Gems of Pala

What a magnificent experience! I brought my Meetup group to Gems of Pala and we had the most wonderful time.
My deepest gratitude to Blue who was warm and welcoming, and so freely shared his amazing adventures with us. I almost felt like I was listening to Indiana Jones himself, but this was real, no movie stuff here! We received so much wonderful information about the mine, about gems, and about history. To be honest, I felt like I should have I should have paid way more today’s experience — what I learned was priceless. If you are curious and ready to learn, Blue is a magnificent teacher!
The information presented here on Unilocal by other folks that visited the mine was very helpful in planning our trip. We brought water, sunscreen, and hats to keep us comfortable in the sun. I also brought towelettes for cleanup and lots of small plastic jewelry bags to separate and store our finds.
Our day started at 10, and we were the first ones there. This gave us plenty of time to talk and share with Blue before we went to dig. Once we were ready, we met Kevin outside, and he went through all the details of the process. He was also warm and welcoming, and had a great sense of humor — we laughed a lot!
We were all thrilled at what we learned and what we were doing when suddenly we started to hear the sound of dirt bikes. I was annoyed by the noise for a brief second until Kevin directed our attention to the back of the property where we saw none other than the Metal Mullisha practicing their amazing jumps! (The Pala Raceway backs up to the property) We were all blown away watching the bikes appear out of nowhere over the crest of the hill, and do amazing flips in the air — it was breathtaking!
We all found some beautiful specimens — nothing giant, but beautiful nonetheless. Some folks who were also digging at another table found some larger impressive pieces.
Now, a side note: there is a nearby competitor that engages in some pretty awful business practices. I won’t mention names, but if you go through all the reviews here on Unilocal,I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out who they are. A member of my Meetup accidentally wound up at their place and they tried to convince her that Gems of Pala was closed on Sundays (an absolute lie that they have been circulating for years), and they tried to get her to just pay the fee ($ 60) and wait for the rest of her group to arrive — thankfully she did not. She also heard how people would find things like Iron Pyrite, and Brazillian Amethyst there — but learned later that neither of those minerals is indigenous to the Pala area — they were outright seeded by the folks that operate that mine. That is not an authentic experience, it is a fake experience. And it’s such a shame because I wanted to visit them as well, but now, I never will.
Back to the good stuff… the consensus of my group was that they completely loved the experience all around, and wanted to visit again. It doesn’t get better than that for me as the event organizer! I can’t wait to visit again either!
Oh — and a shout out to Shannon, too, who I got to meet at the end of our visit — we shared some design ideas as she looked over my finds. Everyone was wonderful and I couldn’t be more pleased!

Cross another one off of our bucket list!
We are now treasure hunters! No way near the scope of Indiana Jones, but good enough.
I thought we were going to Pala Casino, but my hubby had something else he wanted to do.
Gotta say, I really had fun being a newbie rockhound!
The two guys running this operation, Blue & Kevin, really added to the experience with their warm welcome and interesting stories. Ask Kevin about the time Hawaii’s cherished senator, Daniel Inouye, paid a visit.
We also enjoyed a lot of friendly conversation with others while we all sifted through our buckets of dirt.
You start off by going inside the museum/​shop to pay Blue for your bucket (s) and get a quick tutorial on how to go about finding gems.
«We bring the dirt, you bring the luck! Look for the 3 C’s– Clarity, Chunk & Color.»
You’re given a bucket and two minutes to fill it up at the pile.
No sifting through while on the pile. Just pick a spot and dig down.
Then you go to the tables and sift through your bucket contents (a cup at a time).
Take your time. My husband almost tossed a piece that looked like an ordinary rock but it turned out to be a great find.
Kevin was showing that piece to everyone as an example of what to look for.
TIP– Take all your rocks home, wash them and go through them again.
Look how much we found later at home!
All the rocks can be used in a variety of ways. Aquarium, garden, flower arrangement, etc.
Blue gave us some cleaning & polishing tips to do at home.
He gave an appraisal of our best piece (est. $ 50 – 60) if we wanted to sell it, but all our finds are going to be keepsakes.
It sure was nice to know that we got a great return on our $ 20 bucket!
(Y’know…even if we hadn’t found anything, this was a fun experience and there wouldn’t be any complaints. We happened to be lucky today!)
Other items of note:
Museum displays–
If he’s not busy, Blue’s got some interesting stories about how he found some of the items.
Rocks & geodes for sale–
If you’d like, you can just pay for a bucket and take it home to go through later. (Good idea if you have antsy kids who might get bored.) My husband was having so much fun going through our rocks at home, he was kind of wishing that he had bought an extra bucket.
Reservations for Saturday and Sunday are no longer needed. Just show up and have fun!
Almost two hours and $ 20. Time and money well spent!
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Edited to add (4 more trips & 8 buckets later) — The hubby is hooked. LOL
He just wants to bring the buckets home and sift through them at his leisure.
Been finding some good stuff too!
He took some of the best pieces to show Blue and Blue picked out a colorless clear piece as being a «rare find». And gave us some ideas of what to do with our gems. I’ll be making some pendants!
Edited to add (again) — Made my first pendant!
Also…
I am now the Duke of Gems of Pala. Hahaha!

