Twin Creek Crystal Mine Ark - Mt Ida, Arkansas

Four J's

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.

Lindsey Olsen

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.

H K

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

Alix Rose

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!!

Carol Reed

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!

Jason Pitz

My wife and i dug two separate days (6/3/22 & 6/5/22) we did the $25 the first day to get a feel and the $100 the second day. Had a blast! Dug some great crystals. Owner David was very nice and helpful as well as his daughter who checked on us to make sure we weren't getting to hot. We will return soon!

Chanele Villasenor

This place is awesome! You are guaranteed to find something wonderful. Take what you find for one price. We had 2 adults and an 8 year old - paid $62. Beware - CASH ONLY!! Pics don't do the rocks justice. Found some citrine, smoky quartz, milky quartz, and beautiful quartz crystals. Bring drinking water, a bucket, and a rock hammer if you have one (not necessay tho).

Abby Hauck

We had a great experience, after a hiccup with our first pocket, the kind lady called the owner and he upgraded our pocket to a more expensive one without extra charge. It was very kind because the hiccup with the first pocket was out of the owners control. The second vein was great and we dug from around 10:30-2:30 with three strong diggers and still could have spent more time.