Idaho Outdoors

Life is Always Better with an Outdoor Adventure!

Smoky Quartz Crystals | Rock Hounding in Dismal Swamp Idaho

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So what do Smoky Quartz Crystals Look Like?

Smoky Quartz Crystals Found at Dismal Swamp
Smoky Quartz Crystals Found at Dismal Swamp

Idaho has an abundance of family outdoor activities that will cost you very little money. Idaho has 12 million acres of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land that visitors and Idaho residents can recreate on.  This offers a huge diversity of opportunities for you and your family to get outdoors and have fun. Our family has taken advantage of many of these opportunities including hunting, fishing, fly fishing, four wheeling, camping, gold prospecting, and rock hounding. Most of our outings are on BLM and Idaho National Forest land.  The ability to visit so many different places is part of what makes Idaho so great.


Want to start rockhounding? Buy a Book that highlights rockhounding in Idaho. The most popular books are separated by counties. sites with GPS coordinates, and the minerals that can be found there. We started with places near us that we wanted to explore and planned a few short outings.  As we visited more and more of the places in the book, we kept returning to the Dismal Swamp Entry and finally planned a camping trip that allowed us to visit this location.

Smoky Quartz Crystal found in rock outcropping in dismal swamp.
Smoky Quartz Crystal found in a rock outcropping in dismal swamp.decided to go to Dismal Swamp, which is located 20 miles north of Featherville, Idaho.

Digging Smoky Quartz Crystals in Dismal Swamp Idaho

In Dismal Swamp, you can dig smoky quartz crystals and even more.  The equipment you need is a few buckets, a shovel, a rock pick, a few screens and maybe a sledgehammer.  When you get there you can dig almost anywhere to find smoky quartz crystals.  Most are really small but there are the occasions that you may find larger ones. There are hundreds of holes that people have already dug in which you can keep digging and still find more crystals.

When we visited Dismal Swamp we started by digging small amounts of soil and putting it on our screens then rinsing all the soil from the rocks. Next, we sift through the remaining rocks to find the quartz and the smoky quartz crystals. Keep repeating the process until you find crystals.  You must be patient as it will take a while to find the smoky quartz crystals.   You can also find crystals on the surface of the soil.  It will take a trained eye to find them so be careful when you are walking around. When we visited at Dismal Swamp my Father found a smoky quartz crystal embedded in the road.  He was pretty excited that the crystals were that prevalent.

Out Croppings

Rock Hounding Dismal Swamp for Smoky Quartz Crystals. Photo Taken by Evelyn Williams
Rock Hounding Dismal Swamp for Smoky Quartz Crystals. Photo Taken by Evelyn Williams

You can find smoky quartz crystals in rock outcroppings.  You can also find crystals embedded in the clay layers between the fractured pieces of rock.  The largest smoky quartz crystal that I have ever found came from a crack in a large rock that had several layers of the rock chipped away. Once we were to the clay layer that was between the cracks, that is where we found a smoky quartz crystal shaped like a prism. Carefully sift through the clay between rocks. Crystals will be surrounded by clay that appears to be a big ball of dirt.  Screens can be really helpful in sifting through the clay.

If you plan on making a weekend trip to Dismal Swamp there are a few campsites where you can make camp.  If you just plan on going for the day make sure to take plenty of water and snacks because it can get very hot there.  Good luck and happy digging!

Gold Prospecting Idaho

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Hidden Idaho Treasure Series

Interested in Gold Prospecting Idaho?

My Son and I Gold Prospecting in 2006.
My Son and I Gold Prospecting in 2006.

So it’s a new year and you are bored with all of your current hobbies. Well if you are considering picking up a new hobby, you should consider gold prospecting. Idaho has a diverse landscape with many things to offer adventurous people.

Every year people flock to Idaho’s BLM ground or Idaho National forests to camp, rock hound, fish, boat, hunt, four-wheel, hike, take photos, bicycle, and swim. Why not pick up gold prospecting when you are on one of your outings with your family this year. Prospecting can be a very inexpensive hobby or a very expensive hobby depending on the equipment you use to prospect with.

