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1/16/12...Howdy pardners. Yesterday my wife Ally and younger brother Dana and I, went on a short daytrip to Crystal Peak thru Verdi Nevada, and on out Dog Valley Road 27 miles. It is a nice drive without being too far, and a chance to see a portion of the lovely eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains pretty much right on the CA-NV state boundaries......
......Verdi(census 2010 pop.1415) is a quaint little town in NV right near the state borders, and right on HWY I-80 as you exit the highway. Sadly the current state of global recession has everything messed up, so I was sad to see so many of the few businesses in Verdi closed here and there. Bigger businesses there that are handling this recession fairly well like the Chevron Gas-MiniMart, and the big Cabelas Hunting and Fishing Outfitters, and 2 casino-restarant-RVparks Gold Ranch and Boomtown are in Verdi too. Though the population has fallen to less then half of the 2000 census, Verdi still looks like a nice place to live I think......
.....Anyway, to get to Crystal Peak, you need to get off of HWY I-80 right there at Verdi, and take Dog Valley Road 27 miles up to the Crystal Mine site on Crystal Peak. The road begins in Verdi as a paved road, but at the outskirts of Verdi it turns into a maintained dirt road clear up to Crystal Peak and the two or three nice campgrounds just below it. Along the way there are several forks to other dirt tracks going places into the forested mountain. You will see plenty of big and smaller trees in the forest of Ponderosa Pines, Black Pines, Grand and Noble Firs, and asundry other trees including a few Cedars and Junipers; while the ground is mostly covered with Manzanita bushes and some Service Berry, Salal, and a bit of Deer Brush and Creosote Bush. Anyway it is a delightful place to go and view some of our nature and forested areas. As the snow had just fallen leaving a few inches(6 to 12 maybe), any sign of wildlife was scant. I think I only noticed a mountain bluebird once. Soon we were passing the campground near Crystal Peak, and then came to the fairly rough dirt road going up to the mine site. Putting the HUMMRR into 4x4, we rolled right up the mountain passing a small parked passenger vehicle that counldn't deal with the snow. We were soon up the mountain at the site......
.......The new fallen snow from the night before was relatively undisturbed, as I pulled into the parking area that USFS officials made available right at the crystal collection site, so our older bodies didn't have to hike so far. It was almost hard to differentiate the very white quartz from the snow on the ground. We all piled out of the HUMMRR grabbing our bags, packs and rock hammers to fill with geological treasures. and donning coats and gloves we all headed up the gently sloping trails that pretty much converged to the peak. The evidence or many earlier crystal hunters was present in the many "glory holes" half filled with snow here and there. But since it is a mountain peak, there is plenty of it all left for many others to come. The prevalent minerals present on this peak are of course some of the purest white and translucent quartz I have ever seen, and relative amounts granitic rock and monzonite, with lots of silvery shiny and slick disintegrating felspar; and there was also the presence some pale green copper minerals that I thought looked mostly like malachite and maybe some chrysocolla and turquoise too. Hard to say though, without better testing. We all hiked around the peak finding our own little niche to explore, and begin to gather samples. Though the sun was shining nice and warm upon us in some spots, it was only a little while of an hour or so before we all began to take a chill, and were ready to jump back into the warmer HUMMRR with our individual bounties of cold and pretty stones....
.....Starting our drive back down the mountain with warm snacks and drinks, we were soon passing thru the forested dirt roads back to more developed civilization at Verdi, and on to the highway. The whole trip from Reno to the Crystal Peak site and back was only about 3-4 hours and 60-70 miles, making for a very nice but short daytrip enjoying the nature of the grand Sierra Nevada mountains.....
......Hope you all enjoyed this short little outing that was fun and simple and cheap. Happy trails to all our friends until we meet again. Peace out. Erik and Ally......

