Apologies, as I have not been posting my hunts this year – just so busy! 🙂 But for the next one to make sense (and as an apology to Wolffish as to what I got him into) these pictures might make some sense.
Road descending into Masonic Park with fossilized dry washes on both sides.
It was a late April day with temps in the 60s, sunshine, and the snow had finally melted! Time for a fossil hunt! I decided to hit Masonic Park as it is only 3 miles from home and with the freeze and thaw of winter would be rife with new fossils.
With the weeds of last year’s growing season all down, it was easy to explore the quarry more closely – Prosser member of the Galena Formation I believe. I came out with a backpack full of fossils just walking and picking them up. I’m sure that if I was motivated enough to break rock I could have found some exceptional specimens, but that is just not me.
Then I went for the dry wash along the upper part of the road. Another backpack full of fossils, but I also spotted a natural spring bubbling out of the base of the bluff – how beautiful!
Spring bubbling from the base of the bluff.
I immediately found an Isotelus pygidium near the spring and was drawn down the wash now turned trickling creek by the beauty of the spring green. Wouldn’t you follow this sparkling stream on a warm spring day?
I rounded a corner and was surprised to see a group of obviously abandoned, cottage blue buildings!
The creek had obviously diverted in the flood of 2007 or 2009 and made the little camp no longer viable.
Even an old outhouse. 🙂
I could see daylilies popping up from the warm spring ground. This had been someone’s beloved camp. I could imagine friends, campfires, cards played, fishing stories swapped, and beer set in the creek to cool.
The rushing of water over rock of Deer Creek and bird song drew me further down the emerald path of the spring fed creek.
It was beautiful, easy walking, and when I got to Deer Creek and started working the rock laden shoreline for fossils, well, another backpack full!
What a wonderful day fossil hunting in the beauty of Masonic Park!
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