Sugar Creek Gem Mine, Banner Elk

Took the cousins are 9-19 here to "mine" gems. It reminded me of panning for gold. We bought a 5 gallon bucket. It took us about 30 minutes to find all our gems. All eight kids had a bag full. Then the great staff helped them each identify their finds. We had rubies, emmeralds, a huge saffire, soldalite, citrine, tourmaline, unakite, agate, and large qurtz crystals. It was fun and well worth the money. Alittle touristy but we are tourists!

My mom and I took my four year old son here for his birthday. We had never been to a gem mine either and it was awesome! The staff are very friendly and knowledgeable about all the different kinds of gems and rocks you will find. The buckets are very deep and full of interesting, beautiful gems that you can keep and take home! He loves all of the ones he found and enjoyed digging and sifting through all of the dirt to get to all of the pretty rocks! Great experience, definitely will go again soon!