Craving a quick desert escape despite punishing heat, I packed Spartan to go visit a rock collecting site I was last at when I was 18. It was also a chance to stretch my new Subaru's offroad muscles a bit. I left pavement in the afternoon near Ludlow, drove north towards Broadwell Dry Lake, then turned east on a pleasantly graded powerline/pipeline road. There wasn't a lick of shade but distant puffy clouds. Eventually the road turned very sandy, having me test the deep snow/mud Xmode, which helped but also was less responsive than I expected. Sections were two-rutted in deep sand such that I could not stop and had to maintain speed to avoid getting stuck; it reminded me of the old Disneyland Autopia ride where the track was essentially driving me and the steering wheel served no purpose. Thankfully the sand abated and the road improved. I was treated to nice views of the Kelso Dunes once I breached the saddle and began a gradual descent into the broad basin. It was a punishing 104F when I stepped out of the car and began my hike up the wash to the old strawberry onyx mine that I used to love collecting at with my dad when I was a kid.
Arriving at the mine camp, I was delighted to see the unusual flat-roofed mining shack was not only still standing, but actually had been repaired since my previous visit when I was 18. It is a novel design, made of stacked railroad ties with a chickenwire-concrete roof. I had very little recollection of the onyx collecting area itself, so enjoyed walking over the nearby hillside looking at the discarded rocks and outcrops. It is still a mysterious deposit with a roughly 2 acre deposit of layered carbonate tilted about 25 degrees to the southwest, seemingly bounded by pyroclastic volcanic rocks on all sides. My best guess from a cursory look is some sort of surficial hydrothermal deposit with an algae/cyanobacteria component based on some of the rock textures. Anyway I was mostly distracted by the beautiful banded strawberry onyx, which was focused in two bands. It was nice to see there was plenty of material scattered around to enjoy.
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| Note same corner as photo below |
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| Self-processed and printed B&W from when I was 18 |
I caught a beautiful sunset from the top of the onyx hill looking northeast towards the Kelso Dunes (frontispiece). After dark I was delighted to look around the onyx area with a UV light, discovering at least a half-dozen scorpions in the process. A subset of the honey-colored onyx had a vivid emerald green fluorescence that was fun to look for. It seemed I could potentially have been the first person that thought to search this site for UV rocks. I killed a good chunk of the night just looking around and enjoying the cooler nighttime temperatures before cowboy camping in the nearby wash.
In the morning I looked around a bit more and then headed out before the heat of the day set in. It was a quick but rewarding escape with a nice combo of nostalgia, a light solo adventure, and some neat rocks. A bit premature but had me excited to do some more desert exploring this winter.
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