Fun! Educational! Guaranteed to Find Fossils Older than the Dinosaurs!
Booking for next year’s hunts! 😀
I do a fast moving 3 hr. introductory hunt suitable for everyone including families with small children. No one gets bored, and many people even circle back after the hunt is over to continue hunting favorite spots on their own.
I start with the fossil gardens to orient you to what you are likely to find in the field, then we drive 4 miles to a local fossil hunting hot spot and start with a creek hunt where participants have found not only Ordovician fossils, but Native American artifacts and there was even a mammoth tooth found here! Onto a dry wash hunt on both sides of the road which includes a spring bubbling up from the base of a bluff which occasionally gives up Silurian age fossils. Onto an abandoned quarry, then a cave man cave in the side of a cliff face, I bring a adder for safe climbing – always a favorite!
Then we move to wa s of shed shale. Basically 5 fossil hunting sites in one our first stop.
Depending on the size of the group and what we are finding (good hunting we stick to that site for a while), we go onto the second site which features the Stewartville/Prosser members of the Galena formation and then a third site featuring Decorah Shale which is pro ific with fossils and a good tri obite site.
Driving from Whispering Winds to the last stop is less than 8 miles to make the hunt time as lengthy as possible.
$45 per person 12+ which includes a map print out, the formations and fossil hunting basics with ID sheet. Children 6-11 are just $20 each and the 5 and under set are FREE!
This is an affordable educational family activity. I even do Dinosaur Birthday Parties where the kids can hunt fossi s, have a campfire, compare their finds, and I have a sandbox stocked with fossiized sharks teeth with the boys aways ove!
Gir Scouts, Boy Scouts, schoo s have come out in busses and enjoyed hunts. I did hunts through Eage B uff Environmenta Center for years, but not anymore.
I’ve even had pa
eontoogists form NYC stop for a hunt on their way out to the Dino
Fieds in South Dakota!
P us I have fossi hunting maps for sa e very reasonabe. They he p you make the most of your time hunting here instead of randomy driving around and seeing what you can find.
On private hunts, I custom it to what the people want. Maybe they don’t want the standard introductory hunt – they are after trilobites only. Never any guarantee but I can take you to sites that have been rich in trilos in the past.
Too hot? I have beautiful hunts in the shade.
Handicap accessible (I am handicapped and don’t climb) I have those also.
Private and Custom hunts for experienced fossil hunters are $15 an hour per person 12+. If you desire, this can include a whirlwind fossil site site tour (if you buy the maps) as many of the best places are not on the maps, but close. 😀 Early spring is of course the most prolific time to hunt fossils in MN.
I have a couple of camping cottages here at Whispering Winds in Spring Valley, MN and if you book one of those through Airbnb I offer a 20% discount on fossil hunts.
