These are a collection of Facebook posts Gene posted about the history of Wiggins Fork and Ramshorn (pronounced "rams horn"). Most of the area is now a protected wilderness, but there are a few small areas you may still rockhound in. We welcome anyone with stories about their own time at these locations. Please comment on this post or send your stories to webmaster@thegemshop.com
April 17, 2015
Wiggins Fork green moss agate is found in seams but more often as limb casts. It looks very similar to some of the green moss agate posted by Diana Grady George found in the Cadys. The Wiggins Fork limb casts are found at about the 9,000 ft. level in the mountains north of Dubois, Wyoming.
July 20, 2015
This stone is a Wiggins Fork Moss Agate Laminate. The agate used is part of a limb cast I found near the head waters of Burnt Creek, which enters Wiggins Fork Creek in the center of the photograph below. I will be back there in a couple of weeks looking for more. The black basalt used for the backing was found in a small creek near Rockville, OR.
September 2, 2017
WIGGINS FORK
There are a few rock collecting areas in the country that endear themselves to the people who visit them. None more so than the area known as Wiggins Fork. I have just returned from there and this was the 45th year in a row that I have collected in this area. This post, I hope, explains some of the rockhound attraction of the area, encourages others to write about their collecting experiences there, and entices other adventuresome rockhounds to visit.
I first heard about this area, 27 miles north of Dubois Wyoming, by reading two paragraphs in a book titled the “Agates of North America” published in 1966. I quote those two paragraphs here.
“Wiggins Fork Wood
High in the beautiful but forbidding mountain county near Dubois Wyoming is a remarkable fossil Forest. Here volcanic ash from tertiary times buried vast forests which are now being eroded out to the delight of venturesome rockhounds. Imagine, if you can, a country so rough that even Jeep and horseback can barely get you to the right spot; a country where snowstorms in July are not uncommon: where steep canyons and towering cliffs reveal Agate limb casts and agatized wood with amethyst. If you can picture this you can picture Wiggins Fork. My husband Albert spent one fourth of July snowbound in this area but the bag of rock he returned with was ample compensation. ….The fine Iris Agate, the banded chalcedony wood casts, the green moss--are all virtually flawless. The agatized seeds, katzkins, and cones of this region are unsurpassed.”
After reading that, I decided to see the area for myself. That was 1972. I didn't find any good rock the first time I was there but the area was so beautiful I had to go back.
At the end of the 27 mile dirt road heading north out of Dubois is a campground. It is called Double Cabin campground and is the gateway to the area. It is located on the west side of Frontier Creek just above the confluence of Wiggins and Frontier Creeks. The altitude here is about 8100 ft.
This area has been a rock collecting area for about 80 years. Every good rock found here has a story behind it and most of those stories occurred before there was an internet. I think it would be beneficial if some of those stories we're told to a larger audience.
September 21, 2017
“What can be found at Wiggins Fork?” was asked in a previous post. Wiggins Fork is known for its beautiful petrified wood and agate limb casts. But other vein agates are also scattered throughout the mountains. Below is a general overview of what can be found here:
PETRIFIED WOOD
The Petrified Wood found in the Wiggins Fork area was formed in what is now the 10,000 ft level of the surrounding mountains. Gigantic pine trees were buried upright and petrified. These trees have been eroding out of the mountains and into the river gravels of Frontier and Emerald creeks. Both of these creeks flow into Wiggins Creek. Some of the Petrified logs can be seen in the rock cliffs above Frontier Creek about 8 Miles upriver from Double Cabin Campground. There is an old story told about an upright petrified log up Frontier Creek that is big enough for 18 people to sit around its base and eat lunch. Pieces of petrified wood can be found in the river gravels of these creeks and in Wiggins Creek all the way to the Wind River and beyond.
AGATE LIMB CASTS
Wiggins Fork is also known for agate limb casts or agate replacements of wood. The agate replacement can be of different types of agate. Hollow crystal-lined casts, iris agate casts, green moss agate casts, water-level banded agate casts, tube agate casts and amethyst-lined casts are all found here. The size ranges from the smallest agatized twigs to very large logs. I know the location of a large hollow upright cast you can stand in.
Not only can you find agate casts of wood but of other plant life as well. The finest agatized pine cones are found here. Different agatized berries and seeds have also been found. The agatized casts are found in place at lower elevations than the Petrified Wood. Most are found at about the 9,000 foot level in the mountains but the elevation of the deposits varies considerably in different locations. Most of the casts are found on the first three creeks that flow into Wiggins Creek - namely Burnt Creek, Fire Creek, and Snow Creek. However, they can be found in many other locations in the general area.
