Agate Flats: History, Sweetwater Moss Agates, and Prarie Rattlers

One paragraph in the book, Prospecting Wyoming, says that, "Agates were at one time hauled by wagon to Rawlins, and even shipped to Germany". So of course we had to go there even though it said that today surface pickings were non existent and that one had to dig to find them.
It was a short Wyoming drive, 66 miles, to Agate flats. The last nine miles were on a gravel road that wasn't too bad by Wyoming Standards. The book had also mentioned that during World War Two planes had practiced machine gunning the ridge at the Flats as it resembled, kind of a battle ship.
Arriving we were immediately overwhelmed by the size of the flat, where would we start? So we drove and stopped several times, checking out the ditch, which had recently been graded. We didn't find anything that even closely resembled the picture of the agates that we had.
Heading north we hunted near a ridge, formed by a granite outcrop, and even though we found some other samples, Renita found a beautiful black and pink gneiss, we didn't find any agates. So we turned the truck around and headed back south till we got to the middle of the flats.
Parking the truck off the road we started to hunt for the elusive agates, surface picking but not digging and by golly I found one! Showing it to Renita she soon found one and I found two more. We were both excited as we broke for lunch, feeling good that we had actually found some and deciding that we would stay in the same area and not dig but continue to surface pick.
Shortly after we resumed looking I saw what looked like a garden hose nozzle lying half buried in the soil. Picking it up I saw that it was a brass 20 mm cannon shell from World War Two! A little later I found a metal piece from an ammunition belt.
The hunting for the agates was less lucky as we only found two more agates the rest of the day.
We did stop and talk with some other folks who had found some agates near the water tanks and we looked there but only found some of the less desired brown agates mentioned by the book. We did find what we thought was called snowflake jade, which is jade with quartz crystals. Its not a popular rock as the quartz undercuts and doesn't polish. We also found some amazonite which is locally refereed to as green granite,(Its actually a green feldspar).
Leaving we drove about a mile and soon after we crossed the Sweetwater River, I barely missed what looked like a snake crossing the road. A little further was another and this one was definetly a rattlesnake!
Grabbing the camera I got as close as I dared, Renita thought I was a little to close, and I could actually see the snake measuring the distance as it coiled and rattled. It dared me to come closer, but all I wanted was the picture. I like it when rattlesnakes rattle and prefer to leave them alone. We drove next to the snake and Renita snapped some pictures and listened to it rattle.
It was the first rattlesnake she had ever seen in the wild and only the sixth one for me, although I am always watching for them. It kind of tells you how overblown peoples fears are of rattlesnakes, and I do admit that at one time snakes were one of my worst fears(Unless of course you are near a den).
We drove away leaving the snake to continue it journey, hoping it would crawl into the grass before someone less kind to snakes would see it and dispatch it for its rattles. he rest of the drive home was windy and the truck swayed as the sideways wind tried to push the truck with the canoe.
We talked of the days finds and our impression of Agates Flats, and we both agreed that we would like to return here again, and maybe even do some digging. We passed Jeffery City and Sweetwater Station and talked about the Oregon Trail, which paralleled the river. A good day, prospecting is so more enjoyable than working! Clear skies.


Be sure to click on the rattlesnake picture to see the tongue!

