The Pigmon Ranch, located between Balmorhea and Toyah, is Open NOW!
Teri Smith Rockhunts is pleased to announce the opening of the Pigmon Ranch for rockhunting. This ranch is located between Balmorhea and Toyah, on rolling hills and flats, where you can find agate, jasper, petrified wood, flint, and chert. There is quite a bit of blue agate on the ranch, and some of it has black, grey, or white plumes in it. There’s also lots of other types of agate, such as fortification agates, tube agates, water-level agates, seam agates, banded agates, and saginitic agates. And there is petrified wood, flint, and chert in great colors and patterns.
I hope to get photos and a description up on my website in the next day or so. The agates are so beautiful and varied that it will take lots of photos to give you an idea of what you can find there.
The Pigmon Ranch is about 70 miles from Alpine. It will be easy to access, as a paved county road goes right through the ranch!
Cost for the hunt is $50 per adult per day. Children are free. Rollin’ Rock Club membership is required ($10 for a single membership, or $16 for a dual membership.) Contact Teri Smith at agatehunter@sbcglobal.net, or text or call (432) 386-3431.
Schedule created on 10/7/2024. If the schedule changes, a new post will be created with the new schedule.
Hi y’all! Spring rockhunting season is here, and it’s time to round up the rock bags and oil up the wheelbarrow for some great rockhunting adventures.
This Spring my schedule will be more flexible than it has been in the recent past. Aaron Thomas has said he’s not leading field trips this spring, so I have no reason to just schedule hunts for Thursdays, Fridays, and Mondays. I’ve waited til now to send out my schedule because I’ve been trying to make contact with the 06 Ranch to see whether anyone else would be leading hunts on the 06 this Spring, but I haven’t been successful, so I’m assuming that there will be no hunts there at all. If that changes, I’ll let you know ASAP.
Instead of scheduling rockhunts now and hoping those days work for rockhounds, I’ll tell you when I can lead rockhunts, and you pick the days that work best for you and let me know. It only takes one person to sign up for a rockhunt to happen, and I love to go on rockhunts, so I will be glad to lead a trip for one person. And if you’ve got a group, so much the better. I’ve had up to 30 people with me on hunts, and everyone had a good time and found great rocks!
I’ll still be leading rockhunts on the Ritchie Ranch, the South Larremore Ranch, and East Needle Peak. Jean and Bryan Larremore will also be leading trips to the South Larremore Ranch when they can.
For further information on the ranches I lead rockhunts on, and what you’ll need to do to prepare, follow this link: http://terismithrockhunts.com/for-rockhunters/ To sign up for one of my rockhunts, send me an email at agatehunter@sbcglobal.net or text me at (432) 386-3431. Please include a phone number so I can call you if necessary. I’d prefer not to have you call me because I’m forgetful, and having a text or email that I can refer to will ensure I remember the right dates and other information.
The only requirement for my hunts in addition to the fees stated below is that you need to join the Rollin’ Rock Club. This club costs $10 per year for a single membership ($16 dual membership), and provides insurance that protects the landowner from any damage we may accidentally cause.
So without further ado, here’s my schedule:
Green= Ought to be available Yellow=Probably not available, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
Once again, the hunts will begin highway 118 south.in the parking lot of Little Caesar’s Pizza in Alpine, at the corner of Holland Avenue and Highway 118 south.
East Needle Peak
S. Larremore Ranch
Ritchie Ranch
Meets at 8 am in the parking lot of Little Caesar’s Pizza
in Alpine
Meets at 8 am in the parking lot of Little Caesar’s Pizza
in Alpine
Meets at 9 am in the parking lot of Little
Caesar’s Pizza in Alpine
Cost: $50 per
day. First bucket of rocks you collect
is included in cost.
Cost: $60 per
day. First bucket of rocks you collect
is included in cost.
Cost: $20 entrance fee and $1 per lb for cutting material
and crystals.
Leader: Teri Smith
(432) 386-3431
Leader: Teri Smith
(432) 386-3431
Leader: Teri Smith
(432) 386-3431
Regards,
Teri
P.S. I’ve still got great rocks for sale. I‘ll be cataloging
what I’ve got starting next week when I’m back in Texas, and I’ll send out an
email about that as soon as I have an idea what I have.
