When planning your next rock hounding vacation, you simply can’t miss these locations. They offer the finest minerals and fossils available for your personal collection. Once your trip is over, you can incorporate the memories from your trip in your daily life.
Keep the Memory Alive
Unfortunately photos from our travels aren’t always on display. But, the rocks, minerals and other samples you collect while rockhounding can always be kept in plain sight. Smaller examples should be kept indoors to minimize their chance of being lost or taken. Large or heavy samples can be incorporated into your landscaping. The use of other rock throughout your yard will create a chance for you to showcase your favorite rockhounding memories.
Custer County, Idaho
This sparsely populated county is home to copper, silver, lead and zinc. Rockhounds can find clear quartz, amethyst and citrine. Near the East Fork of the Salmon River cryptocrystalline quartz can be easily gathered. Large geodes are commonly found throughout the county, and banded, red, and yellow agate is widespread, as well. Petrified wood can be found in large quantity near the town of Challis. Also near Challis, a rare zeolite can be found in greater number and quality than any other known area. Permits, if required, can be secured at the local BLM office.
Millard County, Utah
This county, in central Utah, offers a wide variety of interesting specimens. Even better, you are allowed to collect a reasonable amount for your own personal use without having to get permits. Should you want to collect more, such as would be needed for resale, you do need to get a permit from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office.
You can find invertebrate fossils in the county. Fossils without backbones, like snails, trilobites, clams and insects, can be collected if they are found throughout a large area or occur in large numbers. No permits is required unless you intend to sale the specimens or use them commercially.
Additionally, there are deposits of petrified wood. These are a little more regulated, as collectors had been rapidly depleting the best petrified wood samples. Individuals are allowed to collect 250 pounds of the petrified wood per calendar year, but there are specific daily and yearly limits. Please check with the local BLM office before collecting.
South of Helena, Montana
Montana is recognized for its sapphires. Yogo sapphires are the only commercially available sapphires that are their natural color in Montana. These are only harvested from private claims near Lewiston, Montana.
You can find your own sapphires in two different locations within the state; One mine is near Philipsburg and the other is south of Helena and northwest of Canyon Ferry Lake. These locations do charge a small fee, but allow you to sort through sapphire gravel. Experts are on hand to help you pick out the sapphires.
A practiced eye can spot many colors there; the sapphires appear mostly as light-colored and translucent and may be blue, green, orange, pink and clear. To have the color intensified, the sapphires have to be heat-treated.