The Required Equipment for Gold Prospecting!

Beginner prospectors need a couple of different sized pans, a few classifiers (we recommend a 1/2″ classifier and a 1/4″ classifier), and maybe a sluice box if you are willing to part with the cash.  Buy some vials and at least one sniffer bottle.  Now you can make your own sniffer bottle with a plastic straw and a plastic bottle purchased at your local craft store.

You will need some buckets.  Best way to pick up buckets is; call up your local paint contractor. They should have buckets for next to nothing as they will have tons of them left over from projects.  Your other option is to buy buckets from your local hardware store.  Make sure to pick up a rock hammer, a couple of shovels and a strong back.  Gold Prospecting is hard work.

We made due for several years with very few prospecting tools. Our Tools included a sluice box, some gold pans, classifiers, a sniffer bottle, some vials and a shovel or two.

Gold Pans

Gold pans should be 14″ and the green seems to show the gold and not mark up as bad as the black ones.

Classifiers

Classifiers can be made by purchasing some screen from your local D & B store, building a frame and securing the screen in the frame. Glass stores may have little pieces of 1/8″ screen they would give away for next to nothing. If you are looking for a few classifiers to purchase please see the ones we recommend at the left.

Sluice Boxes

Sluice Boxes come in every shape and sized you can imagine.  If you search Google for wood sluice box plans, there are many do-it-yourself plans to making a sluice box.  We believe that you can not go wrong with a metal sluice box made by Keene engineering, Jobe, or Royal.  The one that we recommend extends to 50″ which allows for great gold recovery.  Shorter backpack sluice boxes are not all that great for gold recovery.  They do not allow the gravels to be washed long enough to pull the gold out of them. The longer the sluice box the better.

Rock Hammer

Rock hammers can be purchased at your local prospecting store or you can find an Estwing E3-22P 22-Ounce Rock Pick
that can be used as a small pick on amazon.com.

Misc:

Sniffer bottles, vials and other misc. gold prospecting accessories can be found at your local prospecting stores, Amazon, or a multitude of other websites on the internet.

Where do I find Gold?

My wife and I looking for new places to go gold prospecting in 2006
My wife and I looking for new places to go gold prospecting in 2006

That is the magic question.  You can find gold in many places.  Most prominent places to find gold are along streams and rivers.  To be more precise, on the inside corners of streams and rivers.  As the spring runoff fills the streams and rivers every year the massive volume of water make them run more violently.  As rapids become more violent they pick up dirt, debris, mud, clay and of course gold.

As water picks up gold in a river or stream it will not stay moving long.  As a river turns the waters will move into an inside corner or an eddy.  The slower moving water will drop the gold in these locations. Other locations you will find gold is behind large trees that are below the high water mark.  Behind and under rocks that are located on an inside corner or at the end of an island in a stream or river.

Where Specifics

Now when we are talking about gold prospecting on an inside corner of a river or stream.  Please don’t make the same mistakes we did.  We spend countless hours prospecting in locations that had no gold to speak of.  We simply did not understand where on the inside corner to dig.  Rivers and streams will slowdowns all the way around an inside corner.  The location you will need to find is the one where the corner starts.  Where the water starts to slow down.

The Weight of Gold

Just to give you some reference.  We all know how heavy lead is?  The specific gravity of lead is 11 times heavier than water.  Black Sands that gold is found it is also 11 times heavier than the specific gravity of water. Platinum, on the other hand, has a specific gravity 21.5 times heavier than water.  (According to Wikipedia: Specific Gravity is the ratio of the density of a substance to the density of a reference substance.)

The specific gravity of gold is 19.32 times heavier than water.

The weight of gold is what makes it fall from suspension prior to just about any other material.  This is the reason to look in the first place gold could drop while you are gold prospecting.

Sluice Box Setup

When you set up your sluice box it should be set at a slope of 1″ per 1′.  When your sluice box is set up, make sure it is filled up with water flowing through it at least 2/3 full.  Also, test a little material and make sure the water is flowing fast enough to wash the gravels you are going to prospect.

