Wednesday, March 08, 2006

 

Hansen Creek Quartz Crystals

Open Property?
Last year I developed a 'hankering' for small, perfect quartz crystals. I gave up my quest for large, thumb-sized honkers and concentrated on well-formed, nicely-terminated clear miniatures. The object of my current desire is located on Hansen Creek, along I-90 outside of Seattle, Washington.

The Hansen Creek site is well-known to Pacific Northwest crystal-seekers. Bob Jackson mentioned the locale in volume 4 of his epic series "Rockhound's Guide to Washington" which is out of print and hard to find. Here's some of what Bob had to say back in 1992:

"I think every crystal collector in the Northwest has been to Hansen Creek to search for amethyst scepters. In the 12 years since I first published the locality, the scepter area has gone from having a few piles of screened dirt along the roadside to hundreds of major excavations, some large enough to park a Volkswagen underground! Yet it seems most everyone has stayed within the boundaries of the traditional areas, now administered by the Mineral Council. Less than a mile from that locality are two others which produce strikingly different quartz crystals, including Japan Law twins."

Said another collector on the Rock-Net discussion board:

"Have you been to Hansen Creek? It is on the west side of the I-90 pass. It is on the south side of the road by Denny Creek exit. One and a half miles in to the trail and one and a half miles up the trail, it can be driven with a pick up. There are about 200 holes in the side of the mountain, pick one or make a new one. The Mineral Council does not mention this dig because people tunnel under old Doug fir stumps and make caves, dangerous! You can fill your pocket in a day’s dig, with the best crystal being the size of your little finger, or you may get better! All colors depending where you dig. The Mineral Council has a map for sale for 6 bucks which has 20+ DIG SITES IN IT. Go to Washington State Mineral Council for a list of trips. (From joelzpol - June 14, 2005 at 10:48:52])

[Cite: http://www.rockhounds.com/rocknet/messages/37938.shtml

Compare that optimistic paragraph with this note posted by Chris Rylands in 1998 on his Washington State Rockhounding site:

"The Hansen Creek collecting area has been closed to collecting permanently. This closure is to take place immediately (8/15/98). The Washington State Mineral Council (WSMC) has dropped its claim in the area and is strongly recommending that no further collecting take place. There are two other claimants in the area and they will not allow the public to collect without permission.

"A number of recent incidents have precipitated this action. The latest incident involved two individuals who were collecting crystals and were "bugged" by the numerous mosquitoes and biting flies that are always present. In order to keep the bugs away these idiots decided to start a fire in the area in which they were digging. As anyone living in the Seattle area knows the last several weeks have been very hot and the fire danger in the forest is extreme. Someone noticed the smoke and within a very short time the King County Sheriff's department, the Fire Department, the Forest Service, and several other emergency vehicles were descending on the Hansen Creek area. After about an hour of bushwhacking through the undergrowth, the culprits were confronted and the fire extinguished.

"It is due to this sort of irresponsible behavior by these "crystal freaks" that the WSMC has decided to drop its claim and recommend that the area be closed to collecting by the general public. Anyone witnessing illegal mineral collecting at Hansen Creek is advised to report it to the North Bend office of the Forest Service at 425-888-1421. Once again the stupid acts of a few individuals have ruined another popular collecting site. "

[Cite: http://www.washington-state-rockhounding.info/Trespass-index.htm]

Well, I got to poking around and contacted Robert O'Brien at the Mineral Council. Here are the contents of his March 9, 2006 email, although I edited very slightly:

"For digging at Hansen Creek there is a long and sometimes gory history. The initial crystal areas were found when the road cuts were being put in. Since the crystals are in a slump (slide) zone on the shoulder of the mountain, Bob Jackson passed the info on to the Mineral Council and a placer claim was filed. The reason Bob passed the info on was because he saw no real economic value to the crystals vs. the labor to get them and the amount that can be collected. On one of the field trips, one of the people, Higley, saw an opportunity to take the claim away by calling it a Lode Claim. He then filed on it as such.

"Also another group filed on the upper road (Zeckster). The Mineral Council battled with Higley over the right to collect crystals and the validity of the claims was questioned several times. In the meantime, other people continued to enter the area and collect crystals. There were many large holes dug and at one point you could see one of the holes from the freeway as you drove by. The Forest Service started making noises about reclaiming the area and the Mineral Council, which was about bankrupt, decided that it was not feasible to the members to task them with a bill for reclamation, especially when most of the digging had been done by others who had no connection to any rock clubs. Thus it was decided in a full Mineral Council meeting to officially relinquish any claims in the area and declare the area closed as a rockhound site.

