Outdoor Fun 2009: Great Salt Plains in Cherokee, Oklahoma

The Great Salt Plains in Cherokee, Oklahoma have been closed for two years and now they are re-opened for family fun! My family lives twenty miles from the park and Saturday, May 2nd proved to be a very lucrative day for salt crystal digging!

If you have never went salt crystal digging and you are in Northwestern Oklahoma, this is a free and fun activity for the whole family!

There is a few tools you should take with you if you want to have a great day.

What you will need:

A shovel
A bucket
Water to rinse the crystals
Drinking water and snacks for the family
Sunscreen

Dig a hole and fill the hole with water. You rarely have to go down more than a foot to start finding the crystals. The crystals look like black glass in the sandy ground. As you see these formations, run water over them and pull them out of the ground very carefully because they are very fragile. as you pull out the crystals, you will want to run some water over them to clean them off. Lastly, place in your bucket for future inspection. As stated earlier, a dig rarely goes further than two feet, however, we went about 3 feet on that particular Saturday and found some very nice crystals suitable for jewelry. Since the crystals have not been dug in a few years and crystals are especially plentiful.

As an added bonus, The Great Salt Plains are home to many endangered birds, and it is very common to see nests on top of the mounds people leave behind from a dig. The Great Salt Plains is also a wildlife refuge, which makes this trip double the fun.

If you find that this would be a great way to spend a day, you can contact the Great Salt Plains Association at 1-580-626-4794 for further information. or you can write the Association at the following address:

Great Salt Plains Association
122 E. 2nd
Cherokee, OK 73728