It doesn't take a rock scientist

The 1970s energy crisis transformed the mind-set of Puget Sound rockhounds.

Collectors traditionally are a secretive bunch, not prone to giving away the locations of their favorite mining sites for rare rocks, gemstones and crystals.

But when gasoline became nearly as precious as fine jewels, thwarting the prospect of driving long distances to favorite digging spots, the region's club leaders banded together to share their lore about closer-in sites.

Lake Stevens prospector Ed Lehman, a leader in that effort, has discovered it's mutually beneficial to invite other clubs on digs. The more people along to wield shovels and picks, the greater the odds that somebody will strike a vein.

Eight years ago, Lehman led a group to the Greenwater area north of Mount Rainier to dig for a pastel-lavender-and-orange variety of jasper. One guy got bored, went for a walk and reappeared 90 minutes later with a hunk of purple agate he'd found in the roots of an overturned tree near a cliff.

Since then, rockhounds have moved that cliff face back 50 feet, digging 20 feet down in the process, to remove thousands of pounds of agate from a foot-thick vein. Some is purple, but most is a blue variety with brilliant swirls of red jasper.

"I've converted a lot of people," said Lehman, 61, a leader of the Marysville Rock and Gem Club.

Washington offers rock and gem enthusiasts a range of geologic treasures, including jade, green garnet, turquoise, amethyst, rhodonite, aventurine, clear quartz and pyrite. Snohomish County has four clubs, and some local youths travel to Skagit County for a 4-H group devoted to the hobby.

This weekend at Marysville Junior High, the Marysville club will hold its 29th annual show.

The club was founded in the early 1950s, during the hobby's boom years. Though membership declined in the 1980s and '90s, the club has noticed an increased interest recently. Field trips now attract up to 60 people for popular destinations such as the Kalama area north of Vancouver, Wash., a source of crystal geodes and agate.

But that 20-year decline had a profound impact on the hobby's demographics. About half of the Marysville club's 65 members are retired, and nearly a dozen are schoolchildren.

"When you go to a rock club, it's always a sea of gray in there," said leader Dave Sanders, 55. "They consider me one of the younger ones."

Most people join the club because they want to go on field trips, mostly because of "an interest in pretty rocks," he said.

But once in, they often discover an affinity for related hobbies, especially lapidary work, using saws and polishers to create jewelry and pieces for artwork or display.

Sanders, a Boeing planner, enjoys fashioning pendant pieces from rocks he collects. Display boxes at his Marysville home contain pendants of jade, agate and jasper of many hues.

He estimates it takes several hours to complete each piece.

First he cuts his rocks into narrow slabs using a 24-inch saw stationed on his back porch. Then he uses a template to etch a teardrop shape, which he roughs out with a 10-inch saw in a workroom.

Next, Sanders melts wax in a tuna can, warmed over an upside-down iron, to affix a wooden dowel to each piece. The dowel then functions as a handle as he finishes the stone on grinding and polishing wheels. He rarely sells the pendants, but when he does, he charges $25 to $30.

"You don't do it for the money. You do it mostly for the enjoyment of it," said Sanders, who majored in geology at the University of Maine.

He doesn't cut up everything he finds. A living-room display case holds a large specimen of jade that he found sticking out of a sandbar in Deer Creek, northeast of Arlington, in 1996.

"A little piece of it caught my eye — I just took my hoe pick and dug it out," he said.

Sanders found a gorgeous quartz plate, a mitten-shape specimen covered on all sides with hundreds of individual clear points, in 1994 in a pocket of rock in the North Bend area. Another club member owns part of a rockhound claim for that spot, which is on state forestland along the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River.

On federal lands, such as the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, serious collectors may file for mining claims, which must be renewed yearly. But casual rockhounds and hikers may legally take home rocks and minerals they find on federal lands that have not been claimed, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman said.

Last winter, logging crews building a road in the Walker Valley area east of Mount Vernon blasted away a big chunk of rock rich in amethyst and clear quartz on state land that is leased by rockhounds. That explosion reduced the mine's life by 20 years, said Lehman, who went to Olympia to complain.

One of Snohomish County's better-known jasper mines, Stubbs Hill, lies on private land south of Sultan. A bulldozer working on a logging road in the 1970s broke open a top-quality vein of jasper with bright, marbled hues of red and gold.

"It was a 'eureka' find," Lehman said during a recent trip to that area, south of the Skykomish River off Ben Howard Road.

The main vein was mined out within six years, but Lehman was convinced more jasper must lie somewhere nearby beneath the canopy of second-growth forest. After years of scouting, he pinpointed an area to explore.

In the 1980s, he assembled a group of about 40 rockhounds, took them down a hillside near the original vein, and they spread out with their shovels.

By day's end, the group had dug up close to a ton of jasper, red with vivid gold patterns. That was when the logging road was still open, so the group easily packed out the rocks, including 100-pound pieces.

Today, the road is gated and covered with saplings. But rockhounds still make the one-mile hike to Lehman's site, which continues to yield jasper.

"I love to prospect, to be the first one to find that spot where the stuff is just sitting there waiting to be picked up," Lehman said.

His latest discovery came just last month, when he followed up on a tip he had first heard 30 years ago. A steep two-mile hike off the Mountain Loop Highway led him into an area where he found a collection of "thunder eggs," large rocks that can be sliced open to reveal beautiful crystalline interiors.

"I get that Indiana Jones feeling," he said.

Diane Brooks: 425-745-7802 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com