DEEP IN SEPTEMBER

Rex Burress

In the lengthening shadows of September, when finally it seemed there was relief from the 40 days over 100 degrees for 2017 around Oroville, CA, I noticed that the national low temperature for 9-16-17 was 17 Degrees F at Bodie California State Park!

The trivia stirred some memories of my first desert rock hunt in the West. Rockhound friend Lee Merrick had just added a new camper to his pickup, and since we both had been taking lapidary classes, come September we headed to the Nevada deserts to find some potential gem rocks.

Of course, we had “Western Gem Hunter's Atlas,” which featured 'Wonderstone Mountain' that had some exciting appeal, and that Nevada rhyolite site in 1959 became my first desert camp. Abundant flashy rock lay strewn all over the scrub-land, and after hi-grading a decent amount, it was on to Fernley for petrified wood, south to Coaldale for opal knobs, Candelaria Ghost Town for turquoise—a week of roaming the wide open spaces, until finally we pulled in south of Mono Lake to camp at Dead-Man's Pass, 9,000 feet elevation.

The September desert had been pleasant during our rock hunt--hottish days and coolish nights, but we hastened back to lower lands after a freezing night cold enough to freeze washrags inside the camper! Full of rocks, we tarried to see brilliant autumn aspens in Lundy Canyon, and took a rough-road swing through Bodie California State Park, with a stop at Mono Lake Tufa formations for rare thinilite crystals said to be there. There is always the allurement to find “one a little better,” thus we added a couple thin thinilite to our collections. I wondered how we would make it past the Bridgeport red nodule diggings without stopping, or the other “X's” on our map! No time left.

Bodie is fascinating with the remnants of weather-stained buildings left behind by gold miners in the remote, treeless terrain where you freeze by winter and bake by summer. The lumber to make the town had to be brought 30 miles from the Sierra timbers to the west, and who knows how the metal siding for the mine buildings was obtained!

I returned to Lundy Canyon several times in late September and early October to see the shockingly beautiful golden and orange aspens trailing up the canyon walls and along the gushing creek running from Yosemite into Mono Lake.

September was the month when I joined the Contra Costa rock club for a week-long jaunt into the Black Rock Desert, too, seeking a better rock-- the constant call that keeps the rockhound passion forever aglow, and intent, like the fisherman, to go just a little farther, or make one more cast! Also, as with bird watchers, the next one may be the best ever! Once affected with the exploring urge, only age and infirmity can slow you down, and even then you're watching things nearby.

September is a moderate month, transitioning from the summer season into autumn- preparedness for winter. You see it slowly coming on with yellowish tinges to the cottonwood trees along the Feather River. You feel the advancing change amid the lessened sunlight and morning coolness. You notice it in active birds after the summer doldrums. You know it by blackbirds gathering on the light lines; by waterfowl migrants coming and swallow migrants going. You know the aspen leaves are yellow and falling in the mountains. Some call it autumn, and others call it God.

Each in His Own Tongue

“...A haze on the far horizon,/The infinite, tender sky,/The ripe, rich tint of cornfields,/And the wild geese sailing high,--/And all over the upland and lowland/The charm of the golden rod,--/Some of us call it Autumn,/And others call it God...”--William Herbert Carruth 1859-1924