We had a great time! The owner, Blue, is a great guy and explained everything to us. He was very helpful as was Kevin who helped us dig through our dirt. It really is a bucket full of fun! There were 8 of us there ranging in age from 6 to 65 and we all enjoyed it!
You can sift through your whole bucket there, sift through some and take the rest home, or even take the whole amount home to sift through on your own. We spent about 3 hours there and each got through different amounts of dirt.
Pack up your sunscreen, snacks, towel/​wipes for hands and head on out there. We found some really great gems!

Had a great time here !!! Everyone was super nice and we got a lot of information about all the differnt gems. My kid found a nice size pink gem 1.3 grams! Definitely will be coming back again :)

Our family of 5 (kids 9,7,6) came here on 3÷14÷15 for my 9yr old sons birthday. It was a Saturday and we arrived a few minutes before 10am. We were let in at about 10:05 we parked. We went into the office and there was a ton of gems to look at. The owner was quite friendly, he gave us some information about the types of gems and talked to the kids about them for 10 minutes. We paid and went and filled our 3 buckets ($ 20ea).
We brought them to the table where the son explained to the kids what to do in detail and he was pretty fun about it which made the kids more interested. There was mesh to give some shade but it was still quite hot, there were also chairs if you needed to sit at the tables. We sifted our hearts away. Be prepared to get dirty, don’t wear nice clothes/​Shoes. The kids were excited when they found small colorful pieces. I don’t know how many times they talked about how much money they now had in gems ;) They always ran and showed the son and he made them feel proud. It got pretty busy around 11. Almost all of the tables were full.
The kids pooped out because of the heat (and the fact that it’s «hard work» finding gems) around 11:30. So of course we finished for them. I’d come back again, it was fun.
*Bring sunscreen, water, snacks, towel for hands, paper towel/​paper plate to place small gems.

My son LOVES this place! He was totally hooked since the first time we cam here a couple months ago and we’ve came 3 times so far!
Great weekend activity for the family. It can be very hot sifting outdoor without the shades, but it’s so worth it!
The owner Blue is super friendly and very knowledgeable. My son had great conversations with him and learned a lot of new things from him.
Will definitely be back for more!

My 6 year old son and I are rock hounds and have hit seeded mines from North Carolina and Virginia. This place is great because you get the real gems from the actual Stewart mine. We were in D.C. a week beforehand and got to see some of their amazing specimens at the natural history museum so we were both excited to go.
Blue is the mine owner and a wealth of knowledge. Super friendly we ended up even picking up a few nice pink tourmalines from him in the store.
Not sure how they use to do it but this was our experience. You don’t need reservations anymore. They have brought more material so there is plenty to mine. You go in and talk with blue. Pay him $ 20 per bucket. There was no options for larger buckets but I later saw people could buy bags of material to sift through at home. You then head back out and get to full your own buckets with material. Use your sixth sense here but we ended up picking up scoops from a bunch of spots. Then you get taken over to the tables and shown how to sift thorough the material. Keep your eyes out because you can miss small pieces if you rush.
We got pretty lucky and found a couple of small green tourmaline «pencils», tiny pinks (they are known for pinks) but nothing great (hence why we bought some do their specimens, a really nice blue green tourmaline that is able to be cut and what turns out to be a nice watermelon tourmaline. We all thought it was a green one but when I put a really bright light against it you can see a pinkish core. It’s a little more than ½″ long and maybe 3/​8″ diameter. That was exciting and my sons 3^rd favorite stone. After fluorite and aquamarine.
Awesome experience. Made me wish I lived close to Pala. We also collected up some lepidolite (Sp?) which is basically a purple mica from what told. They consider it junk so it must be pretty common here but I’m bringing back some to share with the ink minor club that my son is a part of in Richmond, VA.
If you are a rock hound or just like pretty things and don’t mind getting a little dirty this is the place to be!
If we ever make it back out here we’ll be back Blue!
Berwyn

Great guys run this. They are informative and helpful. No reservations needed. my 10 yr old had a blast & found a few nice chunks of tourmaline and some pretty chips and mixed rocks. We will definitely return.