1/1/12.....Howdy pardners. My wife Ally, and younger brother Dana, went looking for some new to us caves today. The Flat Top Caves 1 and 2 over in Churchill county south of Fallon, and apparently right off of HWY 95 near Russell Pass. I had never tried locating these two caves before, and had no idea of what they had going for them that made them even mentioned on some old maps of the area. So this day I decided that we would explore for them and see what they were about. Of course I had hopes of finding them full of early paintings, drawings, and artifacts; or maybe just the treasure of lost gold never found in Arizona's Superstition Mountains. I wasn't feeling to particular, I just wanted to find something neat and exciting and new to me. So off we headed towards Fallon, supplying up for the needs of the daytrip with gasoline and healthy snacking munchies and drinks. Stopped to have breakfast together at my favorite place, Jerry's Diner on HWY 50 in mid-town Fallon. And we were soon gone along our way, heading south on HWY 95 and a spot on the map marked as Russell Pass.....
.....It was soon pretty easy to discern Russell Pass(@4515'ELE.) and the topography of the nearby area to our west that kind of matched the data on the topo map, and so I searched for dirt tracks possibly heading somewhat west and into the relatively flat and sage covered desert adjacent to the eastern most slopes of the Desert Mountains Range in the shadows of nearby and westerly Desert Peak(@6404'ELE.). It was kind of rough getting in closer to the slopes we all thought would be most likely to contain any caves. We went on a track here and a track there. At first to no avail, and then a cave looking grotto not too high up with obvious track going into it. We were not exactly certain if this was one of the caves we were looking for. But after talking about it for minutes, we decided to keep looking as I re-interpreted the topo-lines on my map, and we continued on exploring the best dirt roads first, and then some more difficult to see tracks bearley discernable from the hard desert scrabble before us.......
.......From the highway right near Russell Pass, we had seen a dark cavernous looking spot among large looking rocks and boulders. So we tried to find that spot while I tried to maneuver thru thickly bouldered terrain in four wheel drive low. Eventually we reached the point of no more forward progress, and alighting from the HUMMRR, we began hiking towards the outcroppings that I thought we may find something. The terrain was encumbered in steep rocky mountainous slopes, and outcroppings of banded rhyolite that seemed interesting and unusual to us, Ally and I both collecting up samples, while we all took photos with our cameras, and soon we came to the opening of FLAT TOP CAVE 1, looking much like a mine. After some examination, it was possible to see that this grotto was both carved out by tidal actions and general erosion....
.....As we approached the cave, it was so square that it looked very man-made I thought, but I could see no signs of machine-made tracks or evidence of rock drilling and blasting near or into it, or evidence of timber shoring to hold anything up or to prevent caving in. As Dana entered into the cave first, he exclaimed that there was soot and carbon coating the cave ceiling from fires/campfires, and as I entered the cave behind Dana, he said there were some paintings on the cave wall present and to come take a look. On close examination, I found that the soot/carbon coating the ceiling seemed to have mineralized from aging, as were the paintings on the cave walls. Thus establishing roughly that they were very old compared to our lives of much less than a hundred years. The ceiling coating of soot/carbon was quite extensive, going deep into the back of the cave. We found a slight crack through which daylight was bearley discernible and could feel the air moving, enough to perceive that the early inhabitants or users of this cave had thus created a safe draft for smoke and fumes to exhaust from the living area. The paintings on the cave walls were fairly limited and some very hard to make out what they were, except for an arrow and stick person painted in whitish mineral in one spot. The most visible thing was the monogram R. B. with the year 1862 below the sort of fancy letters, painted in black. I pulled out and carefully used my pocket-knife blade to scratch at a discreet spot of the pigment to discern that the markings were permineralized, and quite hard and permanent now, again indicating relative great age to them......
.......After looking over the cave and paintings, and the cave floor for sign of artifacts to no avail, we headed outside to examine the area outside of the cave. Aside from the area being very arid and barren of much at all, it was hard to imagine that anybody ever lived here or used this cave for shelter, without imagining back in time to eras of much greater precipitation or other sources of moisture, that would have made this region more hospitable and bounteous before the coming and settlement of us more modern humans. I walked around this strange stone pediment of which contained the cave, that wasn't much at all; and found a ladder or step like access to the cave top which was indeed quite flat with three terrace like levels from which it was very easy to deduce it being both a great little fortress for safety, and also a hunters blind for observing and hunting game for nourishment. From atop the cave, it was very easy to see at how in times past when Carson Lake and surrounding areas were much wetter, at how this area would of just seemed like a lakeside house for the inhabitants of those earlier times. This whole mountainous area was layer upon layer neat flow-banded volcanic rhyolite that is largely a soft pinkish grey separated by bands of much darker purples. We collected up a few pounds of samples and headed back out.....
