This time we drove down the middle ridge and parked, hiked from there. If you look on Google Earth, you’ll see where someone spelled out “Jesus Rocks”. Further south about a mile, someone wrote “USCG dogs, etc” but I’m sure it spelled USMC for the Marines. We heard lots of loud booms from them playing with their big guns. As with all military bases, you can't see them in action because the impact zones are far away from public view. You can Google Earth and see the locations where the impact zones are. At Lavic, it’s on the other side of the far mountain range, about 10 miles away. Closest I’ve ever seen military impact zones is in the Chocolate Mountains, down near the Salton Sea where the Navy bombs the crap out of that range. Closest I’ve seen is 5 miles away and it’s fun watching the jets at night shoot missiles, watching the flame/smoke trails and the flash when they hit. Plus they’re zipping around doing dog fights. I’ll stay up into the wee hours of the mornings watching. Great entertainment while camping.
Jeep a tiny spec off in the distance, southern collecting area looking north towards Cady’s.
We did extensive exploring, went way beyond our favorite collecting sites and found many new honey holes. Most of Lavic is picked clean from decades and countless thousands of people collecting. If you’re into tumbling or settle with the usual solid red or yellow jasper, there’s still plenty to be had. But if you’re choosy like us and are looking for the rare brecciated variety, that takes a lot of work. I found a tiny piece sticking out of the sand and dug it out. More I dug, more I found.
Both Goober and I were getting hot and tired around 10:00am but we kept digging for about an hour before we called it quits. That’s when we do all our rock hounding/exploring inside the Jeep with air conditioning.
I already have a couple hundred pounds of Lavic that needs to be slabbed on my patio so I was very selective on what we gathered. Picked up about ½ bucket which is enough for now. Looking forward to slabbing this up and see what’s inside.
Larry, Diane & Goober