Arkansas digging trip - Nov 2022
Nov 14, 2022 8:06:11 GMT -5
Thunder69, quartz, and 16 more like this
Post by HankRocks on Nov 14, 2022 8:06:11 GMT -5
.My annual Arkansas digging trip was delayed until Nov this year, who would have thought retirement would have been so busy!.
I drove up Sunday the 6th and met my two digging friends at a rental house in Hot Springs Village. Camping out after all a long day of digging/hammer and chisel work and lugging buckets of prospective crystal is not really fun for this old boy, comforts of home are much more appealing. That and we are not subject to the whims of the weather.
Spent 6 days digging. Of those 6, 2 would be considered good and the other 4 average to below. Our two best days were at Wegner's Crystal Forest and Ron Coleman's. At Wegner's one has the choice of finding a vein with potential pockets and then hard rock mining it or digging thru tailings. Two of us were fortunate enough to find a longer vein that we worked for almost 6 hours. The clay pocket was narrow with softer sandstone. Good news/bad news a bit easier to work but more difficult to get bigger clusters out. I did manage to get several vey nice clusters out and several maybe's. A word to first timers. If you find a prospective piece with one or two points visible thru the clay, take it. There are hopefully more point under the clay and the rest have nature's packing to protect them. It does add to the weight to carry out, risk/reward. Also if you find a potential vein, do a search of the the surrounding pieces extracted by the track-hoe by the miners. I found several larger pieces of nice crystal on larger rocks covered with clay. A bit of experienced(lucky) hammer and chisel work can produce some very nice thin(lighter) pieces.
We had made reservations the week before for a spot on the truck out to the Phantom Mine. This trip is only done on a as needed basis and with a a minimum of 10 diggers. It is all tailings work and the big prize is the "Blue Phantoms". These are Quartz Crystals that grew with Manganese inclusions that give them a blue/gray color. I did manage to find a couple of smaller points, about 1/2 to 3/4 inch or so and several clusters that look promising. The tailings were a bit old and needed to be refreshed with newer material from the working pit. They do turn them over periodically to expose newer pieces. It was interesting that 30 minutes before the 4 hours were up folks are loading up on the truck. Of course there were 3 guys who were going to get their money's worth and stayed until the last second.
Note that Wegner's does not allow you to take your vehicle to the two digging spots. They have larger flatbed trucks with bench seats to take folks out. The drivers are all nice and helpful. Our Phantom Mine driver carried several larger pieces 80 - 100+ pound pieces back to the truck for folks. Young show-off!!
Ron Coleman's was pretty good once we good zeroed in on the right pile to dig. We normally split up and each scout a different area looking for the better dig possibility. About two hours in after a few scattered pieces the New Jersey member of our trio found an interesting spot so we all migrated there. Whatever you do, do not call out to your group in a loud manner "hey, this pile has crystal!!!" It can bring a rush of folks. We usually take one side of a pile and reserve our area with buckets and tools. About 3 hours of digging did produce about 4 gallons of potentially decent clusters for me and two larger pieces in the 15 to 20 pound range I carried out. As in the above note about leaving the pieces covered with clay. I am pretty good at "seeing" thru the clay. 25 years of digging has improved that skill.
Two of the other 3 days were spent prospecting old mine areas that had not been worked in years. They can be productive however with no equipment moving rock the digging is diggicult and one can spend 2 or 3 days of very hard work just to get to the crystal. We did just average or below at both. The roads to these places are very rough and not maintained. I took out one small pine tree on a very tight curve trying to avoid a 2 foot rut. 4 wheel drive and high clearence is a must.
One other spot that the Forest Service has left for folks is Crystal Vista. It is an old mining area that one can hike two on a somewhat maintained mile long trail. The site is being reclaimed as intended by nature. It's easy to spot the old tailings and low rock wall with crystal veins. It can produce small Blue Phantom crystals if one is a good digger and lucky. We had limited results.
A couple things have changed the crystal digging, Social Media - Facebook and YouTube. At Ron Colemans we estimated there were 90 to 100 folks out with maybe 80% of those being "tourist" diggers. It was a cold day in the 40's with the wind gusting to about 20 to 25. Thje folks were still there as they had all seen the Youtube video or the Facebook pictures of prize finds. Most will never see those.
(note - none of the 3 of us take any or few pictures, the muddy piles and covered gloves is not a good palce to take pics if you are digging)
All in all a good trip. 7 nights - 6 days of digging, Beef Stew, Chili and beans, Smoked Salmon, Italian Sausage burgers, really good breakfast, quality time with very good friends, hardly any TV or news. Win, win win!!!
