Sunstone Public Collection Area
Oregon
Find: Sunstones
GPS: 42.72335, -119.86045
Nearest city: Bend, OR
Summary:
I visited this spot in Winter, which apparently very few people do. It was a couple hours worth of driving through some beautiful snowstorms in the High Desert of Oregon to get here.
Eventually, I arrived at the location which was marked with signs from the BLM. It’s pretty cool. There’s some active mining sites for sunstones that have some commercial value nearby, but you can find some great stuff in the public area. Some people suggest digging a couple feet down to unearth larger ones, but I found some decent ones on the surface.
You will want a vehicle with high clearance to access this spot. It’s in a very remote portion of Oregon with little amenities and the road to get in here is very chopped up.
Video Guide
For the best experience, check out the video guide. I show how I found my best pieces and challenges you might face along the way.
Again, Winter is not the time to visit this place but it was my first time in Oregon.
This was one of the loneliest places I've been while talking to a camera.
Here's what a Sunstone looks like. It's a strange mineral belonging to the feldspar family.
Believe it or not, it's most closely related to labradorite which I found really strange.
It has a yellow-to-orange coloration.
Apparently, digging down a couple of feet for them is said to be the most productive way to find them.
These were the larger ones that I found.
I ended up leaving with plenty for one person... so I've been slowly giving these away to people I meet over the years.