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.

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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!