Glendive Montana Trip Part 1

[smt126]

I planned a trip with my daughter to head out to Glendive Montana as her birthday present to go collect fossils. As I've posted in the past, fossil hunting was something we started together as we both loved everything to do with the local museum here. I thought what would be better than to go hunt in the badlands for real dinosaur bones. After doing lots of research on here, reading books, and government literature we planned our trip out to legally collect fossils at Baisch's Dinosaur Digs. We planned a trip out for a week, booked 2 half days and 2 full days. This gave us 3 days to hunt for invertebrates(part 2 when I get around to it, probably not until at least next week) and chill.

 

We arrived at the ranch at 8am last Tuesday, and met Shana, who would be running our tours. Marge used to run the tours, but about 2 years back she decided to hang up her boots. Shana gives you a tour of the stuff they've collected over the years, much of which is pretty cool. I wish I had decent pictures of inside there, but my daughter took those ones, and they are a bit blurry. After getting a tour of all the things you can find out there, of which there is a lot, we headed out to the badlands. You can drive with her or take your own vehicle and follow. We chose to follow as I wanted to bring along a portable toilet for my daughter as needed. Shana provides you with a screwdriver, paintbrush, and bags to put your fossils in. For most of the stuff you're finding, that should be sufficient. If you need more stuff, like casting material, hardener, etc, she carries that stuff with her as well when you find something good.

 

I would do it day by day, but really the process is very similar, just the spots are different in what you are looking for. We drive out to a spot and park. From there, we'd hike out a little or lot depending on the site. You start scouring the ground for anything that looks like fossils. At the micro sites, you're pretty much just scouring the ground for chunks of bone, gar scales, teeth, turtle shell, and the like. Other spots we went to, you would check the ground and cliffs. If you found bone, you'd start moving up the wall to see if you could figure out where it was coming from and hope you find something nice. For me, we mostly stayed with the micro stuff, as my daughter just turned 7, is not graceful and was scared about travelling up to higher ground. Most of the bigger and more articulated bones they find are found higher up. We found tons of chunkosaurus and turtle pieces. There's also an unlimited supply of agatized wood if you like that. Overall we had a great time and I'd recommend Baisch's to anyone looking to experience hunting for fossils and actually getting to keep what you find. They keep anything carnivore to help pay for the ranch, but most of what you find is herbivore material. Here are some pics from our trip.

 

 

 

 

[smt126]

Here's some more of our finds. As you can see we filled up almost a gallon bag with chunkosaurus. I'm not sure what the big bone is that I took off the last day. It will probably sit at home until I get the time and skill to prep it out some day. Besides what you see here we also got a decently articulated vertebrae that I need to put back together, gar scales, some pieces of rib, alligator scute, and some other things.

[smt126]

These last couple pics were of some finds that another guy made while hunting with him. The leg bone was more modern, probably bison. I thought I had taken more pictures of some of the stuff others found on the trip, but apparently I didn't. There was a family with us one day that found about a square foot of dinosaur frill as well as what looked like a good chunk of triceratops shoulder joint. One guy found some leaf imprints. 

[ynot]

Neat finds, sounds like a good trip!

[Nimravis]

Very nice trip report and I love the great finds, thanks for posting.

[Monica]

Fantastic!!!  Maybe this is something I should organize for Viola - she'll be turning 7 in October...

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

Monica

[smt126]

@MonicaMonica she would have a good time I'm sure. Buy the book rockhounding Montana for more sites if you travel over the border. They don't do it year round, so you may want to shoot them an email about when you'd want to go. There were kids on the trip 3 if the 4 days. Shana is real good with the kids pointing things out to them and letting them excavate things she finds if its appropriate for them. Shes also understanding if the child can't make it the whole day.

[Plantguy]

Thanks for the post. Enjoyed seeing the shots/finds. Regards, Chris