Saturday April 19 was the day that the Owyhee Gem and Mineral Society was going on its field trip to the Pink Plume Agate claim near Adrian in Eastern Oregon. Man this was going to be a fun trip as I have never collected Plume Agate before. The Agate we were going to be collecting was rumored have Red, Pink and Green Plumes wow no Grave Yard Point Plume here.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
Well like normal I awoke at 6:00 a.m. after getting off work late, matter of fact 5 hours previous to leaving for the Pink Plume Agate claim. So needless to say Jason was a very tired rock hound nothing a good old rockstar could not cure.
 
 
This trip I was going to be bringing a friend Peter who lives down the street and good old John. Well after picking them up we were off to O’connor Field House in Caldwell Idaho to meet the rest of the group. 68 members attended this dig and at 8:30 a.m. a convoy of vehicles were in route to the Plume Agate Claim in eastern Oregon.
 
 


The drive there was not that bad until about 3/4 of the way in. The road in spots has 6 to 8 inches of fine silt which makes for a very dusty drive. Also the last half mile into the Pink Plume claim you would need a high clearance vehicle, 4 wheel drive or both.
 
 
By 10:15 we had arrived to the Pink Plume Agate Claim in Eastern Oregon and it was time to start collecting. Once again as in every other rock hounding trip soon as I jumped out of the Jeep there were specimens every ware. So we grabbed our buckets and our rock picks and headed down the hill. I find it funny that the best stuff is always at the bottom. Also a word of wisdom never fill your bucket until you have reached the bottom of the hill. The reason is your bucket will always be full when you get to the best stuff.
 
 
All of the Plume Agate that you could ever want was just laying on the surface ranging from small rocks to 1 ton boulders thats right boulders. It did not take but 2 hours of searching before we had found the pieces that we wanted. Oh and Peter decided that he wanted a 100 pound boulder that was at the very bottom of the hill. I would say he spent a good half hour hauling that darn thing to the Jeep.
 
 
One thing you should know if you are going to be collecting Plume Agate is wear leather gloves. The reason I say this is I happened to take off mine and just barley touched a piece of Plume Agate and gashed my palm open. The cut was good enough that I had a quarter size blood stain that soaked through my gloves. So remember to always carry a first aid kit when rock hounding.
 
 

After getting all of our Plume Agate to the Jeep we decided to eat lunch and rest. We some how got this thought in our heads that we were going to go to Succor Creek to collect Thundereggs before we went home. So at about 2 p.m. we headed out to Succor Creek, about 20 minutes in to the trip we decided we were just to tired to make it there. So John and I decided to make Succor Creek our next trip which will be in 2 week.
 
 
Well after driving a total of 150 miles round trip we made it to Johns house. John was nice enough to open his garage and fire up his rock saw for me to cut a few pieces of Plume Agate that I had collected. I cut about 3 pieces and decided it was time to go home.
 
 
I’m really glad we decided against going to Succor Creek as I arrived home at 6:00 p.m. and I was dead tired. Matter of fact I was in bed a 7 and slept for 13 hours. To rate this trip I would give it about a 6 out of 10 the only reason I gave it such a low score was I don’t have a rock saw to cut my finds and Plume Agate is something that just needs to be cut to appreciate it.
 
 
Here are a few more pictures of the trip. There is a really cool convenient store outside of Adrian in Eastern Oregon. The thing is made of Petrified Wood, Thundereggs and Jasper.