Triple Eight Road Trip - Part 3

This is Part Three of the series.

Part One Part Two Part Four

Day Three ~ Lake Abert & Abert Rim/Lakeview

We started this day, Saturday, August 9, 2008, with a good breakfast at the local joint we ate lunch at the day before and then headed on up US395/Highway299 to where they split and then proceeded up US395 to Davis Creek and Goose Lake near the Oregon Border.
We pulled out along the stretch of US395 at the top of the hill overlooking Goose Lake to take a gander at the view and found our first obsidian of the trip which was fun.

We then headed on down the hill and up the road to the state line and stopped in the community of New Pine Creek and drove a short distance down State Line Park Road to Goose Lake State Park just inside the Oregon side of the border.

As we headed back to US395 from the park after our break we stopped at the intersection of the two roads and I noticed a sign standing near the northeast corner of the intersection pointing to a rock shop down State Line Park Road to the east of US395 so I proceeded on across the highway and down a couple of blocks until I found it at the northwest corner at the end of the street where it bends sharply to the north towards Church Street.

When we rolled up on the location we were greeted with the grand sight of an array of neatly organized piles of material, with the great amount being obsidians of various flavors which filled a large-sized yard.
The proprietor was out hosing down his yard full of rocks so we parked and immediately made contact with him. He turned out to be an affable and knowledgeable fellow formerly from California named Frank Newman.
He had a lot of great stuff both out in the yard as well as inside his rock shop. Good prices, too!
I must say I've never seen so much obsidian anywhere in my life which stands to reason as obsidian seems to be Frank's emphasis as he has multiple obsidian claims in the area.
My favorite variety of obsidian there was his many amazing variations of rainbow obsidian with the coolest being the electric blue as well as the lavender as well as the green flash.
What was so amazing is that these flashes weren't originating from the surface of the material but way down inside the stone.

I ended up buying some obsidian from Frank and he was very generous with his prices.
Indeed, generosity seems to define Frank as he invited us to scratch around his nearby claims for which we were incredibly grateful but lacked the time this trip.
We hope to go back and visit Frank next Summer and take him up on his offer but try to get him to go along with us.

In the meantime we and you will be able to see Frank Newman on an upcoming episode of Cash & Treasures which he told us should air this Fall on the Travel Channel.
While visiting with Frank, I asked him about the Lakeview (Oregon) rock show I had seen mentioned before in the Rock & Gem magazine Show Dates section and elsewhere.

I had been toying with trying to get into that show as I liked the area and sensed the local had a good rockhounding tradition and sensibility.
Frank looked at me matter-of-factly and said "It's today!" What were the odds?
I told him about my interest in the show and asked why he wasn't in it and he informed me that it wasn't worth his trouble given how small it is and he could make more money for less effort manning his store and given what he made just from our visit I could see he was right.

Well, that was cool, thought I, we had an unexpected and awesome visit to a rockshop that wasn't even there six years ago when last I passed through this area and then the show I was interested in attending and perhaps even participating in at Lakeview was occurring this very day I was in the area!

So, of course, we headed on up the highway directly to Lakeview, OR, passing by the Lakeview Interagency Fire Center located at the south end of town that is a collaboration of the local offices of the USFS and the BLM and the US Fish & Wildlife Service and the Oregon Department of Forestry. We headed on into town which felt surprisingly good. This town despite being in a rural and generally poor and white region has gone to a lot of trouble to fix up their downtown and make it cool and inviting and I highly recommend a visit there.

Anywho, remembering from our last visit where the fairgrounds were I drove us directly to them and we quickly found the show.
Before going inside we found some signs on a couple of buildings there that amused us and I "hammed" it up a bit.

I wasn't welcome at the Lake County Fairgrounds.

Not just a lot of "beef" but a lot of "bull", too

.

We entered the show and were immediately struck by how small it was.
Heck, it was no larger than our Cayucos Rock Show in stark contrast with how I envisioned it.
It was very folksy and small-townish which was a nice change of pace and flavor.
However, I found the selection of dealers not to my liking.
There was really only one really cool seller and the rest were mostly selling one type of thing which was okay with me in at least one case: the Oregon sunstone guy who owns a mine.
There was one other guy who had a nice cross-section of inventory but was more focused on lapidary rough than on finished products or mineral specimens which are more to my liking.
Anywho, I was too broke to buy anything and there wasn't too much I saw that I wanted which made that easier to deal with.
We picked up some grub being provided at the kitchen in the room next to the show room and took it outside and had lunch on a picnic table under a tree.

