Opening day at Rainbow Ridge 2020

[SwordfishMining]

The 2020 Opal season is off & running with a chilly day mostly overcast with a breeze. Temperature started in 40s & made it up to 50s around the occasional grappel, or corn snow. No mud other than the couple of you don't want to walk where it jiggles puddles with a crust of dry dirt. I was late to the gate only arriving at opening time. But, only 4 of us were there. Must have been the CCP Virus I guess; their loss & our benefit.

The Royal Peacock Mine opened a couple weeks ago & Donna Tim from the Kokopelli went over visiting. They said they were busy enough, but I suspect they were down from last years numbers too. Now the CCC campground was busy & 3 more vehicles drove in as I was leaving for the day. I mean 20 or so camps is what we call busy normally & this weekend usually sees over thirty, plus miners in on their claims besides the day traffic & the Peacocks resort people. They saw a woman had found a real pretty chunk of conk in their tailings.

This was the first "park" in Humboldt county & many residents come on the weekends to swim in the pond, fish & then BBQ to get out of the dry desert all around. Bog Hot springs was crowded too with people at every wide spot. Refugees from lock-up (many without manners I might add camping with 200 feet of water, even trying to block off the access with tents and vehicles across paths) which would be enforced by rangers if not on private property, but everybody thinks its government & not private. The sheriff takes care of trouble or people who think of moving in. The ranchers are nice folks and its a traditional water source for the indigenous. No facilities so the desert gets dirtied up fast behind people and the locals keep it litter clean & repaired from damming or dam damages from the "public". The only reason there is gravel in there is for the county water trucks not getting stuck in mud going to their stand pipe. But I digress.

2 piles were sold where it is normally 5 or maybe more & BOTH had black cores found that I saw. I poke thru the debris on my way out after it closes or the buyers leave for the day. There were only those 4 people & 3 other tailings diggers with me. I it was half of theirs first day so it was like having the mine to myself. It had even rained any the night before which is always a good dust remover so you dont have to rake or screen. Walking the piles was opal after opal, but honestly I have not looked at them yet. Well, a few in the water iput color or likely color in that also ctches bad throws to the bucket. I usually only drop the glass or opal into a jug of water & all the dirt, not fragile like cones or mother of opal soft woods or precious dirt clods or surface around a core which go into a bucket (which is outside now with some water in it soaking to be cleaned later after the ice melts if it froze). I dont worry about babying our rough as it is already bad mouthed for cracking. If its not a wet specimen, around me it will crack or craze if it is going to. The floating opal pieces are electric and dont keep dissolving if it decides to craze to pieces.

I was wandering with the usual slope walking gathering chunks from the tailings, chips usually. If you dont pick up the chips, you wont find the chunks. It was the usual amounts day, but my knees are not what they used to be & he had moved a lot of dirt higher around lately too making drainage. In any case, out there where the piles were probably 3-4 years old looked a little chunky eroding off as i was wandering the slots plucking opals from the walls. As the opal "ore" breaks down the bentonite boulders/clods popcorns off of anything enclosed & it is lumpy on clods not dust. Dust is a pain to look thru, beside will kill you over a lifetime with silicosis. The clods get cracks to anything encased in them as they dry.

So i raked off a little & a 5-6 inch chunk of limbcast came out, not precious but with a pastel look that said blacks were in the vicinity, so i settled in to rake. YARDS later I had 4 more pieces but nothing sparkly. As i was dumping woods etc at the truck having a sandwich, Nick & Jared from Colorado, (thought they were from Florida as that was the plates on the rental), called it a day on their pile and left for the shop. Also first timers I later found out. I wasn't all talky to anybody other than Netta out looking in the tailings & the other 3 diggers who were going thru some pile the owner had dumped out on the corner like he always does for tailings diggers on opening day. It was Sandy's' birthday & she found color I heard and saw some. I did get some glass out of that pile but nothing really sparkly or even remarkable as I like good wood replacements even if they are not precious. Didnt hear anybody find a cone & I only saw a broken half go by which I gave to Sandy as it was a soft red wood piece, not complete.

As I was raking out the last dirt in the center they had cleared away from & working out to their un broken down chunks a black core piece rolled out. I like to go to the old ground in the middle of the piles where others think there cant be anything left in the remaining dust dirt; to the point I walk where he scrapes the last days piles away for the new piles to go down first when i get there. I always look at the newest dirt first to have the best looking specimens. It is dark still from being wet. The other three poked around too finding some shards. On the way back to the truck I saw the other folks had left huge chunks so I tined a few dozen of those larger bank pieces & found more frothy glass limb casts, but nothing that was real flashy. Off to a great year as today those piles were the fresh tailings for all the folks who could only get here by today.

The opals in a jar too even tho i did show it off to Nick & Jared and Frd who was with Sandy. They had gone to the shop to buy domes for what they had found, not the other piece of what i had which was just one end of what it came off. Their big one was a large white branch 5-6" across, but i was just buying a Dr Pepper then going over to cut flowers & Rhubarb for my friends, I dont eat rhubarb generally, but i am a forager & Scott has overkill. The irises were up as were the night blooming peonies which are open for the deserts offering. I also bring my drinking water from the spring there back to Denio.

So there at the highway they were with a tire going down hissing where a chunk of obsidian went into the middle of it. They were bombing home so probably driving too fast. I go at 30 or less to not push the glass thru my threads. Rangers all run 10 or 12 plys. They graded the road with quarry material that had large crushed Apache tears in it. Thats what all the black cobble is in the road & I wouldn't put it past the last equipment operator who had a problem with me/us to have done it on purpose as he ran a tire repair business out of his home there. Retired now, but that's sort of the relationship the refuge held out to the miners or does. New rules are no digging at all. Before it was clay or dirt or volcanic gravel from inside the refuge and we rarely got f lats. Now I get a flat averaging once a month if out there daily. Wah wah.

So I stopped to see if I could help as they could not drop the spare. I inspected it and offered to plug it & refill it. Worked, but my air compressor failed so they limped in to the Diamond Inn Bar where i met them with my better new one from home. The old hose had finally fallen apart. It was a drinking afternoon as a bunch of young buckaroos were dunking each other in the beer ice bar they were washing out for the doings later on this weekend. As we were waiting for the tire to fill up to 40 lbs again, it was a truck tire in good condition they pushed a rock thru, two more cowboys got a bath from their friends except the second one knocked the thing over before they got him all the way in. Real experience for them.

Since i skipped the Bog Bath on the way home shepherding them, we went back (Bartender, grandson & friend from Winnemucca out visiting for the weekend) where we saw & ignored the path blocking etc. I do want to see what opals went into the bucket yesterday & i still have chrysocholla to clean off too. Ive been tumbling the amazonite feldspar crystals for pocket rocks. I take RAW files so i need to process them to post here. BUT i could be washing rocks. Reply to follow after I get thru things & can show it all. Wet anyway as dry isn't completely done for months until all the cachalong has finished working its evil ways along with the desert dry cracking anything that may craze. I call it guarantee replacement proofing opal rough.

I finished & there are some pretties in there. Several blacks, a chip of conk, couple partial cone casts along with the usual suspects. Tomorrow when the sun is out I'll edit them in a reply. If i could relocate my solar turntables in the clutter id make a movie of the nice one. it is less than an oz but nothing but black it and the encasement. Both with play of color.

[SwordfishMining]

Well I apparently still take too big of pics.

This is the one I had to show off. The one Nick and Jared missed.