Rockhounding in Washington

Clallam County

Agates were once plentiful enough at Agate Bay, just west of Crescent Bay on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to give the beach its name, and agate still weathers from the local basalt alongside variously colored chert and jasper. The setting on the northern Olympic Peninsula makes it one of the few documented agate beaches on the strait.

Agate, Chert, Jasper

Kittitas County

Red Top Mountain sits on the Eocene Teanaway Basalt, the rock unit Washington geologists identify as the source of the area's chalcedony, agate, and quartz-lined geodes. The collecting beds along the ridge yield blue and clear chalcedony nodules, thunder eggs, and crystal-lined geodes including amethyst. The site lies on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and has drawn hobby collectors for generations.

Blue Agate Geode

Kittitas County

The Liberty and Swauk district produced some of the finest crystalline and wire gold specimens in the United States, formed in epithermal quartz veins above town and recovered as coarse nuggets in Swauk and Williams creeks. Hard-rock mines in the hills yield the crystallized gold, while placer ground in the valley has produced sizable nuggets. The district has been prospected continuously since the 1873 Swauk Creek gold rush.

Gold

Kittitas County

The Saddle Mountains expose a petrified forest preserved between Wanapum Basalt flows roughly 14 to 15 million years old, and the area is one of the few places where collectors can legally gather Washington's state gem on public land. On BLM-managed ground near Beverly, surface collection of petrified and opalized wood is allowed under federal personal-use rules of 25 pounds plus one piece per day. Agate, jasper, and chalcedony turn up alongside the wood.

Opalized Wood, Petrified Wood

Okanogan County

Tunk Creek is one of Washington's few documented thulite localities, where rose-pink thulite, a variety of zoisite, occurs in lenses up to three feet across within hornblende schist. The same schist hosts corundum, including blue sapphire and pink to red crystals associated with the thulite, an unusual pairing recorded by the USGS Mineral Resources Data System and mindat. Quartz and plagioclase round out the assemblage in the Okanogan highlands.

Quartz, Blue Corundum, Pink Corundum, Thulite

Franklin County

Iron-stained gravels at the base of the White Bluffs, on the east side of the Columbia River from Byers Landing to Ringold, hold frequent agate and jasper, the agate chiefly gray and buff chalcedony with some red hues. The Ringold Springs access here is Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife land on the Franklin County bank, outside Hanford Reach National Monument.

Agate

Clark County

Gravel bars along the Washougal River yield moss agate, carnelian, jasper, and petrified wood weathered from the surrounding volcanic terrain. The best collecting follows high water, when receding flows expose fresh gravel along the bars. The only documented amethyst in the area is a small amount of amethystine quartz on a mine dump upriver in Skamania County, not the Clark County riverbank.

Moss Agate, Amethyst

Grays Harbor County

The beach at Moclips lies within Washington's Seashore Conservation Area, documented in rockhounding guides for the agate and jasper that wash in along the tideline and stream gravels. State ocean beach rules allow small-scale collecting year round, so loose agate and jasper can be picked up for personal use. Material concentrates near the low-tide line after winter storms expose fresh gravel.

Agate, Jasper

Lewis County

The Washington Geological Survey's gemstone report records that hundreds of pounds of agate have been taken between Adna and Pe Ell, in the heart of Lewis County's carnelian-agate country. Carnelian, the local red-orange chalcedony, occurs with agate, jasper, and dark petrified wood in the stream gravels. Most of the surrounding Willapa Hills is gated private timberland.

Agate, Carnelian, Chalcedony, Geode

Pacific County

The Washington Geological Survey documents light-gray to yellowish-gray chalcedony casts of fossil clams in the Willapa Hills, some holding trapped water that shifts when the specimen is turned, a feature collectors call enhydros. The surrounding marine sedimentary rocks yield abundant pelecypod, gastropod, and crab fossils. The agatized shells are a distinctive Pacific County specialty.

Agatized Fossil Shells