Twin Creek Crystal Mine Ark - Mt Ida, Arkansas

Four J.

Beautiful scenic drive to this little hideaway. Don’t be deterred by the long gravel one lane roads. We brought a bucket wagon shovel hammer and pickaxe. Would also recommend a brush and a spray bottle of water. Hand sanitizer too (you’ll understand after visiting the outhouse). Recommend the $100 day because you will have more beauties than you know what to do with. The sweet gentleman running the place was so helpful and gave us tips to clean them up. If you enjoy crater of diamonds this is 10x’s better and you’ll come away with so much more. Dogs welcomed.

Updated hours 9-3:30.

H

We dug for 6 hours straight with napping pups & loved every second of it.

Tom D.

Showed up and met by 2 employees smoking pot in there truck. We were deceive and told the $100 dig area was turning up big crystals. Was directed to dig across the rode from the $25 area. Dug for 5 hours and did not find anything other than small points. Was later informed that their heavy equipment had been broke down for several months so nothing had be turned over.Was also told at the end of the day there was other areas which could be dug in at the $100 rate. We feel we were lied to and should have been informed of the broken equipment and other dig areas. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND. BEWARE!! There are much better mines in the area.

Lindsey O.

OMG!! After reading some of the reviews and traveling almost 6 hours to get here. We were not let down!

It's $25/ person. Thankfully, we went on a day that was overcast. It was still humid but bearable. We climbed and dug and hammered. We didn't find any geods or thunder eggs to crack open. But we had so much fun!

There were lots of families with young children, who all seemed to also be enjoying their time. They also had a picnic area to have lunch.

Alix R.

Drove 13 hours just to come mine here, and we will DEFINITELY be back. We found so many beautiful crystals! Highly recommend doing the commercial or pocket digs! Bring your own tools, gloves, water, sunscreen, extra buckets, and good shoes/clothes for mining that you don’t mind getting dirty. Call ahead during hotter temps to be sure they’re not closed early for safety. The road getting back there is rocky, so take it slow, and bring a truck or SUV if possible! We made it just fine in our car though. Bobby was so nice and made us feel welcome! Can’t wait to come back!!

jason C.

Me and my Girlfriend and my two kids went to dig for Crystal's for the 1st time and we all had so much fun and found lots of beautiful Crystals we most definitely plan on going back again highly recommend going if you've not been before!

Carol R.

Ok, let's start with all the things I tried to find out online and couldn't. I drive a 24 ft freightliner sprinter van. It's 9'10" tall. Yes, it fits on the road. It's not great, but the road isn't nearly as bad as we were led to believe. We made it just fine, go very slow.

They have 3 tiers of "digs"

#1. The regular dig.. piles and pits full of dirt and fun shiny things to find, and you will find them..

#2. The commercial dig ...$100 per person... a much smaller pile and a pit of dirt to find fun shiny things in, altho didn't find as many shiny things here as we did in the regular dig previously.

#3. A private "pocket dig"... Ranges from $300-$1000. It's not digging like you think it is. You need a pickaxe and a large crowbar to get pretty much anything. You are breaking apart rock and digging open a rock face. We opted for a $300 option, just to get our feet wet. We were given 2 tiny veins of clay, about 15 feet tall and about 1.5-3 inches wide. Your job is to dig that clay and mud out and find crystals. The largest one we found was 3/4 of an inch wide and about 1.5 inches tall. Everything else was the size of a pencil eraser or smaller. We were shown some beautiful pieces at the trailer that could be found in the pocket digs.. Not a chance those came from the place they put us. Lol
We got about a third of a bucket of crystals. The ones we dug out were VERY small. And you have to work insanely hard, standing painfully on the rock face to get them. It's not easy folks, not at all. And the reward for us was very disappointing. I read that if you didn't like what you found they made it up to you. They told us this too. When we left they gave us two little crystals about 1.5 inches in diameter. So, I guess?

Take away:
Do the regular dig. Unless you're in great physical shape and have good climbing skills and fantastic balance, oh, and the right tools, a pocket dig may not be for you. Those videos you see on tik tok and YouTube, are NOT what you're going to experience.
I'm sad that we spent $300 to find out that we would have a much nicer haul in the regular area. I feel kinda like we paid for torture. Lol. But we will be back someday, to dig like the regular tourists.
Thanks for the adventure guys!

TravelAbby 1.

This place is amazing! From the moment I pulled up I got a good vibe! After a neat drive through the woods, the road opened up to the mine before me and there were people already crawling over over the dig site, and sparkles all over the dirt. This was my first experience at rock hounding and let me just say that I am hooked! And I will be back. The location is great and the staff there is super kind and helpful to a new digger like myself. I found so many lovely pieces and the staff even gave me advice on how to clear my crystals. Love this place!!!