Rock Creek: Quartz & Sapphire Rockhounding in Granite County, Montana

Plan your visit

Generally open to casual rockhounding

County

Granite County

State

Montana

Nearest road

Rock Creek Road

Coordinates

46.39119, -113.68303

Coordinates are approximate. Confirm the exact ground in the RockHoundR app, where land overlays show which agency manages the area.

Land & collecting status

Generally open to casual rockhounding

Most public-tagged spots sit on BLM, U.S. Forest Service, or other federal land where reasonable hand collecting of common rocks and minerals is allowed. Confirm posted rules and active mining claims before you dig.

Access note: Use only lawful public access and unclaimed ground; avoid fee operations, patented claims, and active mining areas.

Public-land rules vary by agency, season, and field office. The RockHoundR app pulls live BLM, USFS, NPS, and tribal overlays so you can see exactly which agency manages the ground at this spot.

Geology at Rock Creek

This spot sits on Surficial deposits, mapped as sand and gravel that formed within roughly the last 3 million years. Loose deposits like these are float-collecting ground: erosion keeps moving durable rocks and minerals into gravel bars, cutbanks, and washes.

Mapped unit

Surficial deposits

Age

3 Ma to present (Pleistocene to Holocene)

Rock types

sand and gravel

Elevation

4,580 ft

Geologic mapping via Macrostrat and the underlying state geological survey maps (CC BY 4.0). Bedrock at the surface can vary within a mapped unit.

Sources & verification

Spot details combine the public RockHoundR location dataset, normalized mineral labels, agency land-status checks in the app, and community submissions. Coordinates are approximate until verified in the field.

State guidance last verified: April 1, 2026

• BLM Montana, Recreational mineral collecting
• Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology
• Gem Mountain Sapphire Mine (fee-dig operator)
• Community submissions reviewed against published agency rules