What better way to spend a day than to try your luck at finding your own opals?
The Klinker Opal Property is located in the mountains approximately 40 kilometres by road from Vernon, BC, and is situated at an elevation of about 1500 metres above sea level.
All trips to the Klinker Mine leave from the Opal Miner's Gift Shop, and you must have your own vehicle. No transportation is provided.
The property is readily accessible from June to October each year and can be reached by most two wheel drive vehicles. SUV's are best, but any vehicle with reasonable ground clearance will do. There are some 20 kilometres of gravel/dirt logging road to travel and portions of this road are quite steep.
"Fee digging" trips will commence when weather and ground conditions permit in June and will run until late September or early October. The trips will run rain or shine and are normally restricted to Friday, Saturday and Sunday (also Monday on long weekends). Please phone for special arrangements for groups of 4 to 6.
Sunny days are best for hunting when the play of color in the opal will be much more easily detected. Your trip guide will provide an orientation which will assist in finding opal under most weather conditions.
A daily fee of $50 CDN is charged - family rates may apply. This will allow each individual paid guest to remove up to 2.5 kilograms. (~5 lbs.) of "material" (opal, agate, rock, etc.) from the property.
Safety equipment is required to be worn while actively digging, hammering and chiseling rock - specifically safety glasses and good gloves and boots are recommended. A list of equipment and supplies required or recommended is given below but please assess your own needs. No mechanized equipment will be allowed - hand tools only. Rental tools are available by the day.
Required:
Recommended:
So you found an opal or two --- what now?
Many collectors just want to keep the pieces they find as specimens and others ask us to clean them up.
Then there are those of you that will find some good pieces of opal (solid or boulder opal) that can be cut and polished into gemstones and which can be made into jewellery. We offer this service --- see examples of some.
Canadian opal and diamond custom jewellery