Theres GOLD in them there hills!

Located just outside the small town of Taylorsville NC is an even smaller town named Hiddenite. Hiddenite NC is famous for their gem mines, and has produced some of the largest emeralds in the US. (find more info HERE)

I lived just down the road from Hiddenite NC for years. I drove through it on multiple occasions, but never took the time to stop.

Before we left the mountains, my mom suggested we stop by with the girls.

I didn’t want to go, but it was something fun to do with the girls before we left, so we decided to check it out.

We got there and I was slightly worried. It looked a bit run down… We went to the ‘sluicing’ tent and paid for all our permits (it is an active mine so everyone on site has to have a permit to mine… who knew?).

They have the option to go pan in the creek, dig at the creek or sluice. Since we had never been before and had a 4 hour drive ahead of us, I decided to go the cleanest route and we decided to just sluice.

We got the smallest bucket to start off. They have different sizes buckets loaded with different sized gems etc and the price goes up as the gem value goes up etc.

I never imagined it would be so much FUN! as handful after handful of dirt went into our sluice trays, the gems started to be revealed. My mom found the first one – a big sapphire! Jordan quickly found an emerald, and Josh found a handful of crystals. I was starting to get disappointed when I spotted a HUGE emerald in my tray! The bucket was quickly empty and we got another. and then another…

We got dirty. we got wet. Harper wouldn’t stay out of the sluice table and I would do it ALL AGAIN IN A HEARTBEAT!

we ended the day with a small Ziploc bag full of gems each, five incredibly muddy people in a car and huge smiles on all our faces.

If you are ever in the area (and even if you aren't) this is a MUST stop for you and your family!