.......Soon we hiked back to the HUMMRR and reversed our trek out of this rocky terrain, and continued our quest to find the FLAT TOPCAVE 2. After driving a bit along the north edge of the eastern most portion of the Desert Mountains Range. As the day was wearing on with only a few hours of daylight left, we made haste to try and find Cave Two which I believe we all spotted up behind a fenced portion the quarry. A crushed rock, sand and gravel quarry kind of surrounded the edge of the mountains between the caves roughly, and blocked a portion from us and further exploration. Mine and quarry owners/crews are most always very begrudging of outsiders/strangers coming into their works, not that we mere rock collectors would be wanting of their commodities there. Driving by the gated entrance of the quarry area, I spotted a big light-colored boulder of monaznite with some sunlight reflecting off of something shiny in it, and we stopped to examine it. It was some veins of almost snow-white shiny magnasite with some common opal present in it; which though not especially rare, this was a nice example of this mineral, so we got out our rock hammers and exracated ourselves a nice little handful of mainly the common opal. It was now getting late as the sun was hitting the western horizon, so we headed for Silver Springs and home. It had been another good and safe daytrip full of new adventures and sights, so Dana, Ally and I were all happy and satisfied with that.....
.....Hoping you all enjoyed another little adventure in the wild west of Nevada and the Great Basin. Happy trails to all until we meet again. Yours truly, Erik and Ally......

1/5/12....Howdy pardners. On Thursday last, my wife Ally and I went on safari into deepest Nevada's outback. Not really that deep, just thought it sounded poetic......
...FIREBALL RIDGE AND RED CAVE......
.....I wanted to show Ally Fireball Ridge which is a igneous volcanic mount setting upon some old limestone strata not too far from where we live in NW NV, up in Pershing county to our north a bit. Getting there we traveled I-80 east from Fernley to the Nightingale exit, which is right at Brady Hotsprings(which is now being tapped for geothermal energy) at the northern edge of the Hotsprings Mountain Range. From there we traveled due north on a well used dirt road, up to the rough dirt tracks going closer to Fireball Ridge. As there is plenty of evidence of old mining, poleline, and asundry trails in the area near the ridge......
......I love the geological features of Fireball Ridge; which include the decaying limestone at it's lower elevations evident of the early prehistoric seas once here, and plenty of volcanic basalt layers establishing the igneous nature of the mount, and best of all a niche carved out and then filled with red and pink and purple sediments that filled the cavelike hole with the eroded and colorful sands thus derived thru the eroding tidal actions of the waters of the ancient Lahontan Lake that was here following the decline of the ice ages in far more recent times......
......Red Cave, as I call it, is hardly visible until you are right there going up the very steep southern face of the mount. Since I enjoy looking for caves of all kinds with hopes of making my own achealogical discovery for artifacts of ancient or prehistoric man, this feature caught my eye when I originally discovered it. And though I didn't discover any signs of early habitation or use by early people, I very much enjoyed the high up solitude there sitting in the cave looking out afar, and the colorfulness of this geological feature in this very arid region....
......Ally and I hiked up to the cave in relative short order, and enjoyed the sights and shooting many photos, before descending to continue on with our adventures.....
...NAZELDA MINE SITE.....
.....I wanted to explore some areas north and west of the ridge, from whose peak we could see some old roads or trails in the distance. Looking for and following trails going up into the Truckee Range, and from data garnered from old maps, there was evidence of an old mine called the Nazelda somewhere into the mountains there...