Note: For details about attending one of these incredible hunts, see the note at the end of this post.
The hunt at the 06 was amazing. We drove north of Alpine on 118 for a ways, out onto the flat valley. We turned right into a dirt road, and drove east on dirt roads for about half an hour. We stopped at a huge valley with a pipe-and-wire corral in the middle of a lovely set of mountains. This was a new place Aaron and James had only hunted once before. The hills were similar in height to the bluffs at the Walker Ranch, and of course steeper in some places than others. There were outcroppings of basalt here and there.
There were 9 or so rockhunters on the trip (I believe 10 is the limit) and we were pointed to a hillside about half a mile long. We could fan out enough that we would have not been able to see each another. Aaron & James handed each of us a walkie-talkie to use, and since it’s deer season, we were loaned bright fluorescent vests to wear.
At the bottom of the hills, there was a field of rocks about grapefruit to football size. There were agate and quartz crystal pieces in those fields, partly buried in many cases. As you went up the hills, they got rockier, and in some places there was grass stubble between the rocks. Now and then you’d find a patch that had several good sized agates on the surface, and more partially buried. In between those patches were smaller sized agate and quartz crystal pieces and some small nodules that were interestingly colored and otherwise marked on the outside. There were lots of worked pieces and evidence of a native American campsite. We had been advised to go around the campsites when we found them, and although the one I saw was full of broken agate and jasper pieces, there was enough good stuff all over the hills to make it easy to bypass the camp sites.
Some of the agate and jasper there looked
like material from the Ritchie. The dominant agate was
yellow/gold/brown moss in a background of cream, white, or blue
chalcedony.
The moss patterns varied from filaments of gold in lacy patterns, to
larger patches and islands of moss, to patterns as dense as the flower
garden moss from the Walker Ranch. There was enough of it on the surface
of the part of that hillside where I was hunting to fill up the beds
of several pickups. And the gold moss was ubiquitous: you would go
into and out of areas with other types of agate, but you never got far
away from the moss agate.
Along
with the gold moss on that hillside there was red moss, black plume in
cream and blue backgrounds, occasional pieces of red and gold moss, and
some really neat stuff that they call “crayola”. It looks like the
opalized agate that we found on the Ritchie, with much smaller opalized
bits in a chalcedony background, often in a regular pattern. There were
small and big pieces of that, some partly buried and a lot on the
surface. Many had surface pits that were in a regular pattern, as if
there had been filaments of aragonite or another material in the cavity
as the agate formed. Some of the prettiest colors were lavender, maroon
and mauve. I didn’t seen any ‘rind’ on any of the pieces, so they
probably came from a large seam somewhere up the mountain.
We had 3 hours there and I probably picked up 100 lbs of what I thought
was good material. Aaron wandered around collecting full bags and
buckets, which he carried back down to the cars for us. Since I don’t
carry a rock hammer, he helped me get a couple of large pieces of the
‘crayola’ agate out of the ground, then carried them down for me. On
the way back down to the cars, I followed Aaron to another part of the
hill, which was covered with beautiful quartz crystal specimens. I
picked up some individual crystals that were at least 3” long, by far
the biggest I’ve found on any of the ranches. There were lovely crystal
on agate specimens sticking out of the ground everywhere! This was one
place where I didn’t mind picking up gold moss agate!
I didn’t get to see what everyone else found, so I have no idea what was
on the rest of the hill. We got back to the car a bit late, with Aaron
carrying all sorts of nice things for me. Everyone else on the trip
were people I had taken on fieldtrips, and everyone was excited by what
they had found. Some of them were making their second special trip to
Alpine from Houston, Schertz and San Antonio to hunt for one exciting
day.
Then we drove back the way we’d come for a
while, and took a different branch of one of the roads. In about 20
minutes we were at an area that was the other side of the mountain we
had hunted before. The valley we were in now was not very wide, and
there was supposed to be good agate basically everywhere.
