River of Gold

Fun place to look for garnets. Good for families and individuals. Garnet panning costs about $10 per pan, so you can split it if you have younger kids or don't want to stay as long. They recommend an hour if you want to pan. I love looking through the pan and pulling out the garnets so I'll take more than an hour and a half to do this activity, but you can choose how long to stay.
The rest of the area has old mining equipment, and the walk around is free as are the maps that have more information about the equipment.
The bathroom is a portapotty, though slightly nicer, and has always been fairly clean when I visit. The main building and the troughs to pan are wheelchair accessible as long as they can handle some dirt and rocks. Bathroom is unisex and does have a slight step without a ramp so if you're in a wheelchair, or have other leg ailments, getting in might be a challenge depending on severity.

Lovely experience gold panning. Both Kids and Adults enjoyed it throughly.

What amazing staff to explain how to pan for gold , and talked to people whole they panned. It was a fun experience to sit with our family and to communicate and disconnect from electronics and have a hands on experience and be able to take home a container of pieces you want . Plus as a family you can sit there 15 minutes or longer and everyone should visit and support virginia city or Nevada city .

This was an awesome experience for our family! Our guide was polite and knowledgeable, as well as very patient with all of our small kids! We went at the end of the day and they had covered areas to sit under. It isn't likely that you'll find gold, but we found a ton of garnets in the pay dirt!

Staff friendly and knowledgeable, found lots of garners.

We enjoyed our time here! Kids had a blast. However, we did not find any GOLD ... and was told they don't usually find Gold!! But we found a lot of Garnets, Agates and other gems. Consider this to be a River of garnets and you will love it! If you are set on finding pockets of Gold maybe go further up the mine because all the piles here have been mined and mined and mined again and all the Gold is gone.

The ladies there were very knowledgeable, friendly and took time to show us how to pan. We found a lot of garnets and it was a fun family activity. There is ample shade very pretty scenery surrounding the place.

Take done time mine for gold and stones good times.

Great people who stood out with us in the rain and snow in June to help us have some fun! Thank you so much especially to Jessica! She was kind to our kiddos and very knowledgable about the stones! We had a great experience and highly recommend this activity and business!

They are open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. It takes about an hour to pan. They have maps available of the area to look at all the neat mining equipment in that area. As well as a gift shop.

Friendly staff. Best time to go is in the morning. In the afternoon it gets hot. There is shade available.

Its $8.00 a pan. That means they supply you with a pan and tweezers, they give you a scoop of dirt and a vial. The vial is yours to take home. Anything you find in your dirt is yours to keep. They give you a demonstration on how to pan for gold. They are willing to help you if you need further instructions or an opion on a rock or gem you found.

It is not guaranteed that you will find gold. You have as much luck as the minors did back in the day, as they say.

There are plenty of gems to find. Garnets are most common.

They are not experts. All the information about different rocks and gems they tell you is to the best of their knowledge.

They do not have set times for panning. You are welcome to come down to visit at any time but they will not except anyone past 5:00pm. As I said it takes about an hour to pan.

Really fun.first time trying to find gold!cool antique stuff around the place also!

My husband and kiddo had a great time panning for gold...the hostess was very kind and helpful.

Low key but fun and easy way to get garnets. Great for the Junior rockhound!

Well preserved. Wish it had been open to panning but we enjoyed walking around and looking what was there.

So much fun! Garnets! Amethyst! Quartz and more!

Pretty cool little place to stop and look around when you are just coming through...

Very fun with the chance to find real gold !

Amazing history! Heartbreaking story

Must see👍

Relaxing a 150 years later!