.....Soon after a short and bumpy trip into a canyon, there was the evidence of the old mine with tailing piles, mine roads, and here and there old remains of human activity of lumber and tin cans. Greeting the many range cattle grazing here and there, with efforts not to frighten them, we continued on into the ascending canyon mining roads finally to come out on top to see much more signs of mining in some old shack, and various delapidated buildings, an old stone and cement foundation, a headframe, and some shafts and tunnels. Exploring only slightly the open tunnel, we discovered some old ore bags of fine crushed ore (obviously left because of dropping or no values in their possible contained treasures).....
....We took many pictures for awhile, and collected up a few pounds of rock specimens, and then concluded our days travels; heading back to civilization and the Fernley Pizza Shack for a cold beer to wash away the dust in our parched throats. It was another great day of outdoor adventure and fun with my dear wife......
......Hoping ya all enjoy this adventure. Happy trails to all until we meet again. Erik and Ally. Out.....
....PS: There are lots of pictures in my new albums "Red Cave on Fireball Ridge" and "Nazelda Mine Site", for your viewing enjoyment. Ty...

Anyone interested in hunting or finding meteorites. After many years of hunting old gold prospecting areas (mines, streams, etc.) my prospecting buddy and lifelong friend and myself have started hunting meteorites. He has found quite a few in Poland and we are now hunting in the U.S. Anyone know of areas in Arizona (not Gold Basin) or New Mexico where you can hunt and not violate any mining claims?

....Part Three: Finally Finding Nevada's Salt Caves With The Cave Paintings........
11/04/11....Howdy pardners. On a very cold 25F degree Friday morning, my brother Dana came out from Reno-Sparks to join me one more time on a quest to find the Salt Caves. My dear wife Ally was not with us this time, as she was taking care of important family business in SC, and I missed her. But time is often of the essense, so I was heading out on another adventure. Dana arrived and we had breakfast at the Silver Strike's diningroom, then headed out south for Buckland's Station and entering the old Historical Pony Express Trail there, headed east for the Carson Lakebed about 15 miles away. I headed east, looking all the while for any decent trail heading more NE in direction to the area on the eastern slopes of the Dead Camels where I was sure the topographic map was showing the steep terrain on the western most edges of the old dried Carson Lakebed. So I followed my hunches, all the while my brother exclaiming here and there how amazed he was once again at my sense of direction and recognition of familiar geological sites that the trails passed through. Eventually we passed through Simpson Pass, and I knew we were not long from the old lakebed that we soon arrived on. Dana having not seen this particular view of the Lahontan Depression was excited by it, and here and there in his chatting about what he was observing he expressed examples of geological knowledge that he was learning from me, aswell the extra research he was now recently doing to answer more questions. In trying to decide where the Salt Caves were on the eastern most slopes of the Dead Camels that we were now viewing, and beginning to drive northerly through the untrailed desert there; We soon came to the boundary fenceline of the Fallon Naval Air Station Bombing Range. Knowing there always seem to exist trails around these areas, I turn right heading directly east at that point, telling Dana what I decided to try and do to cut time from finding our objective.....
.....Heading east toward HWY95 just south of Fallon. Soon we came over a ridge taking us down into the dry Carson Lakebed, and stopping a minute, I pointed futher east across the Carson Sink to where we could see Grimes Point, and where Hidden and Lost Caves are, and where Wonderstone Mountain is not far beyond it; and Dana was able to imagine how I often decribe what it must of looked like hundreds of years ago to the ancient and early peoples inhabiting this area. Soon we successfully reached HWY95 and headed north on it about five miles to Lone Tree Road that I turned west onto, and we continued towards the now closer, and closer Dead Camel Mts. and Salt Caves. Pretty soon we were past the ranches and crossing the thru road across the Navy's range, and in approaching close to the Dead Camel Mts., we could see where the steep eastern slopes below a little plateau with canyons seemed to look like the lines on the topo map where it indicated the Salt Caves, and we were soon there enjoying this amazing historical and geological feature.....
