Forest Service to mitigate damages and safety hazards at a popular rockhounding site near Priest Lake

Release Date: Oct 31, 2023

The U.S. Forest Service has temporarily closed an approximately 5-acre parcel on the Priest Lake Ranger District to manage significant safety hazards and damage incurred from amateur mining activities.

The Solo Creek quartz site, located just over the Washington border in Pend Oreille County, has long been a destination for rockhounds seeking to dig quartz crystals. In recent years, it has become so full of holes as to create significant hazards related to undermined trees, slope stability and drainage issues from bare soils, and giant holes and tunnels. The site contains dozens of hazard trees at risk of falling into the diggings, and some trees have fallen recently as a result of the extensive digging beneath their roots.

The Forest Service plans to mitigate the hazards within the site this coming year by removing those dead and dying trees that present a hazard to public safety, of which there are dozens. Unstable slopes will be contoured, holes will be filled, and the site will be seeded and planted with trees for long-term recovery.

The current order closes the site to public entry through October 23, 2024, unless rescinded sooner; however, it should be noted that digging for rocks and leaving huge holes is not a permitted activity in the first place. Rockhounding activity is limited to “little to no surface disturbance.” More extensive diggings that could result in significant surface disturbance, such as that seen at the Solo Creek site, is classified as mining activity and requires a permit with a reclamation plan to be approved by the District Ranger.

Regardless, digging large holes and leaving them unfilled is never OK; nor is killing trees by digging up their root systems.

For more information on this closure, contact the Priest Lake Ranger District office at (208) 443-2512.