Gem Mountain Gemstone Mine — Attraction in Spruce Pine

Since I can’t reply to my original post that the “ owner replied back to “ you definitely had our whole trip wrong. We got there right when you guys opened, actually called in the parking lot & the lady on the phone explained to us what the mine was and what all was included & what to expect. She never said anything about going to two different spots and I know that for a fact because she said we would be mining our crystals for 4 hours & I specifically asked about if there is restrooms & she said no that I would have to go in the woods.. lol so professional.. after that we went in because she said she can fit us in & we asked more questions to the lady with the short hair and she told us what all to expect. You the owner was not there in the am so how would you know what was said? Again she never said anything about us leaving the mine half way through to go hunt for your fake emeralds that the other gem mine had told us about. Everything you guys bring in is bought in piles of dirt and dumped there even the first spot with all the fake crystals we were finding. We took them home to a shop and got them checked. Fakes. There is also multiple one star reviews on here on how your buckets are also fakes. Waste of $100 a person let alone $50 a child. Also josh did not tell us at the first mining place to move spots for different stuff. He was running around, disappearing & coming back handing out these fake crystals that weren’t even covered in dirt.. and pulling crystals out of his pockets a acting like he found them in the dirt.. still not even covered in dirt. So that tells you right there he had them hidden & then bringing them over to passing them out to everyone. Also your guy who does the “buckets” since we talked to him before leaving for the mine, we mentioned we had real geodes 5 gallon buckets worth in our car that we picked up from a different state along the way & he offered to trade one of our buckets for your “fake crystals”. Since my experience was not worth it & tried to explain to you the owner, who didn’t offer to fix the issue & was rude & disrespectful. Who made me leave so upset crying especially since it was a surprise trip for my birthday. I’m glad I didn’t trade my raw geodes for your fakes & I wouldn’t of known that if we didn’t go to the other gem mine down the road who told us all about your scam. Shame on you guys. Also I’m glad you have your regulars and repeating clients. They aways say the client comes first, the clients always right? Not for you guys since your money hungry & don’t care about the people passing by. We was also going to come back with our two children, but not after the experience of you yelling at me. SMH you should be ashamed of yourself & embarrassed that the other gem mines in the area knows all about your little mining scams. Good luck with your fake business. We will be going back to emerald hallow mine where it’s $30 a person to dig all day for real crystals $15 for kids and they get to find crystals and what you find you keep in 5 gallon buckets.. not those tiny small yellow buckets you guys were passing out.. the kids also get to play in the creak & find crystals & real emeralds! Their Buckets are way bigger & better than what you guys had & they also have restrooms btw so no one has to go piss out in the woods! If anyone would like to see pictures of our real beautiful crystals we have found at emerald hallow mine feel free to email me! I highly recommend them. They also have picnic tables if you need a break to eat lunch or you can leave & come back for all day...

Great time here at the mine with my 9 yr old son. Drove 3.5 hrs to get here! Definitely bring a cart or wheel borrow! Take your time! I got confused as it said to stay away from the red clay but it meant at the river not on the side of the mountain as thats where you want to be is in the red clay in the mountain side! Cost was $25 for me and $10 for my son, he found dozens or pieces of gems and rocks and moon stone, found an emerald (not super valuable as it was small) but we had fun together. I was really beat after pushing the wheel borrow to and back with 3 5 gal buckets! I noticed the buckets people were buying from the counter that were full of dirt already, they were definitely “enriched” with gems that were not local! They state that they dont add anything tk the buckets but the kids working there straight up told me that they bring lots of the colored crystals in from AZ and i forget where they said. So if you want your kids to find the purple geodes then buy a 5 gal bucket from the counter and dont bother busting your butt digging your own cuz you will never pull out what is in those buckets in the middle of the wash out sluices! Double up on bug spray, cold water and drinks, fruit and snacks because if your like me you will need it through out the day!

The river mining was fun and nice and cool, i wish we spent more time here then losing cups of sweat to be disappointed like we were by trying to dig up our own gems.

Great experience however! Dont get me wrong we had fun, it was just misleading that they say prefilled buckets arent enriched when they have huge chunks of purple geodes sitting right on top of them and you see them as you walk by to go pay for your mining fee and then get nothing even close to whats laying on the top of the buckets visible to all the kids who walk by who think they will be digging up the same type gems- not at all true! Just tell your kids its rare to find what you see on the too of the buckets, but tell them thats for older people who cant dig up gems their selves and so they get rewarded with extra pretty gems because they arent physically able yo do the work to dig and...

The experience was okay, coming from a long way out of state we spent $100 per adult and it started when we told the lady we had our service dog with us.. then she tried to deny us saying people could have allergies till the one random man told her he had no problem that they love dogs. Which for her to try to deny us is against the law.. then was told we would mine one area from 10:30 till 3:00pm. We didn’t leave till 11:00 and mined one area for 3 hours, so we left late. Then was asked if anyone wanted to go to another spot, but it was more for looks at this emerald place. When me and my husband told him we wanted to stay and just mine for crystals, so we had to go. The tour guide josh was amazing, he even found us crystals while mining. I would give him 5 stars if I could but I honestly don’t think my $100 was worth it leaving when we was in the middle of finding good big crystals. I’m giving 1 star because the owner said there was no control over the trip and we was not even informed there will be two different places. I asked if they could have at least made it worth it by letting us have an already made bucket. . Didn’t ask for a refund or anything & she still refused. She was selfish & rude..So I took my extra bucket money to spend and went down the road to Rio Doce Gem mine & the woman was so nice and caring about the situation, I went their to spend my $$ so Gem mountain lost out on us coming back and glad I didn’t spend any more money on them. Plus Rio Gem mine buckets were amazing and worth every penny! I would recommend them for your...