.....It was so neat. The caves were apperantly originally etched out by tidal action and erosion, and then covered with the precipitation of the calcium carbonate into tufa, and then eventually inhabited for probable generations by the early tribal hunter gatherers once the water lever had subsided enough; but eventually once dried up enough, the area was being less inhabited upon the arrival of the first american settlers around the 1850's. Regardless the main cave was full of the red pigmented indian paintings. There were dozens of dots, and lots of wavy lines, and circles with dots in them, and a scant few paintings depicting birds, bugs, or wildlife, and one or two looking somewhat like human forms. It was very exciting for me to see as always, as I love seeing these remnants of earlier human habitation. Finally as 4 PM rolled around, and I knew darkness would be soon upon us, we headed home satisfied at the end of our quest of Nevada's Salt Caves with early indian cave paintings..........
....Conclusion: The Joy Of Adventurous Quests....
11/06/11.....At the end of our third quest to find the Nevada Salt Caves we were successful, and what a glorious sight it all was. The adventurous mishaps, and comeraderie spent with my wife and brother were more joyous moments in the life and sagas of Ally and Erik's Wild West Adventures. Also the experiences of seeing these oft remote sites that everyone should enjoy the knowledge of. I again invite any of my readers to come to Nevada and enjoy my daytripping tours full of fun, adventure, history, natural sciences, and local lore. Happy trails to you all, until we meet again.......Erik/Nam

....PART TWO: THE CONTINUING QUEST FOR THE SALT CAVES......
10/29/11.....about two months later as summer's extra heat has faded, and fall's cooler temperatures making mornings more chilly requiring some extra warmth, we headed back into the Dead Camels looking for the Salt Caves. I decided on a different approach this time, and took us past the dam at the resevoir halfway to Fallon, and we went up over the Camels back coming out on the northern end of the big alkali flat where Hooten Well is at where it meets the old pony express trail. I decided to go easterly on the northern most trails criss-crossing the Camels with hopes of easily spotting and identifying the correct trails leading most quickly to the Salt Caves. Of course we ended the day thinking we had only failed once more as we ended up in a rather tight and impassable little canyon that we strongly hunched then was just over the hill from the caves. At least we became more familiar with the whole of the Dead Camel Mountains, and eliminated more trails or canyons not to go into. We did see some more interesting geological examples of course, the highlight being some rather remarkable well jointed columnar basalt at the top of the canyon, and I collected up about five pounds of interesting botryoidal chalcedony pieces some including attractive common opal........

......PART ONE: SURVIVING IN THE DEAD CAMEL MOUNTAINS.....
08/20/2011.......It was a clear morning with promise of cooler temperatures of maybe a high of 85 degrees, as I and my wife Ally and my younger brother Dana headed south on HWY 95A, towards Buckland's Station next to the Carson River. I had planned on getting on the Old Pony Express Historical Trail near Buckland's Station, and heading NE toward the pony express station ruins at Hooten's Well some 7-8 miles along long dry dusty dirty trails, and then heading due north along a high tension tower road heading straight up into the Dead Camel Mountains. They are named after the fact that some early settler found dead camel or camels around the hills of the range, so it got that name. There were camels around for a few years after the army closed the nearby Fort churchill down by the Carson River that had experimented with the idea of using camels for the cavalry battalion that was stationed there from 1860 to 1870 at which time it was deactived. The camels were just let go to run wild, and the post was sold at action at which time Samuel Buckland bought it and salvaged all he could to expand and make his stagestation, pony express stop, and tollbridge, a success for his family. Sadly before long most of his family including wife and children I believe all perished from illnesses. So that is the Camel Mountains name origin........
.........The distances were not so great from civilization and paved roads, but it is the near and wild remoteness that relatively few people explore except for four-wheelers and quad-runners and dirt-bikers. From some of the higher peaks within the Dead Camels Range like Red Mountain at 5300 plus feet elevation, and The Nipple at 5000 plus feet, it is possible to see the spreading expanses of both agricultural/military Fallon to the east, and the working class/retiree's bedroom community of Silver Springs next to Lake Lahontan Reservoir on the west, that make up this area of eastern Lyon county and western Churchill counties near where I and Ally live. To me it is always an adventure to explore and re-explore these regions looking for new minerals, or prehistorical artifact treasures like I have discovered here before. I always like to take friends or clients on these usually fairly short day-tripping adventures to teach others the joy of our Nevada backroads and outback. Thus this day trip was starting out on a beautiful late-summery August morning........
