Dismal Swamp Idaho and it’s famous Smoky Quartz Crystals has been on my list of Rock Hound trips for quite a few years.

Dismal Swamp Idaho is situated in Central Mountains of Idaho near Atlanta. The trip started on a late start as my alarm clock did not go off, and I was an hour late to meet with the other party that was coming with. No big deal as we were on the road by 9 a.m. and heading out of town.

We decided to take the Middle Fork of the Boise River which took us around Lucky Peak Reservoir and then up and around Arrowrock Reservoir. All I can say is this will be the most wash boarded road you will ever see, my teeth are still chattering from 60 miles of it.

The trip to Dismal Swamp is only 85 miles from my house but it took about 3 1/2 hours to get to our camp site as 2/3 of the trip is on very bad dirt roads. After we had traveled on the Middle Fork road our turn off was up Phifer Creek a very steep and switch backed dirt road in the middle of the forest. The first thing as we were crossing the bridge was a sign stating the road was closed for a rally race. We were lucky as we did not encounter any vehicles but others did that afternoon.

After about 9 miles on Phifer Creek road we arrived to our camp site. This is the view that we had out of our tent, Idaho is so amazing. First thing we did when we arrived was set up camp and did it in record time about 20 minutes. After that I started looking around camp for Smokey Quartz crystals and in minutes there it was a little 1 inch smoky, that got the old heart pump in.

At about this time Garret an author out of Portland Oregon that is currently writing a book called Rockhounding Idaho showed up, it was nice to finally meet him as we converse via email. We talked for about 10 minutes and he was off doing his thing.

By this time I would say it was around 1 p.m. and it was time to hunt. I spent most of my time at Dismal Swamp up around the camp site which was about a mile from the swamp. Not knowing exactly where to dig here I started looking at the Granite boulders to see if I could find any Smokey Quartz. Most every single boulder has some evidence of smoky quartz this place is just full of it.

I decided to head down toward the swamp in search on my treasure, and was eaten alive by every type of blood sucking insect know to man on the way there “bring off” you will need it. While hiking down the mountain to the swamp we found numerous randomly dug holes and decided to spend a little time by a few of them. I found little pieces of Smokey Quartz Crystals but nothing that I would even show. So after about 2 hours of feeding the insects we headed back to camp to slam some food down and try another spot.

After eating we headed up the road from our camp to check out this large Granite formation. I decided instead of looking for the loose Smoky Quartz Crystals I would go straight to the source the Pegmatities. Looking on and around the rocks for any type of crevice to try and spot a vug with some crystals.

One thing I can tell anybody is clear out all places on the rocks that have dirt or pine needles as there is a good chance you will see Smokies. By this time all I had found were small 1/2 inch Smokey Quartz Crystals, when all of the sudden on the side of this rock was a opening that was full of pine needles. I cleared out the vug which was about 12 inches long by about 4 inches wide by about 6 inches deep. This was it, there were all of these beautiful black Smokey Quartz Crystals mixed with Feldspar, and big books of Mica “jackpot”. The largest crystal in the vug was only 2 inches long with the smallest being 1/2 inch I did not care it was one of the most amazing sites to finally see what a true pocket of crystals looked like. There were at least 50 Smoky Quartz Crystals in this little area and all were jet black.

I grabbed my chisels and started to work on my find. After about 30 minutes of pain staking hammering I managed to get a piece of the Pegmatite from the vug. A 6 inch by 4 inch piece with about 10 crystals and about 15 crystals that came loose during the extraction process oops. At about this time I realized that I would not be able to remove the rest without completely destroying this beautiful thing so I left if for the next person to find. Matter of fact 2/3 of it is still in the rock. Below is a couple of pictures of the specimen that I pulled from this pocket.

This may not be the biggest Smokey Quartz Crystals taken out of Dismal Swamp but it still a very good specimen. After getting my prize I headed back to camp and made a Rib Eye steak dinner for the group and talked about the days adventure. It was a long one at that. By about 10:30 it was time to call it a day and go to bed.

My dog decided to wake me up at around 6:30 in the morning to let him out, so I decide to do a little exploring before everybody else woke up. I found a few more crystals but still nothing more than 2 inches in length. By the time I arrived back at camp breakfast was ready and it was time put this trip to Dismal Swamp in the history book. After eating we took a few pictures and packed up camp. I was not really wanting to go yet but you can’t always get what you want.

Well this was my experience to the great Dismal Swamp for the elusive Smokey Quartz Crystal. I hope that you have enjoyed this article as much as I enjoyed going there. I will have to plan a longer trip next year now that I have an idea of what and where to look. Maybe next time I will come out with the 12 inch scepter.

I’m not sure where my next field trip will be but I’m thinking possibly Silver City Idaho. So stay tuned and please leave a comment.