Well I got up today and decided I wasn’t going to do any more chores around the house for at least a day. I decided that I needed a break and remembered an article in the December Rock & Gem magazine on a site close (15 miles or so) by that had some Botryoidal Goethite for the taking.

I called my buddy and asked if he would like to accompany me on this outing. He agreed that he also needed some time outside. Although he is not a rock collector I have dragged him along on about 10 such trips in the last 2 years so maybe he is a rock collector after all, he just doesn’t know it yet. I got out my maps and printed out directions and surrounding area maps. We studied them over breakfast and decided it was time to get out and look for some of this Botryoidal Goethite.

I showed him the old way I used to use to get into the city before the new super highways (parking lots that you can’t park on). This involves never going more then two blocks in a straight line without having to turn onto a different road. The problem with getting to the site is there is no way to get from point A to B without flying and involves many confusing turns to get there. I remembered a route I used to take when I worked in the city and it worked out fine for getting from A to C. I just had to figure out a way to get back to B. The magazine mentioned the Pa Turnpike, 309 and 73. None of those roads gives me a warm fuzzy feeling , so I had to improvise.

It ended up taking us less time to get there then it would have to get to the turnpike. We scrambled down the embankment into the stream bed. I became “Crick Walker” once again and found out there wasn’t any water in this section of the crick. There was, however, many pieces of Goethite laying everywhere. I showed my buddy what it looked like and in 5 minutes he had quite a few pieces. Then we picked up only the better pieces to fill our back packs and left plenty for future visitors to pick up. We only explored about 50 yards of the crick that’s how good the collecting was. Did I mention what the recent heavy rains can expose for us?

I had never experienced Goethite in this form before. Some of the pieces look like Obsidian since they are solid and shiny, not the usual thin layered variety I am used to collecting. I took a few pictures of two pretty clean pieces to show what they look like and I’m soaking a bucket full for later scrutiny. A couple pieces are in the 30 pound size and look like they will make nice specimens for my collection. One other piece looks like a bird in flight so I had to take that too.

 

 

When trying to get back out of the crick I had a hard time because my full pack kept dragging me back into the crick bed. By using my good old Geo Pick I was able to exit the crick bed and get back to the SUV. We spent about 20 minutes collecting and an hour talking about it before heading off home again. This was by far the easiest and one of the best sites we have visited for collecting.

This crick runs through most of Oreland, Pa. We entered off Oreland Mill Road but there are plenty of other routes to take to get into the good stuff. St Clair road even has a parking lot that is used for the little league field that is right beside part of the crick. An old Rail Road siding dead ends right a the crick also, back off Montgomery. The crick even runs underneath routes 309 and 349.

If you are in the area and want some nice Botryoidal Goethite or just plain old Goethite, you should give this crick a try. It’s dry most of the year but don’t go into it when it’s raining hard. I’ll post some more pictures next week after I get then cleaned up and some more of my chores done.

 

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