There was a dry creek in the bottom of the valley, and since I was
looking for the ladies’ room, I wandered into the brush in the
creekbed. There were a lot of large pieces of blue chalcedony, some
quite vivid, with gold moss or plume in them. There were different
colors of blue and grey in fortification patterns or bands, and one had a
red coating inside, all over the botryoidal surface, but only on the
surface. I found several nice pieces of tube agate: one was blue with
blue quartz crystals on the outside of the tubes, another was blue with
black and grey fortification lines at the ends of tubes and then around
several tubes. That one had gold moss that looked like it was in the
middle of the tubes on one side that was broken obliquely to the
pattern. There were also several small pieces that were spectacular!
Although there was supposed to be agate up on both hillsides of the
little valley, I never got very far up the hills. I stayed in the creek
bed for a while, then ventured only a little ways up each hillside. On
one hillside I found several large nodules (the size of one of Johnny’s
croissant sandwiches) that were orange or yellow chalcedony throughout
and really big compared to the ones I found at the Ritchie and the
Walker. I also found some pieces off a large seam agate that had a
dense pattern that included red, blue, black grey and gold, and appears
to have some plume in it.
It was there that I came across the only annoyance of the day, in the
form of an individual bee that wanted me to turn around and leave. The
bee hovered around my face and hands for several minutes until I got the
hint. Since I’m really allergic to bee stings, I took his advice and
wandered away from there. Full grown human: 0, Bee: 1.
The other hillside had some blue botryoidal pieces with crystals, a
couple of nice red moss pieces, and my trip rock: a long, narrow nodule
of tube agate with the edges broken off in several places. The
chalcedony at the outer edge of the nodule was stained yellow and
orange., and only part of the nodule was filled in around the tubes. In
the lower part of the nodule, which was solid, there were filaments of
pink that went to maroon and gold. The other end of the nodule was
quartz crystal covered tubes.
We hunted there for another 3 hours, got back to the cars at 5 p.m., and
the rocks were weighed up. I had 153 lbs., which included a very large
piece of gold moss that was covered on one side with quartz crystals.
If it weren’t for the help of Aaron and James in carrying my rocks back
to the vehicle, I wouldn’t have gotten a third as much.
Today as I was washing the rocks and sorting them, I’ve found about 10
lbs. that, in retrospect, I should have left there. But first thing in
the morning you don’t know what you’ll find later, and when you’re
finding good stuff and having it carried back to the car for you, you
don’t take much time to high grade.
My total adventure cost $213: $60 entrance fee and $153 for rocks. Was
it worth it? Oh yes! It was exhilarating, hunting on ground that had
not been hunted much before. It will be years before that particular
hill runs out of large pieces, and there are hundreds and hundreds of
hills on that ranch. Aaron and James and the other guys that were there
to help dig and carry were helpful and nice. Aaron explained a bit of
the geology to us before we started in the morning, and told us where we
should find better material. I’ll admit I didn’t understand much of
the geological information he was telling us, but his advice on where to
find the good stuff was similar to what we had been practicing on the
Walker, Singleton and other ranches. And the good stuff was indeed
there. I’ve been on a lot of field trips (over 1000 when I quit
counting), and this is one I’ll remember for many years. I’m going back
again in 2 weeks.
Regards,
Teri
Note: The rockhunts on the 06 Ranch are being led by Aaron Thomas and
James Winn VI. They begin at the Tri-La-Bite food trucks in Alpine.
They currently happen only on Sundays, and are limited to 10 rockhounds
per hunt. As of publication time, all hunts scheduled through 1/31/21
are full, and a new schedule for the Spring will be published in
February. Once that schedule is published, I will try to schedule my
rockhunts to other ranches (if indeed I am leading any) around the 06
hunts so you can come out to the Big Bend and go on hunts ion 4
different ranches in 4 days. If you have any questions about the hunts,
you can reach Aaron Thomas at noraathomas@msn.com or
roadcutgeology@yahoo.com
Hi y’all! I’m back in Alpine, Texas, in time to start field trips next week. Before the fieldtrips start, there are a couple of things I’d like to tell y’all about.First, I’ve added a new hunt on Sunday, 11/15 to East Needle Peak. Starts at 8 a.m. at Tri-la-Bite, and is $40 per person. Email me if you wish to attend.Second, for all hunts, COVID protocols will be in place: wear a mask when people are gathered, or when you are carpooling with someone you don’t live with. Wash hands with hand sanitizer (bring your own), and social distance at least 6 feet. I’m afraid that means no hugs! Mask wearing is required for the fieldtrips: you must wear a mask or you don’t go on the field trip. I’m in a high-risk group (age 65, moderate emphysema), and I really want to live through all this so I can have another 35 years or so to rockhunt. Aaron’s a bit younger than I am, so he will have another 60 years of rockhunting ahead of him, which y’all don’t want to miss!
