We spent 4 hours here on one day and 3 hours the next day when we came back for more fun. I actually found a very nice chunk of blue topaz that I’m having cut and shipped back to me. You then sit next to the water trough and sift through your dirt.
Either way, there is a bucket size for every budget. You aren’t really at the mine here but you buy the dirt by the bucket or, you can buy it by the barrel.ĭepending on what bucket you buy, it might be salted or it might not be. The gift shop has some very beautiful specimens of all types of gems and rocks. So here we are, pulled in to the Cowee Mountain Mine and checked out their awesome gift shop. Things in Michigan were starting to get snowy. We had been seeing more rain than we cared to see and we needed a little time in some milder temperatures.
It made some sense to me that for our 20th anniversary, I would load her up in the truck, hook up the travel trailer and head south from our Michigan home and do some exploring in the hills and mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. If you want to find something worth the effort though, definitely come here.My wife is a rock hound and loves collecting all types of rocks, minerals and gems. If you bring kids, I definitely recommend buying a bucket of dirt somewhere else with lots of pretty rocks in it. The stuff you find here will probably be better than what you find at the enriched mines, but it's far between. The big picture: Cherokee Ruby Mine is a fantastic place for the hardcore gem hunter. Just as a suggestion, get the umbrella for shade for a dollar, my girlfriend and I both got very well sunburnt. We mined for a couple hours, going through six buckets of dirt, after which we didn't have much to show for it. Here, you can find garnet, sapphires, rubies, rutile, moonstone and silimanite. Cherokee Ruby Mine is only native, non-enriched dirt, which was an instant draw.
They charged $15 a person to mine, which included 2 free buckets of dirt, then $2.50 per bucket after that. Our first stop in North Carolina was the Cherokee Ruby Mine, north of Franklin. They also sell buckets of dirt online, and I will be buying one soon just for fun. I would recommend this attraction if you want to find some stuff and get your moneys worth, even though we just kind of sat there while all the work except picking the gems out of the gravel was done for us. The big picture: We found a good amount of stuff for the value, basically like we paid for the cut gem and got everything else as a bonus. The woman inside identified our finds and told us a little about them. The staff here were very nice, although the guy helping us with our bucket ended up taking the screens from my girlfriend and I and basically doing the work for us, which was slightly disappointing. For the cut gem, they let us pick a random plastic easter egg, and the gem ended up being a very nice oval cut amethyst. The quality was pretty good, and we also got a free cut gem. We found emerald, sapphire, ruby, citrine, a ton of moonstone, black tourmaline, amethyst, crystal quartz, aquamarine, smoky quartz, turquoise, pyrite, and some other tumbling rocks. The buckets were salted with a variety of minerals, and we found alot of them. The bucket of dirt we bought here was $25. The third stop on our gem mining adventure was Gold City Gem Mine, just north of Franklin, NC. While you don't really have the chance to find an amazingly valuable gem, the quality and amount of stuff you find here is great. I would highly recommend if you want to find a bunch of stuff to make this your stop. Restaurants near Cowee Mountain Ruby Mine, Franklin on Tripadvisor: Find traveler reviews and candid photos of dining near Cowee Mountain Ruby Mine in Franklin, North Carolina. The big picture: This was far and away our best stop on our vacation as far as finds for our value is concerned, and also the personality of the staff was fantastic. My girlfriend got the amethyst that she had picked at Gold City set in a necklace here as well. The woman inside identified our finds and showed us which ones had good potential for cutting. The staff here was fantastic, the guy in charge of the buckets was very friendly and talkative. Here too, we found alot, and it also came with a free cut gem, an oval cut lavender amethyst. Finally, as we intended this to be our final stop for our vacation, we did a $25 bucket which was salted with a bunch of different minerals. We found a ton, some of which was good material.
First I did a $15 emerald bucket while my girlfriend did a $15 ruby and sapphire bucket. Our fourth stop was the Cowee Mountain Ruby Mine, also just north of Franklin, NC, and just a few miles down the road from the Gold City Gem Mine.