........So with intentions of following the electrical towerline road north from the Hooten Wells pony express station ruins historical site, and then northerly we headed to another fenced and corraled livestockstation with a shack stopping momentarily for a pee and water break, and then headed for the Dead Camels to explore for rocks and arrowheads, and find the Salt Caves with the indian cave paintings . It should of taken up several hours before we would tentatively go north over the Dead Camels on the electrical towerline road, ending up at the south end of Lahontan Dam at the Lake Lahontan Reservoir State Parks and Recreation Area, and then ending the daytrip....
.....It was a beautiful day with just slight breezes kicking up devilwinds, as I drove us along in my HUMMER H3. I followed dirt tracks that seemed to be showing on my Nevada DeLorme Atlas wanting to circle around the Dead Camels in an easterly direction, and then deeper as possible into the guts of the Dead Camels......
......It appeared likely that early peoples inhabited these areas that were much wetter and more bountiful in past ages before current history, I know this is true because of found artifacts from earlier expeditions here....
.....At some point after it seemed that we were getting into the heart of the Camels, and I continued to follow old dirt tracks that seemed more safe and established, soon we were ascending around and thru a little valley, and up onto a ridgeline that ascended to a little plateau where there seemed a nice view. Alighting from the vehicle we all enjoyed the views and noted that we could see Silver Springs and Lahontan Reservoir on the west, and behind us was Fallon over to the east. Ally was taking some photographs, and I was showing and dechipering the habits of a local desert mouse to my wife and brother. We seemed so far away from everything, yet were still relatively close to it all. Soon we were ready to jump in the rig and head off, when somehow while answering a question, I got distracted and rolled onto a high rock and got stuck. At first it seemed hopeful, but I only got more stuck or impaled upon this high rock. After some effort using the car jack, and piling rocks under one of the tires, it didn't get any better. I was REALLY stuck.......
.......We seemed to have pretty good cell phone reception where the HUMMER was stuck, and so I called my son at home to ask for his help. My son was totally unfamiliar with where I was talking about, as was my adopted son Jay home on leave from the army. After talking awhile, they agreed to get in my other HUMMER, and try to come find us and pull us out, but they did not seem very sure of where they were going to go. So after describing where we were, I decided that I would hike back out toward Hooten Wells with hopes of spotting them as they might arrive to find us. Asking Ally and Dana to keep in contact with the boys on their way and me, I headed directly south hiking to Hooten Well guessing it to be about 5 to 8 miles back. I had my cell phone with about half a charge, and two bottles of water and one of vitamin water, when at about 1:30 just past highnoon I began a forced march out of the hills, and asking Dana and Ally to stay with the rig....
........Of course things began to get in further trouble as sons Sky and Jay couldn't find or figure out how to get to Hooten Wells easily. And after arguing about it, Sky decided to stay home and let Jay try to find us. Now I had originally thought that my boys knew this whole region better and could find me, but unbeknownst to me that they had no real land navigation skills as yet. Anyway while I was rapidly hiking on towards Hooten Wells at a rate of about thirty minutes a mile, and Ally and Dana were trying to communicate with the boys and me both to keep me/us on track, my phone began loosing it's charge and ability to make contact anylonger, and the boys were having no immediate luck at finding the pony express trail, I finally in several last broken calls managed to tell Ally to call 911 and the sheriff for rescue, as this was all starting to look very bad perhaps. I soon lost all contact, and knew that I had already covered about three miles thru sand and sage and brush in the increasing heat around 90 degrees. Using all my survival skills, I doled out my water slowly while continuing to hike southerly as fast as I could. My bad left foot/ankle was slowing me down some with increasing pain, but I continued on as quickly as possible. Trying to stay somewhat in line with where the HUMMER was stuck with Ally and Dana, I wanted to get up this last ridge so that I might see anyone driving NE on the pony express trail towards Hooten Wells. Ascending the last ridgline I could see a dust trail coming from Buckland Station, and knew I had to hurry on to Hooten and give directions to whomever it was as to where we were stuck. I could only walk so fast, and disappointedly watch as first one