Hi
Y’all! June is upon us, and with it the
hot weather. I’m working on my plan for
going to California at the end of June. My current thought is that I will indeed come
back to Texas this Fall to lead more field trips, probably from Mid-October
through Thanksgiving, or perhaps all the way til the middle of December. You can look for a schedule from Aaron and me
sometime near the end of August or beginning of September.
As
you know, mandates from the government to ‘shelter in place’ or not travel can
indeed cause me to change my plans, but barring something like that, I want to
lead trips this Fall to get to see everyone I didn’t get to see this Spring,
and have lots of fun picking up agates and other goodies.
Also,
I’m still selling rocks by the bucket, and shipping them out. I’ve sent over 100 boxes of agate and other materials
to rockhounds across the country via USPS, and every box has gotten there safely.
I still have agate available from the Singleton Ranch ($125 for an unsorted
bucket, $250 for a bucket where I’ve sorted two or more buckets together and
removed everything that isn’t cutting material). There are a few buckets left
of Stillwell Ranch material ($250 per bucket), South Larremore Ranch rocks
($200 per bucket), East Needle Peak rocks ($200 per bucket) and Ritchie Ranch
agate ($200 per bucket). I have mixed
agate ($150 per bucket), Agate from Mexico ($175 a bucket) and all kinds of
other goodies. You can look at a
complete list of what’s available on my website, at www.terismithrockhunts.com/rocks-for-sale/.
I hope to add selected specimens to the
list of things for sale, but I don’t know when I’ll get that done.
If
you wish to get your rocks before I head west for the summer, you need to order
them by June 15th. You can
either have me save your rocks until you can get out here this Fall, or you can
have me pack and mail them to you at the cost of $50 per bucket.
I
hope y’all have a good summer and stay well.
See you in the Fall!
The remaining rockhunts for March and April, 2020, have been
cancelled because of the public health directives issued by the Brewster County
Judge.
The County Judge in Brewster County, TX (location of all
three ranches that I lead field trips on) has expanded the recent Disaster
Declaration to include the closure of restaurants, bars, hotels, motels, RV
Parks and campgrounds. Since these
necessary services for rockhounds won’t be available, it seemed prudent to
cancel the remaining rockhunts for the season at this point. I had hoped we could avoid this, and if the
restrictions are lifted in time, we can reinstate whatever rockhunts are remaining.
I will keep you posted about changes to the existing
Declarations. In the meantime I’m still
selling rock buckets. An inventory of
the buckets for sale can be found at http://terismithrockhunts.com/rocks-for-sale/.
For those of you who have at least one bucket of rock reserved
in your name, I’m still looking for the least expensive method of shipping the
buckets to you. Will let you know when I
find it!
Regards,
Teri Smith
P.S. If you have a
hotel reservation here, you’ve probably heard from your hotel already. If not, I’d consider calling them.
Aaron Thomas and I are happy to present the Big Bend
rockhunt schedule for Winter and Spring, 2020.
Aaron has added a new ranch:
The Stieg Ranch, near Balmorhea. The Stieg Ranch is an alluvial fan, which
is relatively flat terrain, with a creek bed running through it. Both the alluvial fan and the creek bed have
every type of agate that eroded out of the surrounding hills. You can find the Balmorhea Blue agate, banded
agate, jasper, petrified wood, chert and artifacts. The fee will be $50 per person, and that will
entitle you to a 5-gallon bucket full of collectible rocks.
