Harper (mostly) Dry Lake

Not, that's not a mirage!  Six of us headed out to Harper Dry Lake today, only a day after a spring storm blew through southern California.  The playa had a good amount of standing water in places, and was still a bit muddy along the routes on and off the playa, but there were still plenty of surfaces to look for meteorites on.

We started off on the north shore in the middle of an area of known finds and hunted along tidal lines.  We wanted to see if we could use our metal detectors out here, and once we got into the more gravel covered areas we were able to balance the detectors and use them to aid in the hunt.  I found a small metal washer, but no meteorites.  Robby's dad, Bob, found two stones that very well may turn out to be weather chondrite fragments; they had the look and sure jumped to a magnet like a meteorite would.

After a quick lunch we headed a bit to the west and south toward another area of previous finds. 

The detectors stayed in the trucks here and we all broke out our magnet poles.  We spread out in a line and searched a large area together before all breaking off and hunting different spots.

I spotted some dunes and decided to head over and hunt around them.

It looks like something else had been doing some hunting of a different nature here.

This playa was very alkali and probably why meteorites have only been found in certain locations on it.

The vultures waiting, hoping we'd get stuck in the mud.

We left the playa and headed a few miles south to finish off the day swinging detectors over some desert pavement.

I found plenty of bullet shells, but that was it.  It was great to get out and use my detector again, I can't wait for the next outing.