Gem Trails of Southern California

Rating:
Summary: Complete and accurate guide to Southern California Gem Trail
Review: This book gives you accurate maps and information about the many sites to find gems, geode beds, old gold, chalcedony, opal and agate mines in the area, and many other sites and places of interest.It is easy to read and follow and I would recommend it to anyone interested in investigating these types of places in Southern California.

Rating:
Summary: useful book, but needs an update
Review: We just spent the last weekend in the Mojave Desert with this book. We found several wonderful sites using the guide. We also got lost on webs of dirt roads, no matter how closely we followed the book's instructions. I have to think that a lot of the roads have changed, or that some of the directions are not accurate. We also encounted two sites in a row that were closed, but not labeled as such in the book. So although the book is great, it obviously needs an update, even though it was only published in 1999. My boyfriend thought it would also have helped us to have GPS coordinates of the sites. Still, we would never have found the great spots we did without this book, so I would definitely recommend it...