A man who traveled cross-country to mine diamonds for his girlfriend’s engagement ring dug up a 2.2-carat diamond.
Christian Liden from Washington always dreamt of finding a raw diamond to create his one-of-a-kind engagement ring for his future spouse, and now, his dream has turned into reality.
Liden imagined mining his own gems for an engagement ring since he was in middle school, but as he grew older, he didn’t know how difficult it would be to find the raw gems in America.
It was until three years ago that Liden’s coworker told him about Crater of Diamonds State Park, located in Arkansas, that he could possibly mine a raw diamond and create an engagement ring for his girlfriend of two years, Desirae.
He watched videos of those who were successful in finding diamonds at the park and built as much information as he could before deciding to plan his trip.
“That’s when I started really planning the trip and planning to actually go out and do this – finding out it was possible to actually do it – so I started doing research on diamonds,” Liden told CNN.
When planning the trip, his girlfriend knew he was going on a road trip, but she didn’t know the real reason behind it.
“I told her we would be visiting some state parks and some national parks, but other than that, she didn’t know we were going to find gemstones,” he said.
When Liden and his friend Josh arrived in Arkansas, they began digging. They were unsuccessful for two days of being in Arkansas and tried a different approach to just mine the surface of the gravel.
When he flipped his tool towards the end of the day, he saw a yellow diamond weighing over two carats.
“I started shaking right away – I was shaking so bad. I waved my buddy over…and I moved my hand and he saw it,” Liden told CNN.
His friend took the 2.20-carat gem and put it in a Ziplock, and the two began their road back to the city.
According to a news release from Diamond Crater Skate Park, this is the largest gem that’s been found since last October, when a visitor from Fayetteville, Arkansas, discovered a 4.49-carat yellow diamond.
A day after Liden arrived back in Washington, he took his girlfriend out to hunt some mushrooms in the woods, and that’s when he pulled out the diamond and proposed to her. She said yes.
He says they are now looking for someone to design and build the ring, but aren’t in any rush.
