On Sunday August 23rd, six members of the NorthWest MicroMineral Study Group took a field trip to the zeolite locality known as Rock Creek, near Stevenson, Skamania County, Washington, USA. The site is 8 miles from the Washington end of the Bridge of the Gods at Cascade Locks, Oregon. It is found by taking 5 miles of gravel road to the Steep Creek waterfall.
The locality has been around for years as a good source for mordenite in "eggs" up to several inches across. Then about 1997, a rock slide 100 yards downstream uncovered an area of boulders with slightly smaller pockets that have mordenite, orange heulandite and sometimes calcite inside. Every "egg" is different: some are all white, some are all orange, some have both, some have tiny spheres of smectite clay in the mordenite hairs, some have a second generation of clear heulandite covering the first which looks like an orange phantom. I found 6 with calcite, also.
The problem with the new collecting site is that it is on the other side of Rock Creek from the parking spot. So, collecting is restricted to late summer or early autumn. Some members carefully climbed from boulder to boulder and found their way across without getting wet. I found it safer to wade across.
It was a perfect weather day. Not too hot, not too cold, not too windy, perfect. And, I believe that a good time was had by all. Everyone seemed to be happy with what they found.

In order to leave comments to this blog post, you must be registered