Opal Mountain Road

Opal Mountain, just north and east of the Black Mountain Wilderness, has a lot to offer. Its name hints at the possibility of finding some opal. You may find it, but most will be common opal which, although it comes in many colors of honey, green, orange, red, yellow and white, lacks the fire of the better known precious opal. In the 1900s, mines in the Scout's Cove area produced precious opal, as well as some beautiful cherry and orange common opal. However, the best seams were about 200 feet below the surface and were locked in extremely hard rock. Ultimately the expense of extracting the opal became too much and the mine closed down. In 2003 the BLM bulldozed all vestiges of the mine itself. The good news is that the area is crawling with common opal. In many cases, you can simply pick up chips from earlier rockhounds. The best specimens, though, are gotten by extracting them from the seams with chisels and hammers.