Quartz Crystal Digging in Mount Ida, Arkansas
What did I want for my birthday?? To go digging for crystals, obviously!
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Since I was in Missouri for my birthday and knew I was planning to move back to LA soon, I wanted to make sure to take a trip to Mount Ida to dig for some crystals before I left! I have been crystal digging in Mount Ida once before and ended up using A LOT of the crystals that I found in my senior collection!
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I absolutely loved last time digging, I knew I had to go back before I left Missouri! Thankfully, my mom is always down for an adventure! We got packed for the weekend and drove down to Mt. Ida. When we pulled into town…town being a couple local businesses…we noticed that there was some sort of show going on. It looked like it was a crystal show – so of course, mom pulled a u-turn and we headed back to the show!
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There were several local miners that were selling crystals, some did it full time while others just for a hobby. There was one man in particular, Dan, who was super friendly and incredibly knowledgeable! He knew all about the science behind how the crystals form and where to dig the best crystals. We looked around the rest of the show but came back to Dan’s booth and asked where he recommended we go digging. There are several places in Mt. Ida to be able to go to a public dig, but we figured we were talking to an expert so we wanted to ask his opinion! Dan was bummed that he was working the show or he would have taken us himself. After a little convincing, he said if we wanted to meet him early in the morning that he would take us up the mountain and get us started and we could dig as long as we wanted. Yes!! That sounded good to us! We said we would meet at his house bright and early tomorrow!
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The next morning we woke up early, had some breakfast and headed toward Dan’s house. We were of course excited but also a little nervous…I mean, we did randomly meet this man only the day before…this wasn’t a public dig, it would legit be on the side of a mountain… so scary, but also…so exciting!
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(One of the Crystals Dan had dug up the night before we went! *STUNNING*)
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We pull up to Dan’s house and there are honestly crystals everywherrrrreeeeee. He immediately took us inside because he had gone for a night dig after the show– he had found some GEMS! He then showed us some of his favorite stones from other digs, took us around his property and then to the showroom that he was building. Seeing all of this of course hyped me up even more to go digging!
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We then hopped in our cars and headed over to the mountain. Heading up the mountain was a bit rugged and definitely not built for all cars! When we got to the top we were surrounded by extremely tall pine trees. We eagerly followed Dan into the woods (this is the part in the scary movies that you’re supposed to turn back…) and he was not exaggerating when he said we would be digging on the side of the mountain. Just getting to where we would be digging was a bit of a challenge – not to mention the digging itself.
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(Dan showing me how to dig up the crystals)
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Dan showed me exactly what to do in order to dig up the crystals – he even dug several crystals for me before he headed back to the show leaving us to dig. When it came time for me to try my hand…let’s just say it was really freaking hard. I got hot, sweaty and dizzy and had only found a handful of crystals! Dan made it look sooooo easy, not the case when it was my turn!
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(Me trying to dig...it was HARD WORK!)
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After digging for a few hours my mom and I decided to just walk around the area and gather some crystals that we found (probably Dan’s reject crystals that we thought were great…). I did find a couple big rocks that had some crystals which Dan would refer to as “Yard Rocks”...which meant they were good enough to keep around out in the yard, but not worth any real money – again, we thought these were great! *laughing crying emoji*
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(Digging out the red clay mud)
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(She's so CUTE! The red/yellow tint is iron oxide...I'll have to write another post on how to clean off iron oxide if you go dig!)
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Although we hadn’t found much, we felt that the dig was a huge success! We got to have a true crystal digging experience with one of Mt. Ida’s local miners who was extremely accommodating! And..since there was room in the car we ended up snagging a few incredible gems from Dan’s booth before we got back on the road.
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(The awesome quartz cluster I bought from Dan after not digging this up myself...lol)
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The trip was the perfect birthday trip and was a huge inspiration for a few of the pieces that will be revealed soon! If you want to be the first to see the Crystal Dig inspired pieces make sure that you are signed up for VIP! Click here to sign up now so that you’re the first to know!