Henry
I drove up Sunday the 6th and met my two digging friends at a rental house in Hot Springs Village. Camping out after all a long day of digging/hammer and chisel work and lugging buckets of prospective crystal is not really fun for this old boy, comforts of home are much more appealing. That and we are not subject to the whims of the weather.
Spent 6 days digging. Of those 6, 2 would be considered good and the other 4 average to below. Our two best days were at Wegner's Crystal Forest and Ron Coleman's. At Wegner's one has the choice of finding a vein with potential pockets and then hard rock mining it or digging thru tailings. Two of us were fortunate enough to find a longer vein that we worked for almost 6 hours. The clay pocket was narrow with softer sandstone. Good news/bad news a bit easier to work but more difficult to get bigger clusters out. I did manage to get several vey nice clusters out and several maybe's. A word to first timers. If you find a prospective piece with one or two points visible thru the clay, take it. There are hopefully more point under the clay and the rest have nature's packing to protect them. It does add to the weight to carry out, risk/reward. Also if you find a potential vein, do a search of the the surrounding pieces extracted by the track-hoe by the miners. I found several larger pieces of nice crystal on larger rocks covered with clay. A bit of experienced(lucky) hammer and chisel work can produce some very nice thin(lighter) pieces.
We had made reservations the week before for a spot on the truck out to the Phantom Mine. This trip is only done on a as needed basis and with a a minimum of 10 diggers. It is all tailings work and the big prize is the "Blue Phantoms". These are Quartz Crystals that grew with Manganese inclusions that give them a blue/gray color. I did manage to find a couple of smaller points, about 1/2 to 3/4 inch or so and several clusters that look promising. The tailings were a bit old and needed to be refreshed with newer material from the working pit. They do turn them over periodically to expose newer pieces. It was interesting that 30 minutes before the 4 hours were up folks are loading up on the truck. Of course there were 3 guys who were going to get their money's worth and stayed until the last second.
Note that Wegner's does not allow you to take your vehicle to the two digging spots. They have larger flatbed trucks with bench seats to take folks out. The drivers are all nice and helpful. Our Phantom Mine driver carried several larger pieces 80 - 100+ pound pieces back to the truck for folks. Young show-off!!
Ron Coleman's was pretty good once we good zeroed in on the right pile to dig. We normally split up and each scout a different area looking for the better dig possibility. About two hours in after a few scattered pieces the New Jersey member of our trio found an interesting spot so we all migrated there. Whatever you do, do not call out to your group in a loud manner "hey, this pile has crystal!!!" It can bring a rush of folks. We usually take one side of a pile and reserve our area with buckets and tools. About 3 hours of digging did produce about 4 gallons of potentially decent clusters for me and two larger pieces in the 15 to 20 pound range I carried out. As in the above note about leaving the pieces covered with clay. I am pretty good at "seeing" thru the clay. 25 years of digging has improved that skill.
Two of the other 3 days were spent prospecting old mine areas that had not been worked in years. They can be productive however with no equipment moving rock the digging is diggicult and one can spend 2 or 3 days of very hard work just to get to the crystal. We did just average or below at both. The roads to these places are very rough and not maintained. I took out one small pine tree on a very tight curve trying to avoid a 2 foot rut. 4 wheel drive and high clearence is a must.
One other spot that the Forest Service has left for folks is Crystal Vista. It is an old mining area that one can hike two on a somewhat maintained mile long trail. The site is being reclaimed as intended by nature. It's easy to spot the old tailings and low rock wall with crystal veins. It can produce small Blue Phantom crystals if one is a good digger and lucky. We had limited results.
A couple things have changed the crystal digging, Social Media - Facebook and YouTube. At Ron Colemans we estimated there were 90 to 100 folks out with maybe 80% of those being "tourist" diggers. It was a cold day in the 40's with the wind gusting to about 20 to 25. Thje folks were still there as they had all seen the Youtube video or the Facebook pictures of prize finds. Most will never see those.
(note - none of the 3 of us take any or few pictures, the muddy piles and covered gloves is not a good palce to take pics if you are digging)
All in all a good trip. 7 nights - 6 days of digging, Beef Stew, Chili and beans, Smoked Salmon, Italian Sausage burgers, really good breakfast, quality time with very good friends, hardly any TV or news. Win, win win!!!
Henry