2019-01-10, 11, 18 Hauser Geobeds

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2019-01-10, 11, 18 Hauser Geobeds

On Jan 9th, after looking at the weather we decided to head for California, not much warmer but at least the sun was suppose to shine.  We packed up and went to Blythe for a couple of nights.  On the first day we decided to go to the Hauser Geobeds looking for agate and geodes.  Down the sandy road, past Wiley Well Camp grounds and just before Coon Hollow Camp grounds, we stopped down the road on the left, to an ‘opal mine’  to look for some agate gleaming among the black stones.  Found lots!  Also found the remains of an old car rusting in the hot desert sun.  We continued down Wiley’s Well Road past Coon Hollow to the first post on the right that had Geodes with an arrow pointing down a trail – so off we went down the scratching bush lined trail, up and over rocky washes finally making our way to a straight ‘flat’ trail called Ashley Flats.  (I later saw a map and it was Gerdes Road we were on which connected to Ashley Flats.  OK….. maps can be good too.)  We went right on Ashley Flats trail to the second post with that name before turning left through another wash with scratching bushes along it.  We decided to park in an open flat area and got out to look around.  But we found nothing so continued to a whitish hill with a very rocky trail.  We stopped at the top looked at the other trails in the distance debating on what to do next.  We decided to go back to Ashley Flats and drive a bit further on that road but after passing a camp with several trailers and a few no trespassing signs we turned around.  We decided to stop at the Ashley Flats sign and go down to the wash and hunt in there for awhile.  On our way out we decided to continue on the ‘Ashley Flats’ road because it was much better than the trail we had come in on and it was going in the right direction!  So fingers crossed we carried on and ended up at the Wiley Well road in a fraction of the time it had taken us to get in!  Hmmm – shake my head.  (Who knew that was the road we should have taken!)

On January 11 after our visit to Corn Springs petroglyphs we returned by the correct easy route to pick up poor Jade’s bed which had been left in the desert the day before and for an opportunity to go back up and around the ‘white’ hill to see where the road led.  It branched off again, we chose the left path and found digging holes in the side of the hill so went and explored that area and again found nothing.  The next time we will cross the wash on the trail to the right that we had bypassed.

On January 18 we were back with friends of Karen’s and that is the trail they chose!  So off we went searching for the area that they had been in a few years ago.  We spent the day there wandering the site but found no geodes.  On our way out we saw an area to the left that had quite a few vehicles, no doubt a rock hounding group from Quartzsite, so we suspect that was the place – at least now we know where to go should we get back again.

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