Classify the material that you run through your sluice box to at least 1/4″. This allows the sluice box to capture more gold when you run it.  If rocks that are too large are put into the sluice box the water will great an eddy around them and wash gold out of the sluice box.

If you would like a lesson on gold panning watch this video on youtube.

Where do we go gold prospecting in Idaho?

You can find gold in just about every region of Idaho.  This gives gold prospectors a wide variety of places to go.  Captain E.D. Pierce leading a group of 10 prospectors found gold in what is now Pierce Idaho in 1860.  In 1862 George Grimes with a party of prospectors founded the Boise Basin mines.  From 1860 to 1865 people flooded into the Florence and Boise basins.  As more people claimed lands in the Two gold mining basins. Prospectors were having to travel greater distances to claim their own lands to mine.  With the influx of people moving all over the state, people found gold in almost every major stream and river in the state.

If you are looking for places to go gold prospecting today, you can try the Coeur d’Alene river, the snake river, the salmon river, the Boise River and most of their major tributaries.  One of these four rivers is within a short driving distance of just about every town or city in Idaho.  This leaves your options to find a place to go gold prospecting open.  We have prospected on the snake river, the salmon river, and the Boise River.  We have found gold on all three rivers.

Good luck gold prospecting and remember ☠ marks the spot!

Brownlee Reservoir Bass Fishing – One of Idaho’s Hidden Treasures

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The Largest Fish My Daughter has ever caught, this small mouth bass is approximately 1.5 Lbs.
The Largest Fish My Daughter has ever caught, this small mouth bass is approximately 1.5 Lbs.

Hidden Idaho Treasure Series

Brownlee Reservoir bass fishing at Woodhead Park!

Where is it?

Hidden in the hills of western Idaho Brownlee Reservoir is a great destination for your family to fish, go swimming or pull out the wake board and catch some air. While Brownlee Reservoir is not was well known as some of Idaho’s greatest places to visit, it is definitely a must see.

Located approximately 28 miles north east of Cambridge Idaho on highway 71, Idaho Power’s Woodhead Park is a beautiful place to stay when you visit Brownlee reservoir.

The Largest Bass My wife has ever caught weighted in at 2 Lbs. 10 Oz.
The Largest Bass My wife has ever caught weighted in at 2 Lbs. 10 Oz.

Woodhead Park?

Woodhead Park located on the Idaho side of Brownlee Reservoir, just a few miles upstream of the dam. Built in 1959, Idaho Power remodeled and expanded the park in 1995 to improve the camping, parking and boating areas.

Ed Woodhead inspired the name of this award-winning park. Mr. Woodhead was chief construction engineer of the nearby Brownlee Power Plant.

Most of the park has mature shade trees, a boat launch, many boat docks, showers that are included in your camping fees, four restrooms, and a fish cleaning station. They also have a free Day use area and several places to tent camp. Even if you are not a fisherman Woodhead park is a great place to camp, if the beautiful vistas do not draw you to this location maybe the great deer hunting or chucker hunting will.

If you forget something at home, don’t worry the Gateway Store and Café located about three miles from the park just may have what you need. They have a great staff of very friendly people and will do whatever they can to help you out.

Brownlee Reservoir Bass Fishing Vista | Looking North on the Reservoir
Brownlee Vista | Looking North on the Reservoir

Brownlee?

Brownlee creek and Brownlee Dam is named after John Brownlee a prospector and an entrepreneur who operated a ferry near the site where the current Brownlee Dam and power plant is located. According to the Idaho Historical Society John Brownlee operated his ferry in that location from 1862 to 1864. There is speculation whether Tim Goodale knew about this route when he lead a train of 70 wagons over his cutoff via freeze out hill to the Powder River and crossed the river at the Brownlee Ferry in late 1862.

In 1864 or 1865 John Brownlee Abandoned his ferry or sunk it; there are actually different reports, then he moved to the Boise basin as he thought he could make a better living as a prospector.

