Petrified wood and Rockhounding

[buckcanyonlodge]

My son in law gave me this opalized petrified wood. His other Father in law works for a big orchard company and they were digging up a big piece of land to put in more orchards. This was on the ridge above the town of Outlook in the lower Yakima Valley. They uncovered a huge tree at least 100 ft. long. Son in law had a good 10 feet of it and gave me a few chunks. So nice..I attach a few pics.

[buckcanyonlodge]

more pics

[buckcanyonlodge]

more pics

[boneaddict]

I've contemplated helicopter rentals. This one is still buried out there

[LDennis24]

Lol! Yeah I know a couple guys who built an inflation saddle to get a rare specimen one time. They had to jam ropes under the log under water and then inflate some inner tubes to bring it up to the surface and float it to the shoreline. It was hollow and filled with crystals so they were not gonna leave it!

[Skillet]

My great grandparents were rockhounds, and I was lucky enough to be left a few choice pieces through my Great Aunt's estate.

My favorites are these bookends cut from petrified wood, but I have a lot of random pieces.  And a few cut garnets you could choke on 

If any of you are rockhounds, I strongly recommend a stop at the Waterville Museum (in Waterville on HWY 2).  They have one of the best mineral collections in WA, and a special bovine surprise in the basement.

[LDennis24]

I've got some big garnets from Idaho. Probably the biggest is almost ping pong ball size. I'll find them and post them.

[Alchase]

Wow, pretty cool pics!
Where or what type of ground should someone look for petrified wood? I have found a few small pieces in Washington more by accident than any good rock hounding.

Would love to look down here in OK.

[Born2late]

Been to the Waterville museum. Really cool!
Boneaddict- I would be digging that log up! Wonder if you could make a little wheeled cart that you could load it into like a little mini log trailer that you could tow behind a quad.
I’ve always wanted to slice a piece up and make a bath vanity countertop out of one.think that would be fun to look at

[LDennis24]

One of my big Idaho garnets. This one is probably gem quality. Most are not when they get this big. You can make cabochons with really big cracked ones sometimes and get a star out of them. The guy who took me digging has a star garnet the size of a baseball I swear.

[buckcanyonlodge]

My nephew drew a Silver Dollar elk tag quite a few years ago. I took him. We had permission to hunt the North Ranch located above Sunnyside and ran all the way over to the highway from Yakima to the Silver Dollar restaurant. We parked on the highway and hunted the canyons about a mile or two from the highway. Linda North told us that they had located a "forest" of petrified logs in those canyons. They loaded  logs on a flat bed trailer and hauled them to a buyer in New York. They were paid $10,000 per load...they sold quite a few. I located one particular spot where there were petrified logs laying everywhere. One particular 200 pound chunk was white with the grain running through the piece. The grain was black...White with black grain....200# chunk----absolutely beautiful...No way to get it out. I've thought about that canyon quite often.

[LDennis24]

Been to the Waterville museum. Really cool!
Boneaddict- I would be digging that log up! Wonder if you could make a little wheeled cart that you could load it into like a little mini log trailer that you could tow behind a quad.
I’ve always wanted to slice a piece up and make a bath vanity countertop out of one.think that would be fun to look at

Game cart and a buddy! Count me in! We're both about the same size Bone! Can we pick it up with a strap stuffed under it? We could split it! 

[LDennis24]

Yes all this talk about the Yakima area and the firing range clear to Vantage is spot on. I have seriously been everywhere with my job, even secured area's and very limited access area's. Fiber Optics are my thing and I strive to be the best at what I do. The government uses them for all sorts of monitoring and they also use them for surveillance. This takes me into some cool areas and I have noticed that almost everywhere throughout that region clear to the Ginkgo petrified forest, at the same elevation, you can find petrified wood coming out of the hills. It's everywhere over there. The coolest pieces I have from there are deep red with a moss agate coloring mixed into them. I will find those pieces and post them as well.

[LDennis24]

This is a piece of black and chocolate obsidian in my bunk house. Sorry for the cobwebs! I found it on the Palouse while hauling anhydrous ammonia. Drove into the farmers field and saw the black shiny spot from about 200' away. It was chipped off and I grabbed the chip and the boulder and took them home! About basketball size. The professor at Eastern Washington University said there isn't any obsidian in Eastern Washington and that someone must have brought it there... Yeah right

[boneaddict]

I’ve also found obsidian here.  Not that big of a piece. Cool!