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And on to the next part of the hunt. The first hour or two was scoping out the location. Normally, like I did back in Alabama hunting for arrowheads as a kid, you start at the top of the hill and depending on how rough the terrain is go in a spiral heading down or do zig zagging switch backs or whatever fits the bill. These canyon hills have gullies between them so I focused on each ridge from the summit of the ridgeline going back and forth looking for outcropping. They were easily found as were the previous hunters' excavation holes and trenches. A couple of dendritic rocks and more larger ammonite sections....come on! where's the big boys? The band-aid is to cover the last day of having stitches in my wrist from the CT surgery. Not sure if this is a hash plate or not. Looks like it to me. Moving further up the slope and heading west across the top. I found a couple more dig sites and one was a bit of an eye opener. This whole canyon's fossil layers are mortality sites. Maybe. A little lickety spit on this one. And this one. Every rock started to look like an ammonite or pieces of them. The next dig site. The same hole back in 2009. This pic is in the science paper back in part one. It is displaying all three lenses or beds. And above you only see one left. Some hefty equipment was used to get these out. I'm thinking a gas generator, impact drill/hammer, rock saw and some heavy duty muscle power. I found rotted tee shirts beside two holes. Over a decade old. NOTE: see the juniper on the right of each image. Identical trunk bases. Here's the eye opening part....to me, at least. I'm down in the hole for this pic. At first glance, not much to see. The next pic is enhanced with contrast and shadow. What did I see? Stare at it and start counting the ammonites. Some closeups of the wall of mortality. The beds are on an angle of 16 degrees and the ammos are just stacked up for several feet. This is a nice specimen protruding from the bed. It's still there, too. The rock was granite hard and I was gassing out after scouting over the ridges and gullies for half a day. I scoured through the tailings and found a few keepers. By the end of day I think I collected 25 pounds or so. It was around 5 pm when I made the call to pack up . No cell service for 20 miles and texted my wife once I hit pavement that I was on the way home...3 hour plus drive ahead of me. Most of my finds. And that about wraps it up. My take on this trip is mixed - my limited experience in geology and fossil hunting has me still low on the learning curve, especially in new locations. When I go back, I'll know EXACTLY where to start collecting. There were some small locations of previous diggings which occurred on very small rock outcroppings and they were somewhat shallow. Were they exploratory from previous diggers? I don't think so. Why? Because there were remnants of aluminum foil crumpled up beside one of these meter square shallow pits. I do mean less than a foot deep holes. Sherlock says - someone knew where to dig, someone scored, collected said score, wrapped it in foil and moved on. Other thoughts - I found an ammonite fossil within two minutes of shutting the car door. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! My research paid off in Spades - both the card suit and the shovel type. Hello big clues of huge holes in the ground! Lucky that I arrived after the mud dried. Well planned that I did indeed have my AWD vehicle. I was in my Element! It will be my exploring, camping, going everywhere vehicle until someone takes my license from me. There were signs saying no camping as this was ranch leased BLM land. I gassed out earlier than expected, partly due to the altitude increase to 6,000 feet (I get AMS easily) and partly for being a slacker during the off season. It was a 16 hour day with 7 hours of drive time (total of 407 miles, 655km ) . Also, a slight factor was recent carpal tunnel surgery which had me taking it easy for a couple of weeks while healing. I now have some more fossil prepping to do! At times I do have too high of self expectations. Military upbringing methinks. Hope you enjoyed the beauty of the west. Next big trip will be an overnighter at Cowboy Pass. And also another couple of trips back to Mounds Reef and Garley canyon once I'm sure the snow it gone and the mud has dried. Yee haaa!

I’ve been told that bees wax helps preserve and give ammonites a dull shine, anybody use this and whats the best way to apply?