Rock Hounding

[IDFireLass]

Anyone do any rockhounding? I've always picked up rocks. Never knew what I was looking. A few years ago while elk hunting. Walked over this rock nice green rock. Didn't pick it up. A week later walked over it again.
The third trip I told myself it didn't matter how much weight I added to the pack it was coming home. That is what tripped me into learning about rocks. Still don't know enough about them but keep learning.
I know just enough to put my foot in my mouth and get into trouble with real rock hounds.
Of course without realizing it we moved to one of the best rock hounding areas in the state.

 

[Lota lota]

Anyone do any rockhounding? I've always picked up rocks. Never knew what I was looking. A few years ago while elk hunting. Walked over this rock nice green rock. Didn't pick it up. A week later walked over it again.
The third trip I told myself it didn't matter how much weight I added to the pack it was coming home. That is what tripped me into learning about rocks. Still don't know enough about them but keep learning.
I know just enough to put my foot in my mouth and get into trouble with real rock hounds.
Of course without realizing it we moved to one of the best rock hounding areas in the state.

Do you have a saw for cutting them? Been thinking about buying one.

 

[Hunting Wife]

Nice finds! I’ve always liked rocks, and like rockhounding though I know next to nothing. I just like looking for cool rocks and have no idea why.

Agates, petrified wood and little fossils are the usual finds up here. When we travel I’m usually on the lookout for whatever the local specialties are.

 

[IDFireLass]

Lota Lota, I don't have a rock saw. A little to expensive to buy for just a hobby. I tumble mostly and gotten a tile saw out and put a diamond blade on a 7" saw. Kingsly North is a good catalog to get.
Covington. There is more sites but drawing a blank at the moment.
Several Youtube sites are real helpful, KatyDid, Theo Kelson, Currently Rock Hounding. There is a ton more but these three have been the most educational for me.

 

[Nambaster]

My wife really gets into it. I took her to Ruby Rapids and she went nuts over the garnets. We also picked up some snake skin agates and agate nodules.

 

[TOGIE]

mmm rocks. they tell us why basically everything we're looking at out there is the way it is.

got real caught up inspecting a nice outcrop while scouting in wyoming last week.

 

[Scott85]

I’m in the same boat as @Hunting Wife, don’t really know what I am doing but it’s fun.

 

[mtmuley]

Dug crystals in Nevada when I lived there. I think I still have them. Pretty cool to find a pocket if them. mtmuley

 

[Gerald Martin]

When you move to the new house and you have two boxes labeled “ A Box of Rocks, Literally” you might have some hounding tendencies.

I rarely stumble when hiking because my eyes are usually on the ground and I routinely come back with extra rock weight in my pack.

 

[Oak]

This thread reminded me that I stuck a rock in the water bottle pocket of my pack on an overnight trip in July and forgot about it. Yeah, I pick up rocks, and I sometimes pack them around unnecessarily for a while…

 

[mdunc8]

Made this box a few months ago but couldn’t stand to part ways with it so it’s permanently in my fishing pack. Miss wandering around an island on the river with a beer looking for rocks while waiting for a catfish to bite.

 

[IDFireLass]

Scott85 nice agates and petrified wood.
Gerald M- That was nothing I filled the bottom of a small inclosed trailer and moved them to the new place.
Mdunc8- very nice rocks. Oh you did a good job on the box too. I don't blame you I wouldn't part with it either.

Just wish there was a little more color in the rocks here.
The green rock that changed my world. Just a couple I was playing with trying to polish with a counter polisher.
The only problem with it is it has to be hot outside because you get soaked with cold water. The tile saw will soak you too. My stuff is put away for the fall/winter now. Just down to polishing rocks in the tumbler

 

[JohnBud]

Those are some great finds. Rock-hounding adds such a fun dimension to any outdoor activity. It would be hard to imagine traveling anywhere and not bringing home some cool new specimens. My rock collection might take over my entire house someday. When my grandchildren come to visit the first question they have is always " can we go look at the rocks?" Life is good!

 

[Rack Daniels]

My wife and I see heart shaped rocks constantly, reminding us of each other and pick them up when they’re worth carrying. Gold, sapphire, garnet, agate, quartz… spent many summers digging for stones in the same place my wife’s grandfather was digging 60 years ago. Unfortunately I don’t have any pics of the tumbled ones. The cut stones are sapphires my wife’s grandmother found and faceted herself before she passed.
We hope to one day have one set in jewelry.

 

[buckbull]

My sister is into it. Vacations always have a rock hounding experience. She is actually on her way to look for diamonds at the place in Arkansas.

We have geodes in our area. She cuts them in half with a wet tile saw from harbor freight.

 

[antlerradar]

When hiking with my wife, I can expect to be packing more out than I did in. One time I packed a piece of petrified wood that weighed at least 50 Lb a mile off the mountain.
The best find was here in eastern MT. We were looking through some petrified wood and I notice a small rock that was reddish orange in color. It was maybe the size of my little finger nail. I pick it up and tell her "I think I found a piece of amber". She was instantly green with envy. Got to looking around and the amber was everywhere. She found some honey yellow chunks a few inches across, so the envy quickly dissipated.

 

[gouch]

I had an uncle who lived and died for rocks. Literally died for, he drove his car off a steep embankment coming home from a rock hounding expedition. He made jewelry and bolos and stuff like that and had a little shop where he sold them. Every Christmas we knew what we were getting from Uncle Hap. I don't know his real name, everyone called him Happy or Hap. He got me pretty interested in rock hounding, so as a kid I had a big pile of pretty rocks. As I grew up, I still picked up pretty rocks and still all I ever did with them was put them in a pile.

That pile, along with everything else got cleaned up and hauled away after the fire. All I have now is a couple of chunks of obsidian laying around somewhere.

My greatest find was a whole log of petrified wood. I don't know how big it is because it is mostly buried but there is about six feet of a three-foot diameter log sticking out of the ground. I've tried to take people back to see it but for some reason I have never been able to find it again.

 

[JCS]

 

[JCS]

Eastern montana agates

 

[IDFireLass]

Yep, we all have the rock bug. How many have bad necks from looking down all the time? LOL
Everyone you all have nice pictures of some great finds.

My rock garden (some of it) the second is the actual rock I walked over 3 times before grabbing it. Sure glad I did. I think we even got a elk that day.