Root Farm Rockhounding Adventure 2011

This past Saturday the Santa Lucia Rockhounds conducted its annual field trip out to the Root Farm off Creston Road east of Paso Robles, CA. There we hunted for quartz crystal clusters, chalcedony nodules, agate, brecciated jasper, colorful pastel jasper and chert, petrified whale bone, petrified wood,  late 19th Century into early 20th century American artifacts as well as Chumash artifacts from arrowheads to scrapers to manos to sandstone bowls. The farm itself is centered around the restored farmhouse originally built by Colis P. Huntington in order to make the property more salable after he purchased it dirt cheap knowing the railroad would pass through the area and then turned around and sold it for much more. The restored farmhouse is located atop an old Chumash campsite. Our members in attendance had a great time as we did last year which was the first year we visited this site at the invitation of the owner of the property. Just about everything on the list of things to find here we found other than sandstone pots of which one of our members (Jason) found one last year mere feet from where I was standing. On this day he found a gorgeous black chert arrowhead in a location I had already searched. That being said I did just fine today. For a look at all my finds check HERE.

Club members preparing to search the creek.

This creek is the focus of our search and runs next to the farmhouse.

An especially rich section of the creek from which I retrieved multiple agates.

The creek features odd erosional features like shown here.

This creek is partly fed by a spring which was what drew the Chumash to this area.

Some of the chalcedony/agate I found this visit.

The colorful cherts I found this visit.

Brecciated jasper I found this visit

Horse tooth I found

These cherts I found sure look like petrified wood but are probably just radiolarian chert.

Sandstone bowls and a mano found in the creek a few weeks ago.

The aforementioned bowls and mano and an abalone shell likewise found in the creek.

The house that Huntington built (now the Root Farm house).

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)