[meteorite-list] First Meteorite Hunt

From: meteoritefinder at yahoo.com <meteoritefinder_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2010 04:30:16 -0600
Message-ID: <1F393766-5E6C-42AD-B4AD-97694540B6D7_at_yahoo.com>

Hi Abe,
Thanks for posting your great story, and congrats on such a nice "first find"!
And having your son there with you makes it all the better. In fact, about the only way to top THAT feeling is when YOU'RE watching him find HIS first one! I had the great joy of that at the Ash Creek fall. ( I also got to see my wife find her first one there, too. )

Good luck on future hunts, and here's hoping your son TOPS yours!

Sincerely,
Robert Woolard


Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 19, 2010, at 5:26 PM, "Guenther" <abe.guenther at mnsi.net> wrote:

> Here is a short story about a first time meteorite hunting experience.
>
> I live in an area of Canada that has not yielded any meteorites to speak of
> so I knew I needed to look at hotter, dryer areas for the best chance at a
> successful first trip. I did over a year of research and planning before I
> finally made my decision where to go. I read countless success stories and
> watched a lot of meteorite hunting shows and videos on YouTube before
> narrowing my search. Almost overwhelmed at all the places I could try, a few
> weeks before the much awaited trip I decided on Nevada. Besides the cheap
> airfare to Vegas, there were lots of success stories near Vegas. I had a few
> places mapped out in Nevada, Arizona and California that I wanted to hunt
> over the 9 day trip. After finding nothing in 5 days of my lone journey it
> was time to pick up my son who flew in to join me for the final 4 days.
> Considering this was his first time too, I am sure he wasn't too confident
> since his dad hadn't found anything yet. But he and I both knew we were
> saving the best place for last! This was the part of the trip we were both
> anticipating because our destination several hours away would be to a dry
> lake bed that we knew had yielded some meteorites just recently. Since it
> was supposed to be a secret location, we were confident that if there were
> still any meteorites left, we would find some.
>
> It rained a lot on the way so we were concerned about how bad it might be on
> the lake bed. We arrived at the dry lake area near dark so all we wanted to
> do the first day was figure out how to get to the lake since there were no
> clear roads to access it. We could hardly wait to get out there the next
> morning bright and early. We finally made it to the lake bed at about 9:00am
> after a muddy trek and nearly 2 hours travel from the motel. The rain had
> definitely made it slippery but we were surprises that it wasn't actually
> too bad on the lake bed itself. The first day didn't yield anything special
> except a really fun time. My son found a complete dried out coyote skull
> that he kept and an arrow head. We also found a several rocks that drew our
> magnets but they were obviously not meteorites because of deep, sharp
> cavities and what we would soon discover over the next couple of days, this
> was a common rock in the area. We usually parked and then walked for a few
> hours at a time and when we started to get tired, we would just drive the
> truck during our rests. It was during one of these drives that I happen to
> look to my left and noticed what I thought was another cow patty. I stopped
> and the first thing I did when I got out was kick it. It didn't move. I
> don't remember what I said but my son knew that I was excited about
> something. I picked it up and it felt like 5 pounds. It was unusually heavy
> compared to the other rocks. I had no doubt it would draw the magnet but it
> was surprising to see it stick so hard. This was the last hour of the last
> day of the trip and all we could think is how lucky we had been to find our
> first meteorite and to top it off, one so big!
>
> When we got home I still thought that we had been on the right lake bed. I
> just couldn't wait to tell everyone about our success! I looked up someone
> who has excellent knowledge of meteorites and emailed him the pictures. He
> wasn't quite convinced and so he had me take some more pictures. To my
> delight, he emailed me back a "congratulations". It was only after doing
> some more research about the lake bed that I realized we were 100 miles away
> from the lake bed we had researched. In a way I am sort of glad we went to
> the wrong lake bed but I'm happy we didn't know at the time. I don't know if
> we discovered a new meteorite fall but it is fun to think we did. Ignorance
> is bliss.
>
> A few pictures: http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM1.jpg,
> http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM2.jpg, http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM3.jpg,
> http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM4.jpg.
>
> Abe Guenther
>
>
>
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Received on Sat 20 Nov 2010 05:30:16 AM PST