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Sutter Gold Mine Tours
2 reviews for Sutter Gold Mine Tours
If you're remotely considering doing this tour, rest assured -- this is absolutely awesome!
In all honestly, the only reason we went is because we bought the "adventure passports" which was a bundle admittance deal to the several caverns in the area as well as the mine. We were not disappointment and the biggest reason for that is our tour guide, Charlie. Charlie looks like an old school miner from a cartoon -- big beard, old hard-hat, the works. He has the best stories and makes your visit really fascinating. Riding in a cart wearing a hard hat doesn't hurt either. Charlie talked us through the Gold Rush history in the area, how gold used to be mined for back then vs. now, all the ways miners tried to sneak the nuggets out of the mine etc. etc.
Highly recommended for kids and adults alike!
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Okay, if you're a fan of gold (who isn't?), geology, or history, you have to take this tour! Sutter Gold Mine is what's called a hard rock mine - that is a mine that goes underground where they blast out the rock, and it's not just some tourist attraction, it's a real modern gold mine. But here's the thing..it takes you right into the quartz that made the California Gold Rush famous - the quartz that contains the gold, called the Mother Lode.
The tour begins with everyone putting on their mine safety hats and then you jump aboard a real mine vehicle, which a tour guide drives underground. You're driven down to about 500 feet below the surface and you learn loads of fascinating facts about gold mines and gold mine history. There are display areas set up underground depicting earlier uses of gold mining machinery. Our guide demonstrated how to use some of it (without actually turning it on). We saw some tiny flecks of real gold in the white quartz... fantastic!
The kids loved it! Driving back up toward the light was fabulous. At the gift shop we bought cool vials of real gold, and did some gold panning outside.
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