Prospecting for Gold and the South Pass City Historic Site

Thirty six years ago, as a geology student, I visited South Pass City during my summer geology field experience,(A solid six full days a week and eight week long mapping and field tripping class). So when Renita and I came to Lander we both wanted to spend a day at South Pass, checking out the state historic site and doing a little gold panning and rock hounding.
I didn't remember much about South Pass other then the dilapidated condition of the Carissa mine buildings and the interior of the old wooden jail, so it was quite a surprise to see that the State of Wyoming was actually rebuilding the Carissa Mine site and to see how much progress had been made.
As we drove down into South Pass City a sign greeted us, stating that the population was now down to seven, and a for sale sign was on the South Pass Mercantile, hmmmm.
We parked the truck and headed to the State Historic site which consisted of about a dozen brightly painted building.
A boardwalk took us on a self guided tour, with each building having a room with glass windows that allowed you to see the interior of the structure. Each had been faithfully restored and many actually had family heirloom furniture donated or on loan from the original families!
We were both surprised at the completeness of the buildings and that the buildings were all original structures,(With one exception, a house built to honor Esther Morris, the nations first female judge).
I laughed at the school building where it told of the school teacher and how he would lock the door and beat the kids with a switch. How I had wanted to do that myself. The display also told of how a sherriff showed up one day and arrested the teacher for stealing horses,(Hmmm, they didn't pay very good in those days either).
About halfway down we ran into the caretaker/greeter/merchant, of the store who told us about the site and gave us many details on the restoration and archaeological digs that had taken place there.
We really enjoyed the self guided tour and both had to pose in the jail, Afterwards we returned to the truck, got our lunch and gold pans and headed downstream to try our luck, chasing the elephant.
Hiking to a spot, protected by the willow trees, after all the creek is aptly named Willow Creek, we sat down and unloaded our gear. I waded into the stream and filled my pan with dirt and rock from beneath and below a large rock and started to pan.
Now I am probably one of the worlds worst gold panners, but I practiced a lot when I was a teacher and even had a stream table with fools gold, lead shot and some real gold which I allowed my students to pan,(It kept the teens occupied from their usual planning of mayhem and parties). I actually had a plan and hoped to see some color. Nearing the bottom of the pan I swirled it and saw some pyrite, fools gold.
Moving to another place I tried another pan with the same results, hmmmmm. Taking a step my sandal broke and I was now barefoot. Tiring, I went over and sat down with Renita, who pointed out a place for me to pan. I scooped up some of the material and handed the pan to her. She had the same luck I did.
Taking a break we ate our lunch along the stream, warmed by the mid morning sun. We decided that the place had been played out and so we hiked back to the truck, with me stepping gingerly and trying to avoid any sharp rocks. We went into the mercantile store where the proprietor asked if we were gold prospectors, to which we replied, "Bad ones", and we could see her roll her eyes. I waited for her to spit out a mouthful of chewing tobacco but she didn't oblige, (I think she swallowed it, just joking but I did have a female student who chewed and would swallow it when I caught her).
As we left South Pass City and headed home, we passed a dilapidated antique store just past the Carissa Mine. Stopping we were greeted by the owner, Steve Green, a retired shop teacher from Lander, Wyoming.
Steve regaled us with his stories and actually was a blacksmith who did the demonstrations at the blacksmith shop in the Historic site. We talked of mutual people we might have known, and traded stories of interesting students.
As we talked I looked at his wares and saw he had some pieces of jade for sale. We bought both and also some agate, which he threw in for good measure. We couldn't leave without buying some of his iron work, which was designed for cooking over a campfire.
It was a pleasure to meet him and hear his stories and we left feeling that we had just had one of those unexpected pleasures in life, which is one of the great things about fulltiming and traveling. It was a day well spent. Clear skies.

Jade Prospecting Near Sweetwater Station

The book, Minerals and Rock of Wyoming, lists five identifying characteristics for nephrite jade:
1. nephrite is heavier than the average rock
2. nephrite is harder than a pocket knife
3. nephrite has a smooth waxy appearance, a fresh surface shouldn't sparkle
4. nephrite is not magnetic
5. Nephrite is associated with a bunch of other minerals,(not very helpful)

So armed with this information Renita and I headed for Sweetwater Station, looking for alluvial or float jade. The book, Prospecting Wyoming, said we should take the Bison road south and look pretty much anywhere, and its map showed five mine site logos.
So we turned south towards Buffalo Basin, already overwhelmed by the seemingly endless set of flats and terraces and rock outcrops. Hunting season had started and the antelope raced away as we drove down the washboard gravel road.
We finally decided to simply start stopping at different places and do quick looks for small fragements. So stopping at a ridge that was filled with rounded pebbles and boulders we got out our collecting bags and started prospecting. Before I got started Renita already was handing me a rock that was a light green and met the above criteria.
Looking closely, I tried to scratch the rock with my knife. "Ive already tried that and a knife doesn't scratch it", she said. It looked waxy, felt a little heavier than an average rock, and wasn't chalcedony.
Being an expert on minerology, having taken the class twice, I realized that I didn't know if it was jade. It can be a lot of colors ranging from white to green to black with all of the colors in between. Now the book also said that to really know you needed to test the sample with an x ray crystolography machine, but forgetting ours I simply said, "I don't know, lets keep it."
So we decided to keep anything that was green to white to black and met the few tests we could do. Several trucks went by and one car even slowed and watched us for a bit before driving away.
We decided to drive further south and look at more places and there was the same car, just over the hill and looking for jade, Boy did we fool them! We continued down the road for about ten more miles, and while we saw prospect pits, we didn't find any more green rocks, so we returned to the first site and spent the rest of the afternoon there. Our prospecting kind of reminded me of when we were kids, looking for pretty rocks, but isn't that what its all about?
Finally tiring, I returned to the truck where Renita had already arrived and was taking pictures. I told her I would show her my rocks if she would show me hers, and we spent some time looking at each others specimens and saying, "Gee I don't know, it might be,"
Regardless, we were both tired and sore and had spent a pleasant day rockhounding, which was the real treasure, spending time together. The forty minute drive back to our fifth wheel went quickly. Now if we only had a rock saw and a polisher.......
Clear skies.