Tim Goodale occupied John Brownlee’s log cabin for a while, even though the ferry business did not amount to anything. There was virtually no ferry business at this location until the Heath mines were discovered and the road from Pine Valley Oregon to the mines was improved in 1876 by William A. West.

William A. West operated the ferry under a new charter and eventually bought out all the interests of his partners. The Brownlee Ferry was operated under several owners until the 1920’s.

Historical References

Idaho State Historical Society – Reference Series – No 54 – Snake River Ferries
Cambridge to Brownlee Ferry
Idaho State Historical Society – Reference Series – No 436

This is the First Largemouth Bass i have ever caught, it had beautiful colors.
This is the First Largemouth Bass i have ever caught, it had beautiful colors.

Fishing Brownlee Reservoir!

Brownlee is considered one of the best fisheries in Idaho and Oregon, considering the reservoir is approximately 58 miles long and there are at least 7 game fish actively sought after. The list of game fish includes Small Mouth Bass, Large Mouth Bass, Catfish, Crappie, Bluegill, Trout, and perch.

The locals say that two guys in a six hour outing can catch between 200 to 300 crappie, and when you get in to the bass or perch the action can be dynamite. If you are teaching your children to fish, this is a great place to get kids hooked up and enthusiastic about fishing. The phenomenal Brownlee reservoir bass fishing has brought our family back to this great location 9 out of the last 10 years.

Planning a fishing trip can be a pain if you do not own a boat. However you can rent a boat or charter a fishing trip in either Richland Oregon or Cambridge Idaho.

The chucker hunting in the fall can be fantastic; however the hills are rugged so you need to be in pretty good shape to do any serous hunting around the reservoir.

Visit Woodhead Park and catch some action on Brownlee reservoir bass fishing in Idaho!

If you are planning a fishing trip, take a little time and research Woodhead Park on Brownlee Reservoir in Idaho. Take your family to Woodhead Park, one trip will get you HOOKED.

Frisbee Golf, Disk Golf, or Frolf? Great Outdoor Sport for Everyone?

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Disk Golf Goal!
Disk Golf Goal!

Disk Golf the 40+ year old sport that most people don’t know about!

Disk Golf or what is sometimes called Frisbee golf or Frolf (our family calls it Folf) is a great outdoor sport for anyone with a little extra time on their hands.

Disk Golf is fairly inexpensive to play; in fact you can pick up a kit with a driver, mid-range, and a putting disk on Amazon or at Sports Authority for approximately 30-40 dollars.

All that is left is to find an old backpack to hold your disks, a bottle of water, your score card, a pen and you are set. The majority of courses are free to play, so the only real cost is for the disks and any accessories you may be interested in purchasing.

Disk Golf Distance Driver Disk
Disk Golf Distance Driver Disk

The disks?

There are actually several brands of Disk Golf disks. A few of the manufacturers include Innova, Diskcraft, Discmania, and Prodigy Discs. Our family prefers Innova not because they fly better or perform better. The reason we like Innova disks is they provide their own Flight Rating System.

The Innova rating system is simply made up of speed, glide, turn, and fade. This allowed a guy like me who had never played the sport before, to figure out which disks to purchase so my family could play the sport. You will find more information on the Innova Disk Flight Rating System here!

Innova DX Disc Golf Set (3-Disc) (Colors may vary) Just $24.99 for Amazon prime Members.

Innova Champion Material Disc Golf, Set of 3 (Colors may vary) Just $37.28 for Amazon prime Members.

The rules?

The rules are very similar to golf you tee off or throw your first disk from the teeing area. Your feet must be within this area when you release the disk and you must be in contact with the teeing area with at least one foot when the disk is released. If any of these rules are violated first you get a warning and on the second time you take an extra stroke or throw.

When throwing from a location where your disk landed you throw from the back of where the front of your disk was located. Same rules and violations apply to throws from a fairway area as from the teeing area.

