Pasadena Lapidary Society

Pictures provided by PLS member Christian Schulze.

Baxter Wash: 5AM November 25, 2022

Fieldtrip Report and Pictures by PLS member Rex Nishimura

The nighttime rumble of the slow moving Union Pacific freight train awakened me from my post-Thanksgiving slumber. It was a big concern as we had parked next to some desolate tracks in Afton Canyon, deep in the Mojave Desert. How far away was the train? Where was it going? After a moment of confusion, I zeroed in on its location, several miles away, but the reverberation of 6 diesel tractors and the wail of its horn gave me a sense of urgency. Like the train, it was time for us to get moving on our next adventure, rockhunting in Baxter Wash.

Baxter Wash is only about 2 miles from Afton Canyon, but it has changed significantly since last year. Heavy monsoonal rains washed away roads, replacing them with ravines of rock and sand. The campsite was a mess of boulders and rocks in the wrong places. We would have our work cut out for us to make camp before our old, new, and future rockhound friends would arrive.

There’s little cell service out there, so after we set up the camp, we climbed a nearby hill searching for a signal. Here, 200 feet above camp, we got enough signal to send and receive texts and watch our friend drive into camp from several miles away. It’s a testament to the skill of our drivers, that no one got lost driving 5 miles on dirt roads to the hidden base camp. People came and went during the weekend, but we averaged about 17 campers over the 3 days. A potpourri of vehicles made it to camp too, from full size pickups to a tiny SUV Subaru Outback. Some were trail ready, but less capable vehicles were left behind.

Though there are many trail ready and highly capable vehicles in this world, getting to productive gem fields requires extra effort. Knowledgeable, skilled, and diligent drivers are needed to negotiate the rocky canyons and sandy washes. Our first stop was the crystal agate seams about 10 miles away, in a narrow canyon pitted with sheer walls, boulders, and rocks. One of our awesome junior members volunteered to be the rock spotter. Her job was to keep the vehicles from getting high centered or scraping on sharp rocks.

The crystal agate seam required hiking up a sandy hill for beautiful light blue, 2” seam agate with a clear quartz crystal center. It’s beautiful material, but since it took 40 minutes to drive here, we only had about 30 minutes to collect before heading to our next location, the miner’s cave and the nearby yellow fluorite mine.

Years ago, some poor miner hewed a cave out of volcanic ash, stocking it with everything needed for a prospector’s life. All that’s left now is a rusty bed frame, a Coleman stove, shelves stocked with cans of food, a small library of books (including a Bible), and a few dollars sitting under a rock. I’m not sure I would eat from the old cans of food, but I could find a use for the bed frame, books, and Bible! Money is kind of useless out there too. I thought about adding a few dollars of my own, but I didn’t want the camp to be plundered by offroad pirates. Maybe someday, I’ll camp in the cave and see what prospecting was really like.

The yellow fluorite mine is peculiar only because of the color. White, purple, and green are common colors, but yellow is rare in the Cady Mountains. We picked up some yellow to add to our collections.

Back at camp that night, we had a slight problem with the potluck. Forks. Even though we were short on forks, rockhounds are a resourceful people.

In no time, we had split our mahogany firewood into strips and whittled them into mahogany chopsticks. No splinters either! We enjoyed a wonderful meal of spaghetti and meatballs with lots of pie and whipped cream! After supper, we discovered that one of our members’ car wouldn’t start. We’re not sure what the problem was, but by pooling our resources, we found someone with a battery charger and 3 hours later, his car was working like normal. A family of motorcycle enthusiasts even dropped by our campsite to inquire about purchasing some fuel from us. We sold it to them at cost, even though at that particular moment, the motorcyclist’s needs made the gas worth much more. Scarcity and value is key to any item’s worth.

People often ask me how I know where to look for the gemstones. Well, I don’t actually search for gemstones as they are too hard to find. I search for adventure which is ubiquitous. The next day we were in for an adventure. A grueling 3 mile hike for red and blue jasper agate. After scrambling up a hillside of loose gravel, we hiked along the ridge for jasper agate, plus red and white calcite crystals, agate nodules, and some pre-sagenite clusters. The sagenite was a bit of a stretch, but we found needle-like crystalline agate in a splayed pattern. I heard one of our new members declare that the hike was an adventure, which describes perfectly how I feel about prospecting for our club.

Sunday’s trip was to the Green Hills. Here the roads were in bad shape and we struggled to find and remain on previously marked paths. No one had visited this area for a long time, and there was plenty of high quality agate almost everywhere. Most of it was banded white or clear, but we also found green moss agate and a hillside of marble sized amygdules. The kids had fun playing knuckles down with the agate balls, but the amygdules were too numerous to bother collecting.

The rock collecting part of the trip was now over; all that remained was to break camp. I must give a shout out to all the drivers who graciously offered seats to rockhounds without vehicles. This was a tough drive and your generosity is much appreciated! I also must thank everyone for working together to make this trip possible. It’s great to be on the same team and, of course, bringing home the gemstones makes it even better.