Next, we headed out of Lakeview and on up US395 to Lake Abert and Abert Rim, two geological features that don't get enough attention and respect in my view.

Lake Abert

Abert Lake is an alkali lake and thus is fairly lifeless under the water but migratory birds love it.
In fact, it is a significant birdwatching location and both it and the rim are so dramatic and beautiful that it is hard to take a bad photo of either.
This area used to hold a lot more water as recently as during the most recent ice age when a much larger lake filled the lower elevations of this entire area connecting this lake with nearby Summer Lake and others.
You can even still see the old high water marks which form concentric "toilet bowl rings" up the sides of hills in the area.
It is both easy and hard to imagine so much more water there and correspondingly more animals and Stone Age people hunting those animals for survival.

Abert Lake

Abert Lake and Abert Rim

Abert Lake and Abert Rim

Abert Lake and Abert Rim

Abert Lake

Abert Rim roadside marker

Carbonate crust at the northern end of Abert Lake.

We turned around on US395 near the north end of Lake Abert as we only intended to merely see Lake Abert and Abert Rim and leave further exploration of the area for the next time. Even had we the time I was running out of gas and suddenly couldn't remember if there was a functioning gas station at the intersection of US395 and Oregon 31 so we headed back down there and found there was a gas station but it was closed and my pickup truck was pretty much on empty at this point having neglected to check my fuel level before leaving Lakeview earlier.
This oversight would soon cost me as we ran out of gas headed southbound on US395 and coasted to a stop right as I pulled onto Deter Ranch Road (NF-3721) which had a nice big turn-out. Mom was kind enough to drive on down to Lakeview in her SUV and pick up 5 gallons of gas and bringing it back.

After I emptied my gas jug into my truck's tank we headed back on down the road to Lakeview and I filled by tank at the northern-most gas station there which, by coincidence was adjacent to the property containing "Old Perpetual" Geyser at Hunter's Hot Springs Resort so we drove over there when we were done at the gas station.
The website for the place looks great but the reality at this time is that the place looks run down and empty even during Summer and the geyser is perpetually turned off.

While we there an SUV pulled up near us and I thought the ownership/management was coming to find out what we were up to and ask us to leave as the entire place looked closed.
As it turns out it was a nice couple who stopped to look at the geyser like us but were disappointed to find perpetual silence from the half-empty pond which once contained it.
After briefly small-talking with the couple we soon learned they were rockhounds like us.
They were on a rockhounding expedition having just left dry-camping at the sunstone collecting site on public lands near Plush, Oregon. They showed us their haul which was impressive.
They also had recently visited Glass Buttes just south of Highway 20 in northern Lake County.
We told them about the rock show in town and about the rock shop south of town at New Pine Creek at the state line.

We then headed south on US395 and took it back down to Goose Lake Park for a quick pit stop and then did some rockhounding at the big roadcut at the southern end of the big hill where US395 overlooks Goose Lake.
While there we found some nice little blue agate nodules and cavities embedded within the bedrock of the road cut plus plenty of low-grade obsidian.
The entire time we were there we were buffeted by strong winds that also were kicking up carbonate sandstorms on the dry barren flats of the southern margins of Goose Lake, some of which got pretty intense and cool-looking.

Goose Lake dust storm.

Dust storms along the southern margin of Goose Lake.

Goose Lake dust storms.

Dust storm gust front just south of Goose Lake.

We then headed down to Davis Creek to check out collecting location "A" in Gem Trails of Northern California which site is now a field with No Trespassing Signs all over the place.
We didn't have time to head on up to the more popular locations at Davis Creek given the late hour.
We then tried getting to the closest-in of Mr. Newman's claims up County Road 133-C, but turned around after a short drive up the hill and headed back to Alturas.
Next year we plan to spend several days up in this area rockhounding at Davis Creek and with Frank Newman at his rainbow obsidian claims and give you an account of our adventures.
Today was wonderful and capped a great road trip courtesy of mom.
Today's sightseeing functioned as recon for next year's rockhounding adventures we hope.

Signage for The Belligerent Duck in Alturas, CA.

 All photos by Krissa Klein (all rights reserved).

At the end of the day we took a walk along the main drag of town and saw the above store sign.

Part One
Part Two
Part Four