As part of the McRocks cookout and rock swap festivities, I led a group to the Ray Mica Mine in Yancey County, NC. The Ray Mine is a former muscovite mine and is best known for its beryl crystals. A wide variety of other collectable minerals can also be found at the Ray, including tourmaline, muscovite, moonstone, fluorite, hyalite, columbite, apatite, quartz, garnet, thulite and many more.

We met at the National Forest trailhead before making our way up the 1/2-mile trail to the creek that runs through the lower spoil piles. Due to an explosion of poison ivy on the forest slopes, we restricted our collecting to the creek bed area. While many fine rocks and minerals were recovered, I gave all that I found away, so I don't have any specimen pictures to share in this report, but you can check out one of many other Ray Mine field trip reports on McRocks.com for representative rocks and minerals. The following pictures tell the more important people-side of the story.