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MeteoriteHunting

"StoreClosed Gone Hunting" was sort of the theme we began with onMonday evening. The weather was looking more ominous but we knew from the past,that what happens on our side of the mountains is very different from whathappens in the desert. We needed a place to stay the first night so we picked aplace Paul had ridden motorcycles. Which as it turned out was only a couplemiles from one of my haunts for shooting.

We had decided to giveLucerne Dry Lake a look even though it has been extensively hunted and yieldedfew and very small meteorites. sandstrm.jpg (12885 bytes)Thetotal in fact is only little more than one hundred grams in more than thirtyyears. The wind was gale force when we got there and as the picture shows thedust was covering the lake bed part of the time. We spent the morning of ourfirst day there hunting and getting a feel for the  Lawnmower.jpg (70520 bytes)lake beds again. Likemaking some ritual connection again with the spirit of the hunt. We arequite sure that we have discovered why the meteorites at Lucerne are small. Itis because they are cut regularly before they can grow up. When we saw thislawnmower out on the lake we simply had to stop and take pictures.

We headed down Highway 247 toward Barstow and without knowing it found ourselvespassing the BLM Field Office. I said "Paul I think that is the Old Woman inthe window." We wiped a slow u-turn, (which is the only kind you can safelydo in a long motor home) and pulled in the parking lot. We went in with camerasin hand ready to capture this gem of the Mojave for ourselves. Dscn0198.jpg (128559 bytes)Dscn0201.jpg (138862 bytes)Well,I took a picture and then wanted a real close up and to touch it so I tapped onit. The hollow thud was sure proof that it was one of the models. We knew thereal one was on display but did not know where. The receptionist told us it wasjust down the street so we headed off. We loaded up on brochures of the areafirst which came in handy later. A pair of the photos we took are included andthere is an accompanying article just on the Old Woman Meteorite and it home atthe Desert Discovery Center.

The rain was imminent so we decided tostay in Barstow and drove to the KOA east of town. The only meal we ate out tillthe end of the trip was at Peggy Sue's Diner a 50's theme restaurant, it hasbeen featuredon TV several times. After dinner we talked away some hours with my laptopplaying with pictures of the Old Woman and the scenes from the day. The rain wasintermittently beating on the roof of the motor home, but never very hard andstopped before we went to bed. Looked like we would be able to get out on somedry lakes after all.

During the next several days we huntedmeteorites until around one o'clock then ate lunch and headed off hiking tosomewhere else interesting in the area. Some pictures of how we occupiedourselves are included below. 

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We walked and hiked more than ten milesfor sure each day. Some of the lakes had obviously been hunted by others onmeteorite quests. It was mildly disconcerting that some of the lakes wereclearly posted prohibiting driving of anypar4.jpg (113372 bytes) kind by any type vehicles and yet haddeep tire or dry mud tracks next to who_shoe.jpg (122429 bytes) every black rock. Someother people had found one of the dry lakes to be the perfect location for agolf course as indicated by the sign we found in the lake bed. There were footprints in the mud so we knew some of the visitors to the lakes had been therewhile there was still water or at least mud.

Friday we spent a killerday of hiking in a long and winding rocky canyon. We worked our way all the wayup and out the top; where we ate a lunch of beef jerky, a chewy bar, and one ofour bottles of Gatorade.  Thereunder a Joshua Tree we heard a double sonic boom and looked up to see a stealthbomber and chase fighter passing right overhead. They passed by and then camestreaking back with contrails. 

We took matching GPSreadings of where we ate lunch and then went off to find a new way back to camp. Up over the side ofthe mountain and down the other and into one of the canyons that should be aboutnext to our camp. We hiked down into the canyon and about a mile in we ran intodrops off of more than ten feet that we were not equipped to negotiate. We hikedone ridge over and tried again after another mile or so the same story. We wereabout three hours from the camp now and had no liquid resources for another badturn. freshvictums.jpg (29144 bytes)Wehad taken a picture in the morning of these birds circling us and made jokes oftheir ominous meaning, now we thought again. As distasteful as it is for this pair of hikers to have to retrace theirpath to get out; it was the only wise choice we had. After a swallow of Gatoradewe sang the short version of the castaways song from "Gilligan'sIsland" altered to the three hour hike lyrics. The extra couplehours of hiking wiped us out so we did not stay up late doing astronomy andastrophotography as we had the night before. We were really having fun withour new digital cameras. We took the following pictures of the Moon, Saturn andJupiter, holding the camera to the eyepiece of a small guide scope thatwe had brought along. We can't wait till we get a mounting adapter made toattach them to our real scopes.

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Moon
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The decision of what to do the last daywas the hardest. We could spent most of it on a road that we thought from themap was paved but turned out was not. Or we could go an easy hour's drive toanother location and spend most of the day hunting. We chose the latter and as itturned out it was a great decision. About an hour into hunting our reward came asteam member Paul found a beautiful perfectly crusted individual. He hadforgotten his magnet cane and came over to use mine. I moved my magnet sticktoward him and the stone all but jumped from his hands. I had seen it in hishand and as it jumped the words were already leaving my mouth, "You gotone." 

The rest of the day yielded no morespecimens but we have a great place to go and look again. The tradition of TheMeteorite Exchange is that the one who finds buys dinner on the way home. So it was dinner onPaul this trip, but the tab may be mine next time.

turtle.jpg (106269 bytes)Wesaw many things that were new and unusual but here is a sign we had not seenbefore. As always we had a great trip with lotsof activities along with hunting for meteorites. We added a long list of storiesto tell around the camp fire for years to come.

 

As it turned out the day before Paul found his I was standing on the side of a mountain and saw at my feet a very meteorite like rock. I picked it up and said that sure could be a fragment of meteorite. So like the well trained hunter I began my normal field identification routine. I got out my diamond file and removed a little corner. Examined the spot with my hand lens and saw no metal grains. I chose not to throw it away however, thinking it was surely the best meteor-wrong I had ever found. Well the months passed and it sat on my dresser. I had never tried a magnet on it trusting the field examination. But, something about it kept calling out meteorite in my mind so finally I did bring a magnet to it and Clack! The following Saturday I put it in the saw and sliced a end piece off. There they were, both metal grains and chondrules. So next vacation I paid my debt and paid for dinner the first night out. We found more meteorites on that trip but that's another story.

Paul's - El Mirage Dry Lake 001 - H5 S3 W2 1.5gms  - New Find
Jim's - Old Dominion Mine - H4 S2 W3 44.0gms - New Find