Aaron will be leading field trips every weekend from January
4th through the end of April. I will be gone for January, February,
and the beginning of March, and will begin my weekday hunts on Monday, March
16. I’ll have hunts every weekday during
the two weeks that constitute spring break for most Texas schools, so there
will be hunts each day from Saturday, March 14 through Sunday, March 29. Then there will be rockhunts Thursdays
through Mondays for the next several weeks until Monday, April 27. This will give y’all the longest possible
time for rockhunting on your trip out to the Big Bend, and you can pick and
choose which days you’d like to hunt.
You can sign up for Aaron’s field trips the same way you sign up for
mine: send me an email with the days you
wish to attend, and make sure to include the phone number for a cell phone
you’ll have with you. Both Aaron and I
will be leading trips to the South Larremore Ranch. All of Aaron’s field trips will be limited
to 12 people, and there’s still no limit to the number than can attend my field
trips.
All field trips this year will begin at Tri-la-Bite, which
is at the corner of Holland Avenue and Garnett Street in Alpine. It’s on the left side of the street, across
from the Sonic Drive-In.
So here’s the schedule.
Be sure to look at the start time for your field trip because they vary
depending upon the ranch. I love y’all, but I’m tired of getting emails and
calls for questions that are answered in this email, and available on my
website.
I’ve finally got a rockhunt schedule for the rest of
November and December, and there are some very exciting developments for y’all!
I’m now working with Aaron Thomas, who is a degreed mineralogist
and geologist, and a full time Alpine resident.
He and his wife Katrina run a food truck
business in Alpine called Tri-la-Bite, so he’s only free to lead field
trips on Saturdays and Sundays. He has been
rockhunting in the Big Bend for most of his life, and has several ranches
available for field trips on an occasional basis and a couple he can go to all
the time. Aaron’s very enthusiastic as
well as knowledgeable, has more stamina than all of us put together, and is lots
of fun to be around.
Because of Aaron’s schedule, I’ll be moving my field trips
to the weekdays before and after the weekends when Aaron can lead trips. This will give y’all the longest possible
time for rockhunting on your trip out to the Big Bend, and you can pick and
choose which days you’d like to hunt.
You can sign up for Aaron’s field trips the same way you sign up for
mine: send me an email with the days you
wish to attend, and make sure to include the phone number for a cell phone you’ll
have with you. Both Aaron and I will be
leading trips to the South Larremore Ranch.
All of Aaron’s field trips will
be limited to 12 people, and there’s still no limit to the number than can
attend my field trips.
For this set of rockhunts, the new ranch Aaron has available
each weekend is the Needle Peak property owned by Jan Woodward. This is the traditional Needle Peak site
which has produced great pompom and moss agates and for the past 60 or so
years. It’s west of the East Needle Peak property we’ve been hunting on for
years, and if you wish to climb up to where the agate is coming out of the
mountain, it’s rather steep. But there
is plenty of agate to be found on the flat area below the mountains and above
the creekbed. I was there last weekend
and there are spectacular things to be found!
And Jan Woodward is donating all proceeds from the hunts to the local animal
shelter in the name of her late husband Trey Woodward.
All field trips this year will begin at Tri-la-Bite, which
is at the corner of Holland Avenue and Garnett Street in Alpine. It’s on the left side of the street, across
from the Sonic Drive-In.
So here’s the schedule.
Be sure to look at the start time for your field trip because they vary depending
upon the ranch. I love y’all, but I’m tired of getting emails and calls for questions
that are answered in this email, and available on my website.
Date
Location
Leader
Cost
Start Time
Requirements
Thurs. 11/14
Ritchie Ranch
Teri
$10 entrance + $1/lb
9:00
Cash or check
Fri. 11/15
East Needle Peak
Teri
$40
8:00
Cash or check
Sat. 11/16
South Larremore
Aaron
$50
8:00
Limit of 12 people.
