Rockhounding California: A Guide To The State's Best Rockhounding Sites (Rockhounding Series)

Packed with information!

My son has recently taken up the hobby of rock hounding. The book was a bit disappointing.First off the pictures are very grainy. And most importantly to him is that we live in California where there are numerous sites to rock hound but there is nothing noted for California.It is not the ultimate guide.

OK, the material in these books is pretty old. But they can often get you in to an area where you can find something nice.Now, there are literally hundreds of places (in the same state) that you can find good or even better rocks at. Some of which are even common knowledge. But don't appear here. While that is a bit disappointing, it can't cover everything.Some of these locations are on private property now. Some are blocked off by fences. Some are difficult to find using the little maps and directions here. Some have been long picked over and all of the good stuff is gone. Some just don't have very good rocks once you get there (by my standards at least). And like I mention above, I wish they could cover more locations.But many of these will get you close. And if you spend the day searching the nearby vicinity and if you happen to have a good geological eye for spotting other spots like the one it sent you do, or don't have a problem digging, then you can some times still find some excellent material that others have missed.

It's a great book with a lot of great sites. Some of the maps are difficult to pinpoint the area it's leading you to, but that's to be expected with hand drawn maps. They are certainly far from perfect. Over all, I've had many great adventures with it. Worth the buy

This book is good if you want to get a general idea of where to go rock hounding, but it is not very specific to the dig sites. We did one hike, and completely missed the dig site. We ended us a bit further down the road, about 4 miles from where we were supposed to be but still had fun and found some good rocks. Not the ones we were after, but still had fun nonetheless.

I'm a rockhound. This is a book on finding cool rocks in California - a match made in heaven. The only complaints is that it's a paperback without any colored pictures of rocks or crystals. I have yet to visit any sites in the book, but the directions and instructions seem pretty clear. I'm looking forward to some great field trips looking for rocks!

We LOVE books, we love 4 wheeling, and we love rocks...but for a book about rocks in California, it is rather thin in information. Apparently there are DOZENS of rocks in So Cal, but almost NO rocks in central Cal, and not that many in Nor Cal. We live in central/northern California and while we did go to two or three places in the book, we KNOW (firsthand) that there are more locations and stories than they covered. Most likely with a state the size of California, they could have easily done 3-4 books (one for each zone maybe), but instead we got a 'greatest hits' and not much depth or substance.

I have used this book a couple times now and have not had any trouble figuring out what it says. The coordinates that it gives for some of the areas are very close to the best spots, and I have had good luck so far! I will probably be buying some of the books for other states soon!