Cowee Mountain Ruby Mine

Kids enjoyed it very much. We bought the smallest bucket at $ 10 each x 5 kids, not a cheap activity, especially since they had a strict no sharing policy. But the small buckets were full of exciting «gems» for the kids to discover. They took home at least 10 gems each and got to keep the small aluminum bucket. If you’re really serious about the gem mining, there’s a $ 500 barrel you can purchase … but since you can’t share, I would expect that to be a week long activity.
The flume is outside but somewhat covered. Gold City, up the mountain, has an indoor flume but more expensive buckets (altho they allow sharing).

Open from March 1 — December 1
This is _​the_​place for salted buckets. The 4+ stars are meant to reflect the salted bucket experience — if you’re looking for a native mine experience you should check other local sites. Native dirt is available here as well…
When it comes to salted buckets I think this shop provides exceptional seeded material. One $ 50 seeded bucket will leave you with a respectable rock collection for an amateur rockhound. Many of the specimens were in the 2″-3″ range with some being larger.
I wish I had more time when I visited but it was a spur of the moment thing after spending most of the day at a «dig your own» mine. I plan on returning to the area next year and I’ll update my review.