Rockhounding at Pass Creek

As most days when we travel, especially out west, we awoke early. Since we wanted to get an early start, we had toast for breakfast while Mark took the dogs for a quick walk. Jade hasn’t been wanting to walk much recently, so he came back quickly.

Pass Creek Fault

We stopped by the transfer station to drop off the garbage that we were unable to do on Monday. The lock had been cut off, so Mark was able to get rid of the garbage in the bins.

We went down the Pahsimeroi Road, turning on Fury Lane and drove by the Morgans’ ranch to Custer Road. We took it south to Doublespring Pass Road over the Pahsimeroi Range past Borah Peak, the highest in elevation Idaho at 12,662 feet.

We stopped at Mt. Borah Earthquake Interpretive Site. We had been here in 2021 but we enjoy learning about the 1983 earthquake that killed two children and caused millions of dollars of damage in seconds. The 6.9 magnitude earthquake created a scarp 60 miles long with a vertical shift as much as 9 feet. Borah Peak was raised a foot of elevation in this recent event.

We drove on to US-93 headed to Mackay, hopefully, some donuts from Royal Bakery. Sadly, the bakery was closed so we moved on toward Pass Creek. Shortly after heading down to Pass Creek, we realized there would be no gas available for most of the day, so we doubled back to Mackay to fill up and then headed for Pass Creek Road again (County 122).

Meadow at Pass Creek Summit

Several online resources informed us that Pass Creek is a good place to find geodes. We drove about a mile from the fault and stopped at a campsite along creek to look for geodes. Each of us took a different path scrambling up the side of the mountain. We all found some interesting rocks but nothing that appeared to be a geode. After about an hour of hunting we drove further up the canyon, stopping at promising sites but finding nothing. We found a pocket of quartz in a cliff face. We got back in the hole as far as we could squeeze chipping chunks of the quartz crystals. We decided that when we return here, we will bring a cordless angle grinder, headlamps, prybars and other tools to retrieve larger chunks of quartz.

At the top of the canyon, we drove through beautiful high mountain pastures of the Lost River Range. We walked around and enjoyed the view from the nearly 8000 feet summit pass as we had our usual lunch of Ritz crackers, peanut butter and apples or carrots with Tucson trail mix from Aldi.

Goldfish in Barney Hot Springs

Drove down the east side of the mountain, which was much drier and with fewer cattle. We took Custer Road to Barney Hot Springs where we fed the goldfish and other small fish that thrive in this warm spring. This small pond has 83-degree water, which is perfect for the many goldfish that have lived in the pond for at least 50 years. It is said that the spring was named for a large tropical fish named Barney that lived in the pond.

After feeding the fish, we drove north through Goldburg and Patterson, taking care at the bridge construction near Patterson. We saw a lot of pronghorns and a harrier hawk along Pahsimeroi Road.

Because the interior of Mark’s truck was filthy after three weeks of driving on dirt desert roads, we vacuumed and cleaned the interior when we returned. Mark usually takes it through the car wash in Salmon, so we didn’t wash and wax the exterior.

Mary helped Cindy and Mark cover some raised garden beds, then Mark and Steve covered some stacks of firewood at the side of the house.

We had an early dinner of leftovers: halibut tacos, elk and broccoli stir fry, and pasta with bruschetta tomatoes. The leftovers were as good as the first time around.

When we were at Lamb’s Market on Monday, Cindy bought a couple of Idaho Spud candy bars, an Idaho specialty. These are a sort of marshmallow nougat dipped in milk chocolate somewhat resembling a potato shape. The bars were a good treat.

After cleaning up from the trip, we watched 3 episodes of Dead Still on Acorn TV while we napped.