Cash or check
Sun. 11/17
Needle Peak
Aaron
$50
6:30
Limit of 12 people
Cash only
Mon. 11/18
South Larremore
Teri
$50
8:00
Cash or check
Thurs. 11/28
South Larremore
Teri
$50
8:00
Cash or check
Fri. 11/29
Ritchie Ranch
Teri
$10 entrance + $1/lb
9:00
Cash or check
Sat. 11/30
East Needle Peak
Teri
$40
8:00
Cash or check
Sun. 12/1
South Larremore
Teri
$50
8:00
Cash or check
Mon 12/2
East Needle Peak
Teri
$40
8:00
Cash or check
Sat. 12/7
Needle Peak
Aaron
$50
6:30
Limit of 12 people
Cash only
Sun 12/8
South Larremore
Aaron
$50
8:00
Limit of 12 people
Cash or check
Sat 12/14
South Larremore
Aaron
$50
8:00
Limit of 12 people
Cash or check
Sun 12/15
Needle Peak
Aaron
$50
6:30
Limit of 12 people
Cash only
Sat 12/21
Needle Peak
Aaron
$50
6:30
Limit of 12 people
Cash only
Sun 12/22
South Larremore
Aaron
$50
8:00
Limit of 12 people
Cash or check
Rollin’ Rock Club membership is still required for my field
trips. Cost is $10 single and $16 for a
dual membership. Membership will run
through the year 2020.
The last of the old-time rockhunting ranches has been closed. The wonderful Stillwell Ranch has been divided and much of it has been sold. Included in the sale is the old primitive campground and the hills in which we used to find marvelous agate. The black tank area to the north of the big wash has been sold as well.
The Stillwell Ranch is still open as a place to stay, with RV hookups, primitive camping, and the store. There is another ranch in the area that has expressed an interest in hosting rockhunters, and I intend to talk to them soon. I’ll let you know as things progress.
As for me, I’m in California for a while, but I may be coming back to Texas to lead field trips in Fall 2019 as well as in Spring 2020. Some of that depends on y’all. Please let me know if you’d be interested in Fall field trips, and when you’d like them. I don’t know yet if I’ll be able to do Fall trips, but if I do, I’d like to do them when as many as possible can attend. So send me an email that indicates when you’d consider coming out for hunts, and how many people would be in your group. I realize that this is all incredibly iffy, but the more I know about when y’all would come out if every thing falls together, the better I can plan.
My husband John is not doing all that well right now, but I believe the doctors are getting a handle on it and he’ll be feeling better soon. The lower elevation seems to be helping him breathe better, and his medicines need to be tweaked to what his current condition is.
Since I don’t think that I’ll be able to reopen my museum soon, I am offering for sale some of the exhibit material, including the plume agate ‘windows”. The windows are $2500.00 each, or $4500 for both. I also have two other panels that have never been displayed, one of which is composed of mostly local material, and the other of which is mostly Brazilian.
I’ve also still got agate buckets for the Walker and Singleton ranches, and Stillwell, Ritchie, Larremore, East Needle Peak and other material as well. Nothing will happen on that until I’m back in Texas, but the more I know about what you want to purchase, the better I can accommodate you.
I hope y’all are having a wonderful summer! If you’re rockhunting, or cutting previous finds, I’d love to see photos of your rocks!
Starting immediately, Teri Smith and Teri Smith Rockhunts will no longer be associated in any way with the Antelope Lodge. Instead, we will start our rockhunts in the parking lot of Little Caesar’s Pizza, which is as the corner of Holland Avenue and Highway 118 (in town it’s called Cockrell St.) in Alpine.
The reason for this change is that a current member of the Antelope Lodge’s staff accosted me in the parking lot of the grocery store, and in the ensuing confrontation said he didn’t want us to meet there anymore, and called me a name I don’t believe I deserved.
This individual’s behavior was upsetting and frightening, and I don’t want any of you to be subjected to the same thing. Because of this treatment, I ask you NOT to stay at the Antelope Lodge when you come to Alpine for rockhunts. After we sold the Lodge in December 2017, I continued to start my rockhunts at the Lodge and recommend the Lodge as a place to stay as a courtesy to the new owner, even though rates had been raised quite a bit. Apparently the new owner does not need or want the revenue generated by rockhounds.
If the staff of the Lodge doesn’t want rockhunters on their property, as I was told, then we ought to take them at their word and go someplace else.
Regards, Teri P.S. Before you cancel any reservations at the Antelope Lodge, make sure you have reservations at another hotel. April is very busy in the Big Bend, and I wouldn’t want you to cancel your reservation at the Lodge and not be able to find another suitable room.
