Woke up warm and cozy in my tent despite a very chilly night, thanks to the thermal space blanket I wrapped myself in. Got up, ate, then set out for some solo hiking. I wanted to explore closer to the creek, which is quite a bit lower than the campground with some game trails leading down close. That area is gorgeous. Big trees (cottonwood? Ash?) full of character, growing near the creek, similar to some areas in southern Iowa only more intense. Really lovely. The creek cuts a steep channel through the land there, and the banks are made of crumbly, eroding rock. I walked along the creek, looking at some dead, weathering trees that make fascinating shapes. Hiked back to camp and hung out there for a while. Alison, another park ranger, was meeting us later in the morning to take us over to adjacent Forest Service land to hunt for fossils. On Forest Service land, you are allowed to keep invertebrate fossils that you find. Alison wasn't due for another couple hours, so I opted to hike back down by the creek. The sun was higher up, and there was less glare and haze. One of the dead trees I had admired earlier looked quite different in this light, so I went closer. I thought I knew what I was looking at, but had to go closer to tell for sure, and yes! A Bison carcass! The skull and all the bones were there, with a bit of hide left on the head and around one hoof. That explains all the coyote excitement from last night. They were feasting. I hiked back to the group to tell them about it and bring them down. Francesco, the biology teacher from Calhoun School, was thrilled and quizzed his students as he went over the bison's anatomy. Sara (park ranger) was really excited about my find. It was one of the more amazing things I've ever seen. Very picked clean already, will all the bones present. We investigated teeth, where the optic nerve connects back into the brain, the clump of nerves as the base of the spine, and more. We moved on to exploring the creek, Gary (Calhoun teacher) hopped himself over the edge to work his way down to the creek. He and some students found fossils in some rocks in the creek bed. Then it was time to head out with Alison. One truck had a dead battery, and none of the four vehicles present had jumper cables. Luckily some campers arrived and helped us out. After a bumpy ride off-road on some rutted road, we reached FS lands and Alison and Ed (paleontologist who also came along), discussed areas that looked most likely for fossil finding. They decided on one particular draw that had some good hard layers in the loose rock, so we headed there. If I were really good I could tell you the name of the type of rock and what layer we were hunting in, but I have a hard time retaining those. Maybe by the end of this stay at Badlands they'll have sunk in. Anyway, this was some pretty steep sloping land: think big rolling hills where the rains have cut deep channels that run down to a larger ravine far down hill. The area that looked likely was about half way down these steep hill sides. Long story short, we spent around a couple hours out there, spread out over the draw, climbing and hunting. Some pretty treacherous foot work was required on the loose, steep incline, but it paid off and I found a number of small fossils. I'll have to get Ed to tell me again the names of them all, since I can't retain details. We managed to find a path back to our meet up place and back to the trucks to drive back to the housing area. Trying to catch up now on my blog!
Sage Creek
The bison carcass responsible for all the coyote excitement.
