Rockhounding at the Ray Mine, North Carolina

   Many a year ago - in fact it was 9-18-1976 I went with some friends down to North Carolina for the fun of it to look at the geology of the area.  While we were there we wanted to go mineral collecting.  We went to one commercial place and was very disappointed in it.  Then we went to some fields and were able to find some staurolite  crystals but after an hour or so we had all that we were interested in getting. We tried to decide whether we should head back or try a place someone told us about while were were at the commercial place. It was called Ray mine and it was free because it was on government  property at the time. We had a great time there and I got a good specimen of beryl and lots and lots of mica and other Pegmatites type material.  Through the years I gave most of the mica away to school kids because it is such a neat mineral for them to see and to explain cleavage and things like that to them.  I never realize I had given just about all I had away and was upset with myself for not keeping more of it.  I always thought I would get back to the area and could collect more when I did.  I never dreamed it wouldn't be until Sept 2013 until I could get back to it.
    Part of the problem was I wrote the name down - (W)Ray Mine, Yancey Co North Carolina  9-18-76.  and that was it .  I didn't have a topographical map and so I didn't have the exact location of the place.  I did not know where to look- I tried finding it again a couple of years later and then forgot all about it.
    Last year I was going to South Carolina and decided to get some rock collecting books of the area I was going to.   I ot this one book called "Rock, Gem, and Mineral Collecting Sites in Western North Carolina' by Richard James Jacquot, Jr (2003) Land of the Sky books.  There on page 40 was a black and white photo and I was like that's it - that's the place were I've been collecting before.  I couldn't believe I recognized it.  I went looking for my rocks that I had in storage up in the attic and found the little slip of paper that had what I had written down way back then.  The beryl crystal I had collected had lost its tag long, long ago and it was only by seeing that photo it came back to me and I could put it all back together again.  I was so happy because this book also gave very good directions to get to the place and also the GPS for it too.
  The Ray mine is located in the (here's what Wikipedia has to say about it) Pisgah_National_Forest .
Here's the Direction that James Jaquot  gives on page 36.
GPS Coordinates: 35 53.240 N   082 16.728 W.
From Asheville, NC take US Hwy 19-23 North to exit 9, Burnsville/Spruce Pine exit, turn right towards Burnsville on US 19 N, drive 17.1 miles into Burnsville, turn right onto Pensacola Road/ NC197 South, drive 0.7 miles to Bolen Creek Road, turn left, drive 1.3 miles to Ray Mine Road, turn left follow Ray Mine Road to the dead end at the US Forest Road.  The road up there is now blocked off and you have to park there and walk the .3 mile to the collecting site.

 When we pulled up I recognized this shack - I don't know if it was from the photo in the book or if it was my memory.  The one thing I do recall was I did not own a camera at the time and so i did not have any visual aids to help me recall the place.

 Here it the area where you can park.  As you can see it's not very large and it seems to be first come. 

 When we got out the path was not very well defined and it looked like this.  At first I was wondering if I had gotten the right place. 

 but then I saw this and was like - YES this IS IT.  I've made it back. 

 I remembered all the interesting looking material was in white looking rocks and so we kept on going up the path until we saw this stream bed strewn with this talus debris from the mine.  That was the way I remembered finding things in the creek bed. 

 The one thing when I was here before the vegetation wasn't as lush as it is now and because of that there was a lot more leaf debris on the rocks making them more slippery. 

 Here was the area that was close to a mine shaft and where i mostly stayed. 

 Here's a picture of where one of the mine shaft is.  They don't want you around them and I didn't get any closer than that.  I remembered before getting to a mine shaft and looking in but not being able to go in so this time I figured it would be the same way.  I knew if I just kept looking in the creek bed I would find stuff. 

 I also remembered I loved the mica and I went looking for the mica and as long as I searching for the mica I found the other stuff too.  I used that same thought process this time too.  My collecting wasn't as good as it was before but I did get some stuff that I am happy with.
    As a side note:  Later we went into Spruce Pine and stopped at a rock store.  We asked about collecting in the area.  She told us about the Crabtree mine.  She also was very nice and pull out some stuff and told us what to look for.  She showed a rock that had a band of dark - Amphibole looking material and then there was a zone right next to it that had the emeralds and it was mixed in with white feldspar and quartz.  That was in keeping with what I remembered about collecting in this area- look for white rocks with streaks of black in it.  I didn't find too many like that but then again I didn't spend as much time here as I did before either. 

Here's some of the stuff I did get from the two times I did do it.
From 37 years ago:
 A 2 inch Beryl crystal (Beryl  ) in a white feldspar.  Notice the amiphibole mineral on the upper left-hand side.

 Another piece of Beryl.  I found some more beryl but through the years I've given away or lost the other pieces I had and only kept these two.

 And this piece of mica (Mica  ).

Now from 9-29-2013.
White feldspar (Feldspar   )  At the time I think my friends and I called it Orthoclase but I wondered if it couldn't be Albite.  Without a chemical analysis I don't know for sure so I just stick with calling it feldspar.

 Another feldspar with quartz . 

 I found this piece because of the reddish weathering I was seeing which wasn't too common in this area.  When I looked at it I realized there was a garnet there.  What made me collect it was because the garnet was about an inch in diameter which is larger than what I've seen before.

 Here's the ampibole looking material.  

 and this is a larger piece that I would consider to be a schists. ( Schists )

 A piece of rock with a lot of mica in it.

 pieces of mica - muscovite

 and some dark looking mica -biotite?

It was  my birthday and I was so glad my husband was such a good sport about going collecting with me and doing this for my birthday.  To me it was the perfect birthday present -- getting those gems and he couldn't complain because it didn't cost him that much.
   The one thing he did like was just to sit and listen to the creek water babble by and to smell the pine forest.  It really was a lovely setting and worth going there just to be in nature.
finally here's a picture as to what the mountain/ forest  look like from the road and a distance away.

Now I have to look for some books to find out more about the formation it is in.  For some reason I think this was believed to be deep seated rocks preCambrian in age that got faulted upward and eroded to be exposed now.  I'm not too sure where I saw that and at this point don't quote me on it.  If anyone has some good information on this I would love to get some references for it.

Here is the state map for North Carolina and the link where I got it http://geology.about.com/od/maps/ig/stategeomaps/NCgeomap.htm:
 

The closest stuff I've come across is some on the geology of the Great Smokey Mountains and have written about it here: great-smokey-mountains-national-park .
Here's two good references of the Great Smokey Mountains.:
'A Roadside Guide to the Geology of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park' by Harry L. Moore (1988) pp 1-178. The University of Tennessee Press/Knoxville.)
 "Geology Of National Parks"6th ed by Ann G Harris, Ester Tuttle & Sherwood D. Tuttle (2004) Kendall/Hunt Pub. Com. Dubuque Iowa. pp 821-834.