Customer Reviews

Rockhounding Wyoming (A Falcon Guide)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I worked in Wyoming for several months in 2004 and bought this book for my "weekend adventures in rock hounding". I was and still am grossly disappointed with the book. Many of the sites that this book stated where on BLM or Forest Service land were indeed on private property. I thought that a more fruitful use of my time would be to visit the rock shops listed in the back of the book. Again, I was grossly disappointed. Many of the shops closed down, changed hands, or moved. Although this book was published in 1996, Appendix B was already outdated per some of the Rock Shop owners I did find. My recommendation is to find a phone book when you pull into a town, look under "rock shops", and call to see if they are open (or will open for you).

Lessons Learned: If the black and white photos in the book use wheatback pennys for scale, the information included in the book may be as dated.

I have found this book to be a useful tool in exploring sites in Wyoming. I would suggest anyone traveling out to Wyoming read the introduction fully. You do need to prepare for the wide open spaces. The book is copyrighted in 1996 so it's 7 years old at this writing. Many things have changed in the past seven years. Roads have been closed by both BLM and the forest service. Trail signs have been changed or vandalized. If I was traveling a long distance to collect I would check with local rock shops to see if the desired sites were still open. If I could change anything it would be to include GPS coordinates in the driving directions. At least for the main turn-offs and the main site starting point.

The info in this book is a bit out of date--many of the sites have been very well picked over. I also find the directions to some of the sites to be quite vague, enough that, if it weren't for the evidence of high traffic and digging at the sites, one might not even be sure of being on the correct site (as I was not sure at some).

All that being said, this is a useful guide for finding places to begin looking for specimens that may be unavailable to the casual collector. It gives a good jumping-off point from which a bit of exploration and careful examination might provide a less visited spot at which truly impressive specimens may lie undisturbed to be found.

Well written, well illustrated, very detailed and very informative. A very positive response to the book.

Although a little outdated, the locations are accurate and easily accessable. The book however is a little thin, in respect to the amount of places to go rock hunting, but it covers the state. So no matter where you go in Wyoming the book offers somewhere to go rockhounding.

I HOUNDED ROCKS ALL OVER CENTRAL/WESTERN WYOMING ALL SUMMER IN 2004...COLORED PICS OF WHAT TO LOOK FOR AND WHAT KEN HAS COLLECTED WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT...WILL TRY TO FIND HIS # AND CALL HIM AS I COULDN'T FIND 'QUEBE SABE' ROAD BY SHOSHONI TO FIND AQUAMARINE!!!! I WENT 3 TIMES! BUT OVER ALL EVERY SITE WE DID VISIT WAS DOWN TO A 'T' FOR EXACT LOCATIONS...IN PROCESS EVEN FOUND MY OWN PLACES!