Yes another Idaho Quartz Crystal dig! Silver City Idaho is a very famous silver mining town situated in the Owyhee mountains of Idaho. Silver City is about 65 miles from my home in Boise and I am quite amazed that this trip took so long to get to.

More on the history of Silver City Idaho. The town had roughly 250 mines in operation between 1863 to 1865 with a population of about 2500. If you have never been here it is amazing that this many people lived there year round. I have been to a lot of old mining towns in my life but this is by far the best, you literally feel like you are stepping back into the late 1800’s. Even if your not a rockhound this trip is well worth your time just to look around and see how these hard working men lived.

Back to the rock hounding part of this trip. One of the first things you notice in Silver City Idaho is all of the old mine tailings on the hill sides. From the little time that was spent here most of the country rock is Granite in nature with an abundant amount of Quartz veins running through out the granite. Jackpot quartz is good when looking for crystals.

John and myself decided to head up to some mine tailings that were just on the out skirts of town about 200 yard up the mountain from the campground. Within minutes of use getting to the tailings pile we were finding nice but kind of small Quartz Crystal. Sifting through the dirt we discovered that the miners had no interest in the crystals and left them for us crazy rockhound to find and collect a 130 years later.

The average size of the crystals found here were about 1 inch and the largest being 2 1/2 inches in length. I have been told that Amethyst has been found in the area but none was found on this trip. John and I decided to locate the mine thats tailings we were sifting through was located. About 15 yards up the hill out of nowhere was a mine shaft that was about 20 feet deep and filled with water. So if you do decide to venture to Silver City please be careful and watch out for the hidden dangers in the area. After about 2 hours of digging and collecting at least 5 pounds of quartz crystals John and I headed down the mountain and set up camp and had a bite to eat.

After relaxing for about an hour and just enjoying the beautiful scenery it was time to make the short hike to our little treasure chest. We spent the remaining daylight up at our tailings pile meticulously searching for more crystals. By the time we were just plain tired of seeing anymore dirt it was just becoming dusk and time to head down to eat some dinner and look at each others hoard of crystals that were collected. I would have to say that between John and myself we collected about 30 pounds of quartz crystals. Not a bad day for just being a few hundred yard from our camp site and sitting on our butts.

The next morning we decided that we had our fill of digging and spent a little time looking around the town. I also had forgotten to take any pictures of the trip, so this was my catch up time and snap a few before we left.
 
 

 
 
As we headed out of town about a mile out this is the view of Idaho. This was a very nice and relaxing trip to a very historical area of Idaho. If you can make the trip which is a very easy drive that any vehicle can make as long as you use the Murphy Idaho route. The total travel time from Boise is around 1 1/2 hours and well worth the time.

Next week I will be heading to Wagon Town with the Owyhee Gem Club to collect petrified wood stay tuned and sorry about being kind of absent for a week.