dust trail, and then another approach Hooten Well, and then continued off easterly towards Fallon. My phone now totally dead, and my fluids running shorter and shorter, I knew things were beginning to get much more serious for me. Back at the HUMMER Ally and Dana should be alright because the gas tank was full and the air-conditioner worked fine, and they had plenty of water/fluids and snacks for awhile; and mostly their phones worked and could be charged. I continued on hiking as rapidly as possible toward Hooten Well. Finally I got down to the alkali flat I had erroneously thought just a mile from Hooten, but now realized it still three or so miles distant, so I just kept on hiking as fast as possible while using all the survival tricks I know. Before long as I was steadily but very slowly getting nearer Hooten wells, I could see first one light colored vehicle ahead of a dust trail, and then another, after a while I could see a darker vehicle following up behind the first two. After about ten minutes they had all come about three miles closer, and I could see that there were two white sheriff's 4x4's, and then my black HUMMER. In a few moments I thought that they went too far and past Hooten heading towards Fallon, then they seemed to turn around and head back and then turn northerly towards me. I was now stoked, but had to nearly run towards them waving my arms for at least a half mile trying to get any of their attention to no availe as they finally had passed me and disappeared to the north from which I had just come three or four miles I think. Then a mile or so across this huge river flood plain above and easterly of the Carson and near where we live heading toward Hooten then running fantically waving my arms and missing them all, and following behind their trackes believing that at some point they would come back the way they went, knowing where it went. I walked back north as fast as I could, hoping for the best. My last water was down to an inch or so, and I sipped it lightly wetting my whole mouth and swallowing the fluid ever so slowly. Time was seeming shorter, and I knew I must give up, continuing walking as fast as I could. When I got to the most established trails I built 3 "cairns" here and there and in one place spelled out "HELP" in dark rocks. I continued walking as fast as I could. At some point in twenty or thiry minutes I would guesstimate, I saw the three vehicles disappear over a hill three or four miles away and probably pretty close to Ally and Dana and my green HUMMRR, but they came back without it but toward me, and I was ultimately safely spotted by them all in minutes and the first Ranger upon me offered me some Gatorade which tasted wet and cool. I was safe and it was about four thirty. I believe I hiked at a forced march for about six miles in three hours to rescue my party.....

......I have been out of sorts for a little while now while dealing with agent orange caused prostate cancer that I am really hopeful of beating. And I am also adapting to a new life with a new wife( with a master's in Geology and a kid's nature of curiosity still), that keeps us very busy and still collecting rocks......
......Our little "rock shoppe out back" allows us to keep busy cutting and slabbing, and finishing many new mineral projects while learning to use the equipment and it's limitations......
......Particularly fun has been the neat and beautiful "Nevada Wonderstone" Jasper that we collected lots of several times now over at Wonderstone Mt. and Yellow Mt. near east of Fallon.......
.......The other day we took a little daytrip to Lovelock NV and the Lovelock Cave(used by early peoples from 4000 to 150 years ago), which is etched out of the guts of a small Calcium Carbonate hill that seems to be largely composed of the minerals Limestone, Marble, Dolomite, Dolomitic Marble, and inter laying stratas of Calcite, Gypsum, and Quartzy blends; encompassed amid ancient volcanic beds of Rhyolite and Basalt, with some presence of harder Granitic stuff that quartzes, felspars, and biotites are easily seen with the naked eye. It was a great trip that only make us both more curious for more adventures......
.......Anyway, I welcome everyone. And wish to talk to ya all again soon......Nam

If anyone is interested in coming to South Dakota to go rockhounding please check out www.wdgms.org post a message and someone will get in touch with you.

In this area that we live in Northern Michigan, we have a unique stone found nowhere else (that I know of) It is called a Petoskey Stone. It was originally coral found in the Great Lakes. Actually the Great Lakes must have been larger than they are now because they are sometimes found inland.
Its a fun summer activity, walking on the beaches looking for stones. They are hard to find because until wet they look like a grey stone.

When polished they look like this and you dont need a tumbler to do it.



In the raw state its easy to miss