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The Owyhee Wilderness is a vast area of mountains and desert valleys in south east Oregon. Although there are dirt roads and tracks through the region, these are few and are often rough. A favorite area in this region is south and east of Owyhee Junction called Twin Springs, Black Buttes, Mitchell Peak, and Haystack Rock.
Haystack Rock area has interesting banded rhyolites that make terrific boxes. The blue box in the map above is Owyhee Junction. Mitchell Peak Road follows a creek bed and over some hills to reach this area about 20 miles SE of civilization.
HAYSTACK ROCK
HAYSTACK ROCK
The large butte along Mitchell Peak Road is easy to spot from the road. There is a spur that goes right to the butte where lots of red matrix rhyolite can be found.
The red rhyolite is streaked with agate.
Near the butte to the north about a mile is a short outcrop where multiple colors of rhyolite can be found. Some are astounding!
MITCHELL CREEK
MITCHELL CREEK
Near Haystack Rock along the creek is a area where large chunks of stone litter the slopes. On first blush these may not look very attractive, but when you cut into these rocks there are some amazing patterns of cream, grey, brown and tans. The rock is extremely hard and polishes well. Most folks would ignore these rocks, but I find them very ineresting.
BLACK BUTTES
BLACK BUTTES
About 10 miles from Haystack Rock are the twin black buttes. They were named a century ago with an insensitive descriptor so I will just call them the black buttes. This area has agate and petrified wood. You have to walk around this area towards the east hills, but if you are willing to hoof it there are lots of big chunks of agate and sizable pieces of wood.
Big agate chucks are abundant
Lots of hillsides to explore for agate and wood
Don't count-out road and creek bed hunting
TWIN SPRINGS
TWIN SPRINGS
Twin Springs is another 10 miles from the black buttes toward the south. There is a hand pump well at the campground. There are a couple of sites near the campground down the road a few miles. One is an area with lots and lots of agates that have washed out of the porous rhyolite. The other has more banded rhyolite with thin layers of blues and greens.
Larger agates often have geode-like appearance
Most of the agate is layered silicas
There is a great deal of this material!
Sometimes you will find an odd surprises at the Twin Springs site--fossil leaves, odd looking seams of rhyolite and very hard blue jasper!
If you are looking for solace, the Owyhee outback is a good place to find it. There are few folks that wander out into the landscape although cowboys are in the area from time-to-time tending their herds. There are no amenities, no cell service, no campgrounds (except at Twin Springs), and no real signs of civilization. It is perfect!
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