Wyoming jade, deep spinach-green to near-black nephrite, is the state gem, and the high desert around Jeffrey City and the Granite Mountains was a jade-hunting frontier in the 1930s-50s when “jade fever” drew rockhounds who found boulders worth fortunes lying on the ground. The easy pickings are long gone and most of the good ground is PRIVATE ranch land or claimed, but jade still turns up, and it is legal to hunt on much of the surrounding BLM desert, with hand tools only and for your own collection. Mind the claims: on a mining claim located for jade, the jade belongs to the claimant, and where a claim covers every mineral you may take nothing at all. Bring water; this is big, empty, waterless country.
Nephrite jade (Wyoming state gem)
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
