[Rockhounds] St. Maries, ID

[Lanny R]

Hi Jim,

As John wrote, the Emerald Creek star garnet location is well run by  
FS and a fun place to spend the day. There is information on the FS  
web site that should answer most of your questions: http://www.fs.fed.us/ipnf/rec/activities/garnets/

The location is open from Friday through Tuesday, so plan your travel  
time accordingly. The site is in the woods, but as John suggested,  
bring plenty of water, the work area is in a clearing out in the sun,  
and today it is going to be 96 degrees here in Coeur d'Alene, so  
expect temperatures from 85 to low 90s anytime up there in July and  
August (or it might be in the 60 or 70s and with some rain).

The location is easily accessible on a gravel road, there is a nice  
campground in the forest nearby. All tools are furnished, but that  
frame with legs to hold the screen suggested by John could be a big  
help. Some people do find that shaking the coarse material through the  
hand-held screen is back breaking work. The method is as follows: The  
garnet-bearing gravels are dug out of one area of one of the creeks  
(might be the one the site is presently on or might not be) and  
trucked to and dumped at the work site. You shovel this into a bucket  
and carry it to a spot where you can stand or sit (on a block of wood)  
and screen the coarse material out of the dirt and dump the fines in  
another bucket.

After you screen out the coarse material, you take your bucket of  
fines to one of two troughs of flowing water and wash and screen out  
the silt and clay. Then you sort through the material in the screen  
and pick out the garnets.

It's a popular activity, and last year when I took my grandson, about  
70 people were there.

If this and the FS web site doesn't answer your questions, ask on this  
list, others might want to know the answers, or ask John or I with a  
pm if you have a question you don't want to air in public.

Definitely put this in your plans.

Regards,

Lanny

On Jul 19, 2009, at 5:31 AM, Jim Daly wrote:

>
> We're currently driving from Indiana to Spokane, WA. I noticed that  
> the route takes us near the locality for garnets at St. Maries.
> Does anyone have any details on this locality?
> Jim Daly
>
>
>
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