Sinks Canyon State Park, The Popo Agie

You could see where the water was flowing out of the side of the hill. It flowed into a large pool and then over a sandbar into another and then another. Each pool was filled with huge wild trout, which fought over the food Renita was tossing down from above. Rainbows showed their red stripe as they rolled sideways fighting for the food with browns and cutthroats.
We were visiting Sinks Canyon State Park, located near Lander Wyoming. The park is famous as a place where the Popo Agie,(pronounced popogah), disappears into a sinkhole and then reappears downstream, a classic example of a disappearing stream or a lost river.
I had taught earth science and geology for 30 years and geomorphology was one of my favorite areas so when we retired I had a list of places I wanted to see and now another was being crossed off the list.
Sinks Canyon is a steep sided canyon that is also famous for its bighorn sheep, its climbing, and a loop road that climbs up to 10000 feet in elevation. The road connects several lakes and finally meets Wyoming 287 near Atlantic City and South Pass, a historic gold mining area.
Its a really beautiful area where the river cuts through the Madison Limestone, intersecting a rock unit called the Cave Member and hence the Karst topography, (landforms above cave regions named for an area in the former country of Yugoslovia).
All the caves in Wyoming and the Black Hills of South Dakota are actually in this rock formation,(or most of them anyway).
We had lunch above the park and while Renita looked for rocks and took pictures I cast my fly rod actually missed a strike on a grasshopper imitator. A blue grouse posed for Renita, it must not have known grouse hunting season had just opened, but it was safe from us anyway.
We enjoyed our visit to the state park. There is another example of a lost river, near Nemo, South Dakota, that also disappears into the Madison and then reappears as a spring in Rapid City, but Sinks Canyon is a lot more dramatic. It was well worth the drive. Clear skies.

A Microburst, More Rockhounding, and Red Kokenee Salmon

Renita steered the boat smoothly onto the trailer and I only had to reach over and clip the bow hook. A few turns of the winch and she gave me the thumbs up, she was ready to be pulled out. It was our last trip out for the year, and Renita had caught a red kokenee salmon!
The summertime was drawing to a close and California beckoned but the Red Desert still had its pull on us. We had been shaken by a mircoburst, had been hopelessly caught in rock hounding fever, and had finally found red kokenee salmon.
The microburst was amazing, and luckily not strong enough to blow us over. I had noticed a really different cumulus cloud as I walked Molly. It seemed like part of it it had fallen to the ground, but there was no wall cloud or rotation so I didn't worry. Shortly after we got back to our fifth wheel the wind came up and buffeted us worse than any wind we have ever experienced. I ran outside and looked for a tornado and as quickly as it had started it slowed. Our next door neighbor, Dave, was also outside and holding an anemometer. He had missed the worst but the wind was still blowing at 38 miles per hour.
Now Dave and Nancy are new friends who camped next to us and shared their fulltiming experiences and expertise with us. They have been fulltiming for nine years and had just bought a Bighorn fifth wheel, We told them about our agate hunting and they went out and found agates that were absolutely beautiful. Nancy showed us one and told us it was the best agate she had ever found, and it was spectacular. It was a translucent white with parallel rows of lined chalcedony.
Finally, we had found the schools of pre-spawn salmon. They were at Holmes Crossing and there were actually three year classes so the fishing was fast,(The spawners are in their third and final year of life).
We tried to release all that we caught but did end up harvesting one fish that had fought too hard. There were other boats there that were snap jigging the salmon, and another fisherman said that they were actually snagging the fish, (Illegal in Wyoming), but we weren't close enough to see.
We actually boated more fish than all the jiggers, the bite was that good. Our last fish was the brilliant red fish above, and we successfully released it, glad that it would have a chance to spawn. There were so many fish on the fish finder and it was good to know that another generation of fish would be here when we return to Flaming Gorge.
The day ended in a beautiful crimson glow, reminiscent of the fish we had returned. The sunset was actually colored by all the smoke from the California and Utah fires, but it seemed to me that the sky was celebrating the fish and their life cycle. It also was as if the Red Desert was saying, "You haven't even begin to see all of my beauty", reminding us of all we have seen and done and calling us back. It was a perfect end to our time here, and the road is calling us. Quoting my long time climbing friend and mentor, Frank Sanders, "We have been truly blessed". Clear skies.