VEIN AGATE
Veins of agate occur throughout the mountains. Most are thin but some are thick enough to be desirable and contain different kinds of agate. Very fine green moss agate can be found on Burnt Creek and other places. There is some natural black agate veins on Fire Creek. Jasper veins are also present. There are some large spotted Jasper veins on Snow Creek and some orange Jasper veins on Burn Creek. Pieces of all of these veins have been eroding down the creeks for centuries and can be found in the river gravels for miles down Wiggins Creek.
December 29, 2017
WIGGINS FORK - GORDON’S CAVE
This is another post about the rock collecting area known as “Wiggins Fork,” north of Dubois, Wyoming. The content is centered around “There are few rock collecting areas in the country that endear themselves to the people who visit them. None more so than the area known as Wiggins Fork.”
GORDON'S CAVE
Burnt Creek was a popular area to collect limb casts long before I visited the area in the 70’s. Burnt Creek is the first major drainage to flow into Wiggins Creek from the southeast upriver from the campground, and was named after a fire that went through the area in 1953. It is about a 1 1/2 mile hike from Double Cabin Campground, mostly on ‘cut trail’, but it is necessary to cross both Frontier and Wiggins Creek to get there.
Agate casts of all sizes with clear agate, banded agate, water level agate, and fine green moss agate have all been found in the gravel deposits of this Creek. Orange jasper and amethyst-lined casts have been found also along with a very small amount of petrified wood. One might ask: "how can an area that has been hunted since the early 50’s still yield specimens in the late 70’s let alone today?" This is part of the magic of rock collecting at Wiggins Fork. These are fast eroding mountains and depending on the amount of snow each year and the speed of the melt in the spring the river gravels get turned over. New river channels are created and old gravel is exposed. Because of the remoteness, vastness, altitude, and difficulty of the terrain there are many areas that have not been looked at. Thus, the discovery of Gordon's cave in 1979.
Several years before 1979, an old man (compared to me at the time) showed me the area where the green moss agate casts come from high in the cliffs on the northside of Burnt Creek. The view from up there was breathtaking. I could see the campground 1 1/2 miles away, the Wind River mountains 50 miles away, and the vastness of the cliffs, gullies, and rock slopes on the south side of the canyon. I wanted to look over there someday and that day came a few years later.
Walking up Burnt Creek and looking for a place to climb out on the south side, I could not find one. The southside of Burnt Creek is much steeper and forbidding then the north side. I followed the creek all the way up to the waterfall where the canyon narrowed to vertical cliffs. A short distance below the waterfall was a climbable bank hidden by trees that angled up to within 4 feet of the top of the vertical wall. I climbed out to the steep slope above and started making my way up the right side of a small drainage that was wet but did not have water. There were signs of agate everywhere. It soon became too steep, and I found a way to get across to the other side of the small drainage where the terrain going up looked passable. As I did so, I saw something greenish at the bottom of the cliff above me (most agate casts found here have a greenish outside). After I got closer I could see it was a nice cast. It was just sitting there like someone placed it on the ground. It was at the bottom of a vertical cliff maybe 15 feet high on a slope too steep to stand on. It was a little over a foot long, 10 inches in diameter had a small crystalline hollow center and weighed a little over 20 lb. I left it there. There was no way I could carry it and get it down the way I had come up.
Back at camp a plan was conceived to approach the area along the ridge above the cliffs to avoid the rather dangerous climbing and try to get the cast with a rope from the top. My father and oldest daughter (8 years old) wanted to go on this hike. Coincidentally, the man who showed me where the green moss agate casts were on the north side of Burnt Creek years ago was in the campground looking for someone to hike with. I asked him if he would like to go along and help and the next day the four of us headed up the ridge on the south side of Burnt Creek through the trees and over the top of the cliffs.
When we arrived at the area above the cast my dad and daughter found a nice place to rest next to the drainage I had followed up from below the previous day. My partner and I went to the cliff and lowered the rope. I walked the ridge up river until I found a way down to the bottom of the cliff, worked my way back to the cast, and tied the rope through the hollow cast. I climbed back up and the two of us pulled the cast up. The whole process took about an hour. We proudly carried the cast back to where we left my father and 8-year-old daughter. My dad was lying comfortably on the rocks with a smirk on his face like he would burst out laughing any minute. My daughter was sitting next to him smiling but saying nothing. It took me several seconds to see it. Between them was a whole pile of beautiful casts - about 30 of them.
They had rested a while, decided to look around a little, followed the drainage up to a small cave and picked up complete agate casts that were laying all over the ground in the bottom of the cave. I named the area Gordon’s Cave after my father.
Burnt Creek had been hunted for agate casts for at least 25 years before my Father found the cave. No one had ever looked for casts here before.
