SUTTON -- The open pit mine at the end of Jonesville Road in Sutton is an unexpected place to find an ancient forest of sequoia-like trees.
But the Taylors, Don, Lila and their son Jack, view the acres of petrified wood with almost proprietary pride.
They are consummate rock hounds who hunt their quarries via off-road Argos, or six-wheeled vehicles. Lila has written tomes on rocks and minerals in Alaska and the U.S., but she has most of the information in her head after nearly 40 years of hunting.
Their home near Lazy Mountain is littered with the rewards of their trips to places like Boulder, Caribou and Moose creeks. The rocks are snapshots of prehistory they can hold in their hands and they're always searching for more.
"We lived here," Don said on a recent trip to the Jonesville Mine. "We rode our dirt bikes up here every weekend and would look for rocks while our kids were growing up."
Don and Lila raised five and Jack remains a devoted rock hunter. Through Jackz Place, Jack sells handcrafted lapidary jewelry at Palmer's Friday Flings. He was president of the Mat-Su Rock and Mineral Club for eight years.
The club, founded in the mid-1990s by the late Cecil King, meets monthly for a potluck and confab. Membership grew to more than 40 despite the relative difficulty in gathering rocks.
"There's not many roads (in Alaska) and it's hard to get stone out," said Marcia Theiner, who co-owns Frontier Imports Rock Shop in Willow. She and her husband, Doug, also are charter members of the club. The couple stocks native specimens, like "aurora borealis," a marble found in Hatcher Pass, crystals from the Brooks Range and the more common jasper and agate, in their shop. Marcia uses her silversmithing skills to decorate her lapidary jewelry with filigree.
But jewelry isn't the focus of all rock hounds. Many collect for the thrill of possessing a piece of prehistory. Others polish, slice and name their samples in a lighted collection.
"I like perfectly round rocks," said Delight Rose, the club's current president. "And the composition of different rocks are just attractive to me. You get home and open your rock book to identify the minerals, or bring them to our meetings for members from the geology field, or who are 80-something years old with a wealth of experience, to identify."
Lila was rock hunting before she could walk. Her father was a miner, her mother, a rock hound with an extensive collection. At the Jonesville Mine, she taps seemingly solid rock with her hammer to reveal fossils stacked "like between the pages of a book," she said.
The family shares trails with ATVers and hikers, often seeing the same faces on summer weekends.
"We're known for being rock hunters," Don said. "People will ask us, 'Find any rocks lately?' and we'll say, 'How did you know?' and they say, 'We've seen you out here before.' "
Find Melodie Wright at www.adn.com/contact/mwright or 352-6721.
A rock hound primer
LEGAL STONES: Learn more about what's legal to collect in Alaska.
blm.gov/ak/ak930/fossil.html
• Always check with the landowner before taking anything.
• Small amounts of rocks on state land, excluding state parks or recreational areas, are legal to collect as long as the collector doesn't sell them. That requires a commercial permit, said Kathleen Sheehan-Dugan, a supervisor in the Public Information Office of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, which manages many public land sites.
• There are different rules for fossil collection. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management publishes a guideline for fossil hunters, which OKs collecting plant and small quantities of invertebrate fossils but nixes keeping human artifacts or fossils featuring the skeletons of dinosaurs, mammals or fish.
Where to go?
Rock hounding in the Matanuska-Susitna valleys doesn't have to be a challenge. Hunting near water is always a good bet, especially creeks on the Glenn Highway like Moose and Caribou creeks.
Want to go?
The Mat-Su Rock and Mineral Club meets at 7 p.m. for a potluck the third Tuesday of every month at the Palmer Senior Citizens Center, 831 S. Chugach St. Annual dues are $15, or $20 for a family. For information, call 745-7774.