Before a trip to Pala Casino, decided to take the kids here to give them something to do other than eat and swim. They usually love digging in the dirt for «treasures» like quartz, so I figured this was right up their alley.
Called to make a reservation, but they said that none was needed for that week (early spring). Though not obvious, the place was exactly where the website said it was. Parked, went into the store, paid $ 40 for two buckets, and went outside to get them.
Both the owner (who helps outside) and the person inside were very pleasant, very helpful and courteous, and went out of their way to make the kids feel comfortable. The owner took a lot of time explaining how things worked, and what all those things were.
The kids had a BLAST, and were extremely excited to find all kinds of pink, green, purple, and blue stones. Sure, none were of great size, but that really wasn’t what the trip was about.
Definitely, if you have little kids, give this a try. One bucket takes them about an hour to process, which is about the limit of many’s attention span, so it’s perfect. Unfortunately, they only open Sat and Sun, otherwise we would have returned later in the week.
They get 5 stars for really seeming to appreciate kids, and not getting grumpy for explaining the same thing over and over. One kid (not mine, thankfully) was caught on the pile picking stones out of it (a no-​no), but the owner very gently reminded them that it wasn’t allowed, and patiently explained why.

Had an amazing time. We bought the $ 100 bucket and found a lot of tourmaline. We had other people in our party buy the $ 20 bucket and they found some as well (just not as much). Even if we didn’t find anything it was a fun adventure and great hanging out Kevin and the regulars swapping stories and admiring the treasures.
Dress to get dirty. Roll up your sleeves! Bring a drink with a straw and maybe a little snack. We got there at 10:30 and were there until 2:30 sifting through our buckets. We even took our buckets home so we can go through it again just in case we missed something.
Will definitely be back!

Today walmart and mcdonalds seem to rule and small mom and pop busineses are being pushed off the planet. But there is still at least one small mom and pop business left which contains some of the most beautiful and precious gems that you can go and see up close. There is also a hands on aspect to this place, where you can buy a bucket of rocks from an actual mine, that the owner owns and operates, where you can find gems yourself!!! Also if you are looking for a special ring for your special lady and you dont want to be middle manned by the big guys this is the place. I highly recommend checking this place out which is located just east of Pala casino in the beautiful Pala valley. The owners name is Blue Shepard and he is the real deal when it comes to gems and mining.

Need reservation, sunscreen and a towel to dry hands…
A nice get away from big crowds and traffic.
Great place to take kids! You may need to bring extra clothes for the little ones!
One more thing, don’t drive too fast. You will miss the narrow drive way.

NERD ALERT
Okay, I first heard about this place on some show on the Travel Channel last year, where the hostess goes out to different places to hunt for gems. This place happened to be featured on an episode where she was able to hunt for this gem called tourmaline, and ever since then, I’ve had this strange desire to check this place out. Here’s the drill:
First off, you run the risk of being turned away if you try to drop in on this place spur of the moment, especially on a weekend. It’s best if you call about a week in advance to reserve your spot (s). They are only open Thursday through Sunday, and they have 2 time slots: 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. The cost is $ 20 per bucket of dirt/​mine tailings.
When you arrive, they tell you to grab a bucket and shovel, and they point you to the pile of dirt. You get 2 minutes to fill up your bucket and they recommend you fill it so it is overflowing. You take your bucket of dirt and take it to the sorting area, where they give you a quick demo on the technique and what to look for. If you take your time, it will take about an hour and half to sort through the tailings.
They supply you with everything that you need, so all you need to bring are some old clothes and expect to get a little dirty. I’m definitely not a rock hound, but I had a pretty good time doing it, even though I didn’t find anything of value. I can see the appeal of potentially finding your own personal treasure! I did find a few tourmaline fragments and I was able to bring them home.
Ultimately, this is a low-​cost, low-​commitment experience, just to get your feet wet to the world of rock hounding. I would rather pay the extra money and go to Oceanview Mine. I have had much better luck up there and have found many stones of value.

You have tried the lottery tickets, you have tried the casinos, but the jackpot has evaded you. What’s next? How about shifting through bucket full of rocks to find that pink tourmaline worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars? My friend is a gambler that frequents the casino near this place. And he was the one that told me about this place. For 10 bucks, you could fill the bucket with rocks and sand from the mine. You shift through your rocks and sand to look for the precious gems. I found some emeralds, pink tourmalines, etc. but nothing big, nothing of quality. I ended up giving them to the kids that came here with me. You can do the shifting on site, and they have everything you need. Shovels, bucket, wire mesh screen, and pool of water to rinse your rocks to get started. But you could also do a takeout and go through your rocks at privacy of your own home. I went during the summer and it was awfully hot and horseflies (blood sucking flies) were everywhere. So put those into consideration when you go. They also have a store where you can purchase gems. Your odds of finding a big one is probably small but the experience is definitely worth it.