Imagine a place where the ground sparkles with crystals of quartz and pyrite. And the land owners are friendly, so you can pick up all you want. Spruce Ridge is a crystal collector's paradise.

You can climb into a crystal cavern or learn the techniques to collect those fabulous minerals seen in museums. We provide tools and instructions to help you extract beautiful pyrite and quartz crystals, including doubly terminated, scepters, and phantoms.

Access to Spruce requires a strenuous hike: 1,000 feet elevation gain in one-half mile. That's about the energy equivalent of taking the stairs to the 30th floor of an office building. Our "office" is at 3,000 feet in a beautiful mountain valley. You'll hike through an old growth forest, with many stops to admire the view (and catch your breath!).

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Gold prospectors called all red stones they found "rubies", and kept their stash of "rubies" until they could have them identified by a jeweler.  As real rubies are seldom found with gold, most prospectors were unhappy when they learned they had collected: "Garnet, darn it".

At our locality near Darrington, people are delighted to find garnets in abundance. Access requires a long drive and a short hike, and getting wet.   We screen for the garnets beside a stream, making it difficult to stay dry.

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Your young geologist can take a group of up to 10 friends crystal or amber collecting. They'll all collect cool specimens to keep, and have a grand time celebrating the occasion (and getting dirty!).

For trip descriptions, click on Crystal Kid or Palm Trees trips under the Adventures button. Price is $255 (Amber) or $355 (Crystal) for up to 11 kids, up to 15 people total, including parents. We carpool to the localities.  Amber brithday parties are from 2 to 3 hours, including drive time from Route I8, Hobart.  Crystal parties are at least 5 hours, as the drive time from North Bend is at least 90 minutes each way.  High clearance vehicles are necessary for the Crystal trips.  Any vehicle can access the Amber locality.

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Learn how to 'read the rocks' to find great things in the field.  Class is jargon free, and paced to students ability, so no science background is necessary.

You'll learn to identify rock types, and the land forms they produce.  This will help you distinguish good places to search.  Evaluate which roadcuts and construction areas are worth stopping at, as you whiz by at 70 m.p.h.  Bob once filled his pickup with amethyst clusters which had been unearthed and discarded by a road crew, because they missed the clues to crystals in rock.  How to read a geologic map.  Mom Nature gives us lots of hints; successful collectors know how to descipher them.  Bob teaches his prospecting secrets gleaned during 25+ years as a professional collector. Class is 8 hours of fun with a bunch of pretty rocks, and a few ugly ones.

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Explore the geology of your 'backyard' ... the most easily accessible part of the Cascades.  Did you know that when driving I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass, you pass within a mile of a world famous mineral locality?  On this day trip we collect igneous and metamorphic rocks, and their associated crystalline minerals: quartz, pyrite, epidote, garnet, scheelite, calcite.

Trip is usually run in conjunction with one of the Parks & Recreation departments with which we contract. 

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We provide educational adventures for private and corporate clients. Since 1979, we've developed hundreds of individualized packages for family reunions, non-profit organizations, and company picnics. A partial list of clients includes:

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In 2001, we created a new variety of trips at Rock Candy Mountain, where all participants had a vug waiting for them. This has proved to be our most popular Rock Candy trip.

How it works:

We mine as usual for a week, setting aside any vugs we encounter at the edges of the locality. The day before the trip, we set aside vugs we find at the center of the locality. When you sign our liability release, the number you sign next to is your vug number. That way, vug assignment is totally random. Everyone will start the day by collecting their own vug, even if they have never seen a vug before! To be able to guarantee each person a vug, space is limited to 8 people per trip. To assure that new collectors have good access to our guides, we also limit the ratio of newcomers to experienced collectors of our localities.

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