Glass Buttes Trip - Fall 2009

Last weekend we made another trip to Glass Buttes. This time we had a bigger crew. In total there were ten of us in three vehicles, but the five crammed into the Honda were off on their own once we got there. We saw them once a few hours before we left to go home on Sunday.

The crew I hung with is pictured below: Shawn, Andrew K, Shaun, Andrew P and me. I guess I should have been named "Sean" to keep the pattern going. :) In the background you can see Big Glass Butte.


When not cooking various non-refrigerated pork products, we spent most of our time on my favourite hilltop gathering and breaking rock.


I love this hilltop because it offers modest-sized surface rocks for easy picking or mystery-sized underground rock for some extra effort. It's odd because as you walk around it's mostly grasses, shrubs, and dirt but then every 60 yards there is a stream of rocks running down the hill.


Sometimes when you dig you get a nice reward for not too much work. Shawn found this monolith partially excavated. After some work he pulled out a big'n. Sometimes you dig and hit just the tip of an iceberg and work on it for hours with nothing to show for it.


Here Shaun teaches his friend Shawn the principles of flintknapping.


Andrew K studying his rock to decide where to make the first strike.


Saturday afternoon The Andes ("Hot Fuzz" reference) and I drove to another location where a different type of rock was available. Dacite is like obsidian but a little harder and less brittle. We collected a lot of it. We collected enough to make my car bottom out trying to get from the quarry to the main dirt road. We had to unload the rock to get my car out.

In the picture below, Andrew K and I reduce the big rocks down to usable pieces. This reduced the overall weight of the load while, in theory, still allowing enough material for a nice finished product.


In then end we each got enough rock to last for awhile. I'm excited to get to work on the dacite. There is just so much to do at the new place especially since hunting season started last Friday.

These pictures are from my new camera. Tonight I should have internet access at home. So now I have no more excuses for not posting more often.