It's Friday at 6pm. We've done laundry, cleaned out Gijjie, repacked her, and now we're doing the shopping for the next week so we don't have to do it when we get home.
We bought a compact Coleman stove and some instant coffee, too.
Saturday has dawned sunny but cloudy, threatening us with rain. The weather radar says theres a chance for crazy weather on Juniper Mountain, but we pack up our stuff anyway and head for Bly.
The drive is one I've done a thousand times, at least. We drive south on I-5 from Eugene to Highway 58 and turn east for about 90 miles. Once we hit 97, we turn south to Chiloquin.
At Chiloquin, we turn east again and follow the Sprague River to Highway 140. Then we drive 140 to Beatty, Bly, and eventually the forest road to Juniper Mountain, near Quartz Mountain. The elevation is roughly 5600 feet, when we turn onto the forest road. Thankfully, there's no snow this time.
When we left Eugene, I plugged the GPS coordinates into Google maps, and I assume it will take us to the opal claim. I'm wrong of course. Google takes us to a back road that *looks* like it's going to go right past Aspen Ridge Resort, right to the mine. It doesnt. The road dead-end at a big boulder.
So we backtrack, enjoying the mountains and the forest on the drive. We pass half a dozen reservoirs and creeks and a campground. Robert says he knows we're close because theres cattle guards in the ground across the road and free range cattle on the roadway.
We pass a gorgeous meadow full of yellow flowers and come across a beautiful homestead, complete with antlers over the door to a cabin, a jacked up truck in the driveway, and 3 horses in a pasture to one side. All the buildings have shiny yellow roofs.
We catch our first glimpse of Aspen Ridge Resort and know instantly that's what it is, with big blue roofs and small, quaint cabins nestled in the pines. Neither of us can figure out how anyone gets up here to visit the resort, considering the snow must close the road six months out of the year.
I notice a good sized corpse of white trees hiding at the side of the road and realize they're actual aspens. That's when the resort name strikes me. I will notice hundreds of Aspen trees on this journey.
We drive something like 18 miles into the mountain range before we find the big gravel pit on our left that Mark's the fire opal claim site. Theres two vehicles and a tent already there. No one is around.
I know from the directions I got from the mine owner that we are supposed to climb the hill straight up, heading for the big dead tree, and we'll find the claim. I have no idea what to expect. I find orange stones on the ground the moment I step out of my car and start stuffing them in my pockets.
Robert and I hike up the mountain and start hearing the obvious ting-ting sound of rock hammers. There are a dozen orange tape markers showing the best way to climb to the pit.
When we get there, there's already 7 people at the site. The pit is situated at the cresting rise of the summit, with only a few trees close to the pit itself. Theres two young guys and a young lady crouched at the mouth of the pit, chipping away at a red seam of opal buried in solid bedrock. We say hi and introduce ourselves to everyone.
There's also a couple on the far side of the pit, which is only about 30 feet from end to end and maybe 15 feet wide. They're laying on their stomach, digging in a hole in the bedrock on the far wall. He's plugging away at a buried seam of clear yellow opal that leads to a seam of pitch black opal. There's rock tailings all over at the bottom of the pit.
There's also an older couple at a hole in the middle on the right side. The older guy has a small electric jackhammer! He's plugging away at a seam of orange opal. He has a dozen ping-pong ball sized chunks laying on the dirt outside the hole.
The pit itself is somehow not what I expected. It's maybe five feet deep but super uneven. The deepest point is the middle, but it's still wide and bumpy, with boulders sticking out on the sides ax and a lot of crap tailings on the "floor", so it's hard to know how to really get in there. The walls are also solid basalt so we really need a sledgehammer, and Thor to break it up!
We start digging at a spot on the left where the clay is oozing water. The group tells us this is the best place to dig, but one swing of my pickaxe tells me it sure won't be easy. The pickaxe made a Konk! noise and didn't even chip the basalt matrix.
Long story short, (ha!) we stayed the day. Robert chiseled the shit out of the red seam after everyone left and I dug up a lot of pieces left behind by the other groups. I just had no idea how to get the basalt walls apart. I dug at an orange vein for a couple of hours but only got a handful of orange opals, most fairly small. I chiseled some yellow opal out of the hole on the far side of the pit, but the hole the guy had carved was tight, so I couldn't get in it very well.
It hailed. The wind picked up and it got real cold. Like snow cold. We decided to pack it up and head home. We got about half a bucket of fire opal, including some actual pitch black opal with no color play. Looks like obsidian but its actual opal. Worthless but cool.
We drove home with our treasures. Pictures below.
2 comments:
Wow, that is a LOT of photos of cool stuff. Good to hear about the details of the mine, since I had no clue how you get opal out of that stuff. Crazy. Looking forward to seeing what you do with it. Surely is gorgeous, I so love the colors.
Sara said the same. She loves the colors. The pitch black opal is cool, too, especially where it turns orange then pale yellow. Fun, but a lot of work!
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