Prospecting Cedar Mountain and Butcherknife Draw

It didn't make any sense. According to the topo maps we should be at the intersection of Dry Creek and Butcherknife draw, but according to the gps we still had ten miles to go both north and east. Turning north we headed up a typical Wyoming gravel road when I spotted an ant pile. Now ant piles are great places to prospect as the ants pile small grains of whatever is underground and we have used them frequently for sharks teeth, peridot and now prospecting for pyrope and chromium diopside.
I had been researching this trip for quite a while. Last year I had bought two publications from the Wyoming Geological Survey. I also discovered that Butcherknife Draw had been on the Treasure Hunting show and so I feared that it had been swarmed upon by the shows enthusiasts.Having already downloaded the beta topo maps from the USGS, United States Geologic Survey, I was getting the gps coordinates off their on line site. We had turned down Mckinnon Road and then had taken the Sage Mountain road past Black and Cedar Mountains.
Sage Mountain was directly south and it seemed pretty easy to follow the roads. A sign pointed north to Interstate 80 and we could see the small town of Mountain View to the northwest. We should be there!
Sure enough. there in the ant pile were small gems of pyrope. Collecting some I got back in the truck and we drove slowly looking for more ant piles. We looked and looked and looked, to no avail. It dawned on us that people had been mining the ant piles!
Stopping at several draws we looked for the larger gems and I shoveled some samples from creek bottoms for later panning. Giving up on Butcherknife Draw we drove west to Wyoming 414 and then headed south to Lonetree,(Which actually has several trees to its name).
From there we took Sweetwater County road 41, which took us up Cedar Mountain. The route was pretty spectacular and we could see for at least forty miles north and west
Sage Mountain was on display, along with the rest of Cedar Mountain. Far in the distance we could see the route we had taken. Following the winding and narrow road to the top, we reached the plateau, grateful that we hadn't met any vehicles on the narrow hairpins.
We stopped and checked out other ant piles, which now were in profusion, and of course didn't find any thing to speak of. Driving the rim road we eventually headed back down to reconnect with Sage Mountain Road. We did stop at a draw and found lots of red and brown and black agate, or at least colored chert samples. In some places the agate was so thick that it looked like a burned area from a recent fire.
The road finally connected with McKinnon road and we returned home past the Devils Playground and Black Mountain. It had been a great day traversing the southwest corner of Wyoming, going places that most people never even know exist. We both felt enriched by all the desert scenery. The area truly rivals Big Bend National Park,and the trip was the true treasure of the days prospecting! Clear skies.

Simple Grilled Kokenee Salmon

We have a hard time going to restaurants for a couple of reasons. Both of us are on restricted diets, (although I slip up a lot), and when we do go the food is often poorly prepared or at least not as good as what we can make at home,(Our fiver of course). A classic example is cooking fish.
Now one of the biggest problems with fish is having fresh fish to cook. Luckily we are blessed here with an abundant supply of Kokenee. Wanting some freshly grilled, Renita and I went out and actually had a great bite!
Putting in at Holmes Crossing,(formerly Squaw Creek), it was a short run to the fishing. We both laughed as we passed a large group of boats fishing in a tight cluster. It seems pretty dumb to share a school of fish with others when you can find your own spot. Don't people realize that the fish are also at other places on the lake?
So we went to a place by ourselves and the bite was on! We caught four in an hour, Including a double! It was wild as my fish was jumping and suddenly the second downrigger pole released. Renita dropped the net and grabbed the pole and soon we had two nice Kokenee thrashing and jumping by the boat. Quickly picking up the net I was able to net mine and then Renitas and we both laughed as two salmon were now on ice!
Anyway the title of this blog is grilled salmon so here is a simple recipe we use for salmon, redfish, and pompano,(but I wouldn't hesitate to use it on any fish.

Simple Grilled Kokenee Salmon

Fillet the salmon leaving the skin and scales on and then wash the fish.

Lightly spray both sided of the fillet with cooking spray and place it in the fish holder,(If you don't have a fish holder you can place the fish directly on the grill, skin side down).

Salt and pepper the fish and put some butter on it, we use Smart Balance Omega, but butter works nicely.

Place the fish on the grill, skin side down, and cook till the fish flakes easily in the thickest part of the fillet.(The thicker the fish the longer. On big fish the skin may burn, and thats ok. You don't eat the skin)

If you want fancy grill marks you can turn the fish once, after five minutes, and then turn it back on the skin side to finish, but if you don't have a fish holder be prepared for your fish to come apart).

This recipe works great over a wood fire on campfire grill, but it was too windy so we used our Weber.

Oh my it doesn't get any better! Clear skies.

ps I know you are suppose to drink white wine with fish but red wine is better for your heart, and I am allowed one glass of wine a day so red it is.