ARROW HEAD MINE

April 1, 2002 – Wow all the times I have been to Mount Ida and I have never been to this mine, this mine is formally Leather Head Mine. I met with the owners David Huffman and Mathew Price. They gave me a rundown of the mine and showed me a pocket they just opened, the April Fools Pocket and said many of the points and clusters from it were scooped out buy their Track-Hoe and are around to be found, David showed me where they were dumping and sure enough I found a few clusters and points in great condition. I was wondering why they were in such great condition after all they were scooped out with the Track-Hoe and dumped, after seeing what care they took doing just that part of the operation I saw why the crystal were in such great shape.

To the left is a picture of the April Fools Pocket almost cleaned out, it is about 3 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Well, after seeing the pocket I was ready to do some digging. But there was a problem, seems like the Forestry department and the Government has imposed all kind of new rules and guide line for digging in the Mount Ida area because of 2 accidents that has happened there in the last couple of years to some of the mine owners. Please read my article on this matter coming soon in the Mount Ida area. But never fear David and Mathew had it all worked out and there as a place where you could even work on a wall that was only 2 feet tall but had a real nice seam of crystals running through it. So now I am off to work, as always I like to walk around and check things out for an hour or 2. But it took no time before I started to find many small cluster and 2 – 3 inch points. I stayed and dug all day and filled about 5 – 5 gallon buckets of points and clusters. This mine was well worth the trip. I highly suggest you give it a visit on your next trip to Mt. Ida.

To the left is a picture a picture of their Track-Hoe in action. Yes this is a working mine and while I was there the moved tons of rock and produced many more cluster and points while doing this for the diggers that were there.

To reserve yourself a place to dig at Arrow Head Mine. Visit there web site at:
Arrowhead Mining

Thomas O’Brien

Shamrock Crystals