We went to the Crater of Diamond State Park with our Cub Scouts this weekend to camp and try our luck at mining diamonds.   It’s a two hour drive there from Little Rock, and a beautiful drive. We ended up with just three families camping on Friday, but had four more join us to dig on Saturday.  For those of you who don’t know, the park is the only place IN THE WORLD where diamond digging is open the the general public. 

Searching for Diamonds

 Digging is much harder than you’d think.  There is a lot of mica,
quartz, jasper, and calcite that confuses you and makes you think you’ve
struck it rich.  I found some pretty green rocks I thought might be
jade, but were volcanic ash!  It makes for great geology lessons and Cub
Scouts 
can earn lots of goodies like: Geology beltloop and pin,
family travel requirements,  Webelos Geology pin requirements, and lots
more.  

Sifting and Washing

The boys loved getting dirty (but not so much getting hot) so we treated them with a trip to the little water park right outside the digging field.  I think that was the highlight for them!

Cooling Off in the Waterpark

Some hints:  If you go with a large group they give great rates.  We only paid $1.81 for the kids and $3 for adults to dig.  You can take wagons, tools, screens, coolers, from home.  If you don’t want to cart all that they also rent everything you can hope for there and have a restaurant where you can rest.  Take swimsuits if you want to get the kids clean before going home!