When you are throwing a disk and it lands in an out of bounds area. Your options are to re-throw the disk from the previous lie; or, A lie that is up to one meter away from and perpendicular to the point where the disc last crossed into out-of-bounds, even if the direction takes the lie closer to the target; or, Within the designated drop zone, if provided. Remember if you are taking a drop you will be given an extra stroke / throw just like golf.

The object of the game is to put the disk in the goal or basket target. They call this holing out!

When you are done holing out record your scores and move on to the next hole!

The Official Rules of Disk Golf can be found here!

Who can play?

The great thing about Disk Golf is the courses are walked so if you can walk, and throw a disk this could be your Sports! This means anyone from my 3 year old granddaughter to my 65 year old mother can play if they are willing to walk the course. It is a great way to bond with your kids if you have a young family, get the kids outdoors and have a little fun with them!

You might even get them to put down their phone long enough to get to know them. Why not teach your kids the merits of an active healthy lifestyle.

Where to play?

The best thing about playing Disk Golf is you get to do it outdoors, if you get to play in the great state of Idaho even better. There are a great number of free to play disk golf courses in Idaho and across the nation.

You can search them on google maps or visit the Professional Disk Golf Association Website and look at the courses on their map.

PDGA Disc Golf Course Directory Map
Gem State Disk Golf Course List
Idaho Parks and Recreation Disk Golf Course List
discgolfcourses.org Idaho Disk Golf Course List

You can even pick your self up a couple of goals from amazon and make your own course where ever you want!

Idaho Disk Golf Clubs!

The Gem State Disk Golf Club (GSDG) is a nonprofit sports organization dedicated to the development, promotion, and enhancement of disc golf in the state of Idaho. If you are interested in checking them out visit their website here.

The PDGA!

The Professional Disk Golf Association is the regulating body for the sport of disk golf with over 16000 members. For rules, questions or if you would just like to become a PDGA member please visit here.

Tournaments?

In 2014 the Gem State Disk Golf Club is holding 6 PDGA Sanctioned tournaments. The tournament series is called the 2014 Strange Disc Tour. There will be tournaments held in Boise, Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Rupert, and twin falls.

At the time this article was written there were several of the tournaments that were completed. However if you are interested in playing there should be openings available in the tournaments that have not been played yet. For more information please visit here.

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Rock Hounding Idaho: A Map of 99 Locations in Idaho to start finding Gemstones!

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Rock Hounding Idaho
Rockhounding and Prospecting Tools

Hidden Idaho Treasure Series

So you are interested in Rock hounding Idaho?

Please note: The map is at the bottom of the Page!

Idaho has a rich geology with many types of gemstones found across the diverse landscapes. For those of you that would like to do some rock hounding Idaho, a full listing if Idaho gemstones by county can be found at The Idaho Department of lands Website.

My wife and I have spent many years prospecting and rock hounding Idaho. It is very rewarding for us and a fun activity for the kids, especially when you find “treasures” as we like to call them.

A few years back we purchased a book Rock hounding Idaho: A Guide to 99 of the State’s Best Rock hounding Sites (Rock hounding Series) by Garret Romaine. Even though it was a little dry reading, as a reference book when we were trying to find new places to explore, it was great.

I took the time to go through the book two years ago and enter all of the GPS coordinates, and meta data (locations, descriptions, and types of minerals found at each location) into an excel spread sheet. Then I spent the better part of about three weeks trying to figure out how to change the degrees minutes and seconds to decimal degree GPS coordinates. This was all so the information could be imported in to my ArcGIS Mapping program. I know boring!

The punchline is last year Google came out with the Google Maps Engine. This allowed me to use the same spreadsheets to upload data to a google map, and then embed it here for every one to use! Cool Huh!

If you have any questions or are looking for some tips where to go, just look me up on facebook or google plus.

Also if you like this map, please like us on all of your favorite social media sites. If you like this article please subscribe to our website, there will more great content just like this in the future.

For more information on Idaho Rock hounding, you can purchase Garret Romains book from the link above or you can download the BLM Rock hounding in Idaho Guide!