Garnets for $15 // The Emerald Creek Garnet Dig 

Nice stars! I have a diagram for the late 60s. I can cut 50 stars in a row! I love to show you how to open up the star. The chips and big chunks are what make the better stars they have already broke on the fracture!

As Americans the national parks belong to all Americans! We pay taxes for maintenance and wildlife control! We shouldn’t have to pay anything to use these properties! This pay every time you go should be illegal! I want trump to fund the national parks more and eliminate any fees to use Federal lands! And State lands in the USA!

@@Donaldperson7 Your comment really lacks insight into the situation. Go back and re-read your comment, you don't even make sense. This is not a National Park, it's USFS. If you think the taxes you pay should 100% cover everything, then get ready to be paying a lot more in taxes and getting very little in return. USFS posts all of their budgets online, what they spend on what and where all the money comes from. Go read it.

Just follow the stream outside the gate you probably will still find Gems there!

@@Donaldperson7 The comments that you're making here make you sound a little dimwitted. The point of the fee dig is to allow people a means of getting the garnets in an area that is protected and they do not want people digging in the creek, which impacts the habitat. The USFS is pretty clear about that with all the signage that is up.

I think it's a great stop off place to visit.

It does get old but I mostly just see it online as we don't really interact with people in real life very much.

@@CurrentlyRockhounding Well nowadays that’s probably for the better! Lol. Hope you and Sarah are having a good thanksgiving!

When I go I usually bring my own classifier that is just shy of 1/2". I've limited out every time when I bring it since they started using the new source for the material. The old source was literally scraping bedrock and you could be there all day and not find any good whole garnets. You can definitely tumble the garnets to get a better polish on them and use a bright light source to find your rays in the stones. My tips are to bring multiple ziplock bags, one you keep on your person for each run to the sluice and one to keep in your backpack so you don't have to pack around all the garnets. Keep an eye out while walking around the mound of dirt/gravel for any garnets on the ground. I've found my largest whole garnets just laying on the ground. Definitely sift until you fill your bucket of rocks to wash before going to the sluice. When washing I go through my material a couple times before discarding so I make sure I don't miss any good ones.

Next year I will go back and bring my own tools but it was good to have and show the experience of using their stuff.

You should plan on going next year.

Thank you! Yeah I just want to be respectful of other around me in situations like this.

@@CurrentlyRockhounding It sometimes works to inform the parents you are filming and you would rather not film their kids. Most are appreciative and others don’t care. Either way, it’s nice to have open space without people at all when filming a project. I thought you guys did great with the time lapse as an option.

It's a pretty good location and its very accessible for people as well. You could 100% go here and do this.

Thank you!

Are they getting them out of host rock or are they loose like this?

@@CurrentlyRockhounding mix of both, the matrix is a mica schist that I think has high concentrations of chlorite present but in certain areas there are pockets of heavy decomposed schist and there you literally can just dig them out, the largest I found was probably the size of a base ball, but I have seen much larger examples, think large grapefruit sized. You can also find staurolite there too but that Is much rarer.

@@Ontario_Rockhound Now that's somewhere I would like to visit!

@CurrentlyRockhounding well if you ever come up I know a couple folks around there so I could maybe try and pull some strings.

You should plan a visit for spring 2024.

I hear you there but that's not always going to be an option.

@@CurrentlyRockhounding indeed. Good to know that spot will have people so if we ever go, we know.

Yeah I have heard similar from other people that they didn't have the best luck in past years.

Thank you! :)

Hope you’re doing good, do a little research on the emerald mines, some of them are seeded

@@diggingappalachia954 emerald hollow mine is the one I'm interested in?..know anything about it?

It's pretty good I think.

You should plan a trip for next year.

I think if you know what you're doing and know what to expect you can come here and find some really good stuff but otherwise it seems a little out of place for most people to go to.

It's fairly good!

The garnets are fantastic. Grind em , polish em and set them on some gold..January birth stone

I think I'm around 25-28 hours of tattoo work. A little painful but I'm happy with my work.

Yeah there was a lot of people just having at it.

I'm not a fan of his policy that you have to buy what you find from him even if you don't want it.

@CurrentlyRockhounding never had that happen to us. He sorts through what we find and sets the duds aside and we buy whats left.

It's a good location for sure.

It's a good location for sure.

Idaho has lots of places to visit but figuring out where to go is an issue.

I'm glad you liked it.

All garnets do not contain the star pattern unfortunately.

@CurrentlyRockhounding ahh ok, so it's just a lucky find thing, kinda like the search for Iris. Thanks Jared!

I don't think its that far out but all of the information is on the website for the site.

You do not have to a year in advance. But they only release a month in advance from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

They are very nice.

I'm glad you liked it!

I think the 1/2" screen is pretty good however you will lose smaller garnets but I think they are mostly looked at a useless.

You could tumble them but in many ways they will go to waste in that process. The Spokane Rock Rollers club has a lapidary shop you could use to polish some of them up.

Thank you. I'll look into them

They have there hours up on their website. Sometimes in early April that area can still get snow.

It's not really easy to tumble a few of anything.

I wouldn't recommend tumbling for anything you really care about.

@@CurrentlyRockhounding bummer. Lol. I’m big on tumbling things. But thank you for the heads up.

Ha! That would have been a more amusing name.

This is in north Idaho. There is a link in the description box of the video with all the details.

It is near Spokane! There is all the information you need in the description box of this video. I didn't check for gold.

What kind of lapidary equipment do you have access to?

@@CurrentlyRockhounding Zero 😭.... Was hoping I could it with grit paper, but I know it might be impossible.

Yes, you can tumble pretty much any stone. I've tumbled some garnets from before they got their new source and they turned out great!

They can but generally its not the best idea as you're kind of throwing some material away in doing so but people still do it.

Over all I think it was worth it, we learned a lot and will surely return next year, but we will aim for a weekday.