Emerald Hollow Mine, Hiddenite, NC (second visit)

We had been to Emerald Hollow Mine three years ago. We had seen the show Cash And Treasures and were intrigued. We had no luck digging, but found lots of rocks in the creek. We saw how the one little field where school children dig was salted with stones. We learned later that the creek was salted too. But we had fun. We were planning another trip and decided to visit Emerald Hollow Mine again.

We arrived on Wednesday morning. We paid for creeking permits which were only $8 each, and then screened our complimentary buckets. Then we headed down to the creek and start digging and screening. There were A LOT of school kids, but they were mostly at the upper end of the creek.. We found a bunch of cool rocks. Unfortunately my mp3 fell off my belt into the water and died. After five hours, we called it a day.

We came back the next day, first thing in the morning. My wife stayed and screened the buckets, and I headed right to the creek. I could tell the creek had been freshly salted with new rocks. There was only one other couple working the creek. I just walked down the creek looking through the water, and picking up the mostly easy to see stones. When I reached the bottom of the creek, I tuned around and walked back up. I had filled a gallon sized bag with rocks and was started on another bag. When I hit the top of the creek, I took the rocks to the car. Then I got my polarized sunglasses and headed back down to the creek. The polarized sunglasses made it much easier to see through the water. I made another pass to the bottom of the creek and back and found more rocks. At this point we had a lot of rocks. Among the rocks we found or think we found in the creek were quartz, rose quartz, smoky quartz, amethyst, sodalite, jasper, red jasper, moonstone, appetite, aventurine, unakite, amazonite, agate, citrine, tourmalated quartz, rutilated quartz, and who knows what else. But I was pretty much done with this place. It was fun like and easter egg hunt, but after a while it got old just picking up rocks that someone had thrown into the creek. We probably won’t come back here again.

If you do go the Emerald Hollow Mine, get there first thing in the morning before all the people are there. Then just walk the length of the creek looking for rocks lying on the bottom. Look for rocks that stand out. The red and green rocks are pretty easy to see. The agates look white of the bottom. The blue rocks sometimes look black under water. Just for rocks where the color looks out of place. If you still want more, dog and screen rocks from the sand on the bottom. You will find lots.