30th annual World Championship Crystal Dig in Mount Ida

Editor’s note: The event featured in this article occurred in 2017, but we hear that this year’s will be the best yet. Find it on our Events page.

Every October, Mount Ida plays host to the World Championship Quartz Crystal Dig. This will be the 30th anniversary for the world championship. During the event, which takes place October 13-14 this year, diggers compete for prize money in categories that include Best Cluster and Best Point. Area mines that are part of the crystal dig competition include Twin Creek Crystal Mine and Sweet Surrender Crystal Mind. Of note, the event is an amateur competition and not open to professional or commercial quartz crystal diggers. The event is $100 to enter and participants get to keep all the crystals they dig up.

Held along with the championships that weekend is the three day Quartz, Quiltz, & Craftz Festival (October 13-15) at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in downtown Mount Ida. This is a gem and mineral show as well as an arts and crafts and quilt show. The free festival will have indoor and outdoor vendor booths to check out, food trucks, and a kids dig taking place that Saturday morning.

There is also set to be a guest speaker during the event. Devin Dennie, author of My Book of Rocks and Minerals and onscreen talent with Explorer Multimedia Inc., makers of  RockHounds: The Movie, which featured footage from the World Championship Quartz Crystal Dig, and Geology Kitchen, will be the guest. Dennie has a soft spot for the championship event as he met his wife at the dig.  He is scheduled to speak for a few minutes on Saturday morning to the diggers before they head out to the mines and then again for the kids dig.

For more details, call 870-867-2723 or visit MtIdaChamber.com. And if you might want to compete in the world championship dig, visit idigcrystals.us.