Amethyst crystals

Robert has been gone a lot this summer. He was just on a 2 week trip to Atlanta and Alabama with a stop in Florida to see his folks. He was back in time for the fourth of July and we went to our party with our theater group. That was fun. I got to play with a 3 month old baby, so I call that day a win.

This weekend, we decided to follow our Rockhounding in Oregon book and go to Gold Hill, or at least what the book calls Gold Hill, which is NOT the one near Medford. It's fairly close to home and we could camp in the mountains. Most campgrounds are packed tight on the weekend of the 4th.

So we packed up the car, stopped for gas and coffee, and headed out. We drove 126 towards Vida and turned north on a Forest Service road just a bit before McKenzie Bridge. We passed a LOT of people camping, including some families that looked like they were actually living at their campsites near the Reservoir, with clothes on the line and such.

The road was paved for a while and then turned to gravel. We were pretty sure the Infinity mine was about 25 miles in, though, so we didn't let the gravel road stop us. Several times we had to give a fallen boulder a wide berth, as well. The biggest boulder was about the size of our car. I had to get out and guide Robert in getting Gijjie through that one, because it was boulder on the right and drop off on the left. But he did just fine.

The view was spectacular. I didn't realize Oregon has actual wilderness that doesn't include sagebrush. We weren't really very high up and yet we could see a long ways into the distance and we were climbing slowly but steadily the whole way. The road followed the mountain ridges, going between mountains often, so you'd see a long way north for ten minutes and then a long way west for ten minutes, and then maybe east for a ways.

The wildflowers were gorgeous. There were dark purple lupens, yellow daisies, orange California poppies, stunning pink foxgloves, and pink sweat peas. There were geraniums and wild roses, thimbleberry bushes and BlackBerry bushes, yarrow and monks hood and wild onions. I swear to God we also saw desert honeysuckle that was bright orange. One whole mountain ridge near the mine was covered in Indian paintbrush and a ton of bushes covered in either wild rhododendrons or wild azaleas.

We didn't see a single car until we got real close to the mine. At that point, a truck was coming towards us so we had to back up 100 feet to a spot where we could pass each other. The truck had two younger guys and some kids. They guided us to the mine but said they'd run across the mine owner the day before, and from what they said, he was not a kind soul.

We thanked them and drove on up the road to the "steep hill" they'd described, going down towards the claim that was on our right. That hill was creepy. We got down it, after a few hairy moments, but we agreed we were pretty unlikely to get back up it.

Once at the bottom, we started seeing "Federal Mining Claim" signs on the right. Honestly, we didn't read the signs. We just pulled over about 100 feet away, parked and got out, and started walking farther up the forest service road.

The rockhounding book describes the booty as being very small quartz crystals, but it says they're hard to find. Supposedly, they are mostly like "icebergs", which means they stick out of the ground.

We didn't want to piss off the claim owner and get shot at or something, which I've heard of happening recently, so we just walked about two miles up the forest service road. We didn't see a damned thing, until I spotted a pale purple amethyst crystal laying right in the middle of the road. Robert found a clear colorless one with one end terminated, also in the middle of the road. We never found another crystal on the four mile round trip walk.

What we did find was the most gorgeous scenery I've seen in a long time. The place was so remote, all you could hear was a million bees and some occasional birds. The road itself seemed to go on forever, although Google maps was apparently still on in my pocket, and Siri told us the road ended in 400 feet. It didn't.

We got some incredible pictures of the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and even found the top of a ridge where we decided to pitch a tent and camp. We had taken pub burgers with us to grill, along with chips and fruit salad and the obligatory marshmallows, so I was really looking forward to camping at that vista point.

We had walked to within about a football field length from some hidden hot spring called Keeney or something like that. It was hot and dusty but so nice to be in the wilderness. The forest smelled like dust and pine needles and hot copper. It reminded me of my childhood and the years spent in the Kaniksu National Forest, where my oldest child was conceived. I love the wilderness in the Pacific Northwest.

So we walked back to the car. Unfortunately, the walk revealed to both of us that we'd be crazy to try driving that road the whole way we walked. Our decision to leave was sad, but we figured it was for the best. So we got in Gijjie and headed for the scary hill to head home or maybe find a free camping spot. This is where things got hairy.

On the first try up the hill, Robert was going so slow that we didn't make it. My poor Subaru needs the fuel injectors cleaned, I think, and Robert said he had the gas pedal to the floor when it died right near the 3/4 mark on that hill. (Gijjie has 65,000 miles on her at this point, so I'm not really surprised she needs a little attention.)

But when she died, Robert decided to just back down that insane hill in neutral with the car off. At one point, he realized all our camping gear was in the way of the rearview mirror so he could only see by using the side mirrors. He backed up onto the bank on the left on accident. Suddenly our two driver's side wheels were literally off the ground and we started to tip to the right. I thought I was going to die, or at the very least, the car would tip and shatter my window and we would be stuck on that stupid hill on that stupid mountain.

My heart was pounding so hard and so loudly, I could hear it through my slack jawed mouth. I couldn't speak, even to snip at Robert. We looked at each other in terrified silence and I literally felt the driver's wheel spinning in dead air. That was like a nightmare moment.

Thank God Gijjie somehow started to ease further down the hill the *right* direction and Robert got the car centered on the road again. He backed up quite a ways to try to get a running start at going back up. We made it up that hill by going way too damned fast over bumps and rocks that were way too damned destructive. I can't believe we made it. Robert later admitted the whole thing had spooked him and for Robert, that's really saying something.

Once we were up the hill, we couldn't bring ourselves to just go home, but we also couldn't just stop and pitch a tent either, since there wasn't much room anywhere. So we took FS road 2820 to the North and thought we'd try to get to the Poorman mine, which I've heard is about a thousand feet lower than the Infinity.

That road was crazy. At some points, it was so grown over we couldn't be sure we would survive if someone came at us around a blind curve. Thankfully, we didn't run across another living soul. The bigger concern was the super bad quality of the road and the lack of a place to stop. The brush was jungle thick on all sides.

We got to a spot where the road forked, and since my Google maps was still tracking where we were (even though I had zero cell service) I saw that the right fork of that road headed towards the Calapoia river. Hot damn! I knew that would get us out of those mountains without having to go all the way back, thirty some odd miles the way we came. We turned right at the fork.

Eventually, we came out of the forest onto Weyerhauser property that we know quite well from coming at it from the other direction. We met a car finally, and then a truck. That told us the Weyerhauser gates ahead of us were still open!

We decided to go from Holley, where the road finally lets out, up to Sweet Home. We figured we could find an open campsite somewhere on 20.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

We drove 20 all the way to 126 and turned south to head home. Not one single campground had an open space, the entire way. We knew that would happen but we tried anyway. We did stop once on the way to look for rocks in the river. But the 'Pooia was super low and sorta slimey, so we didn't spend a lot of time

We were home by 9pm, none the worse for wear, with only 2 natural crystals and an unopened bag of marshmallows and a couple uncooked pub burgers to show for it. But my temperpedic bed sure felt great.

Heres some info about the Infinity mine that I didn't know. Turns out, it's 17 acres. 

https://thediggings.com/mines/ormc161887