"THAT DOES NOT MEAN THE AREA IS LEGALLY CLOSED

"The Forest Service has always stopped just short of saying it is closed. Currently as soon as the snow goes away people still go up there and collect. The access is still pretty good. Basically you drive east on I-90 to Exit 47... At exit 47 you turn to the right and go about 1 block. The road intersects a "T" and you turn right again.... You are now heading west on a well travelled dirt road. After about 2 miles there is an intersection with a road to the left. You will turn on this, so you are heading south and up a canyon..You will go under the trestle and about 1/2 a mile past that you will see an overgrown road to the left. You would park there and walk down the road approx 1/2 mile again. Near the end of the road it degrades into a trail and from that point on crystals can be found on the uphill side in the dirt. About 5 - 10 % will be amethyst.
Good luck
Bob OBrien"

OK! So now I'm feeling pretty good about this trip. I'm thinking I need some geological information, so from MinDat and http://www.washingtonminerals.com/hc.htm I pulled the following together about the Snoqualmie Batholith:

"Snoqualmie Batholith - Miocene (20 Ma). Uplift and erosion of the Old Cascade Volcanic Arc exposed plutonic rock of the Snoqualmie Batholith near Snoqualmie Pass. Intrusive rock types found within the Snoqualmie Batholith range in composition from granite to gabbro. Granodiorite is the most prevalent exposed rock type. Other lithologies within the batholith include porphyritic dacite, andesite, aplite, and intrusive breccia (Livingston, 1971).

"Intrusive breccias can be the host for metallic ore deposits and aesthetic mineral specimens. An intrusive breccia is a cylindrical structure that is formed by the violent ascent of volatiles near the top of a shallow intrusion as it cools. The force of volatiles escaping to the surface causes the rock to fracture and fault, providing open spaces for subsequent mineralization by hydrothermal fluids. These high temperature acidic fluids are responsible for the alteration of plagioclase to muscovite and clay within the adjacent granodiorite breccia blocks and for the precipitation of quartz and metallic ore (usually as sulfides) on the walls of the blocks. Most intrusive breccia metallic mineral deposits within the Snoqualmie region are currently uneconomic due to poor accesibility and/or the low tenor of the ore (Cu, Au, Ag), but many mining claims are still active that produce some of the finest quartz and sulfide mineral specimens in the world.

"Mineral localities within the Hansen Creek area are either breccia exposure or slump zones derived from breccia. There are a number of collecting areas existing within a relatively small area that comprise the Hansen Creek locality. Some are privately claimed. The claim owners do not allow collecting."

Well, it sounds like there is plenty of opportunity to poke around without trespassing. My tentative plan is to head up the weekend of April 14. We'll see how lucky I get.

Comments:
It's like my Home
Doug Holden
Road was Blocked with Boulders
some pushed out by those so called CRAZY CRYSTAL HOUNDS
Legends they were for a day
maybe eh
the Boulders Now Safly back in place to keep idiots and fat trekers who drive in and leave even the worst waste
I say hey hey let us have our Stones
But lets save the
well we gotta save something so this year as soon as the snow melts
well that'll be too late
probably could have made a good haul a few weeks ago before we got Snow.
well Grant S Cooper Forest Service left his card on all the cars and a note saying - You have 24 hours to ... So no more cause to drive in
it's not a bad Hike and The boulders are just there for all to see
Namaste
Oh And I got two HUGE Scepters/amethyst

2006/2007
Grand Daddy and Papa
Namaste
Enjoy
Its a couple areas up there Some hot Zones from the lower trail as big as your thumb/pyrite inclusions-rare?down there
Upper Hanson(BUTTERFLY?) the mile away claim-unclaim
Lots of inclusions up there and still actuall water clear and scepters and VUGS at both upper and Lower Hanson
as well in between at the5510/BOB Jackson wrote about the Green/ apophyllyte/andesite, argh ROCK
Thanks U. S. forestry service for doing your best
Douglas Jay Holden
Namaste
Snow melts
as soon as I have gas or a bike and my dog or I canor both can go
SNOW!
the trees and the holes and a Secret Fire CRAY DAMN CRYSTAL HUNTERS!
HAHAHAHA
IT might have been a mole I may know
UDO?
HOODO
IDK no UDO!
ARGHT!
 
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
I love going out to Hansen creek to look for amethyst...I can't wait till it warms up a little and the snow melts! You should go check out my new blog about Hansen creek at http://hansencreekquartzcrystals.wordpress.com. I've post some pictures of my best finds, check me out! Nice site thanks for the good read!
 
I love going out to Hansen creek to look for amethyst...I can't wait till it warms up a little and the snow melts! You should go check out my new blog about Hansen creek at http://hansencreekquartzcrystals.wordpress.com I've post some pictures of my best finds, check them out! Nice site thanks for the good read!
 
I have alot of experience collecting at this site. Mostly from about 1989 to mid 90's. Best quartz scepter I have seen from this site, and I am 100% serious, was about 7" long and about 1 1/2" in diameter, with the scepter head itself comprising about 4" of its length. VERY CLEAR, top half amethyst, bottom half smokey quartz and a clear stem. Almost perfect. Nearly zero chips. Thing completely blew my mind when my freind pulled it out of the ground. It was found about halfway between the upper and lower road (1st and 2nd left after trestle) about 5 feet down between 2 boulders too big to move. I myself have found a butterfly shaped "japan law twin" that was about the size of the heart shape you can make with your thumbs and forefingers. But one of the halves is damaged with only 3/4ths left on that half. So both are clear evidence that hansen creek is capable of producing quite fine specimins!
 
Garret Romaine is a claim jumper!
 
So do I have to contact the forestry department for permission to go here ???
 
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