My Ny Bug Hunt

[Ramo]

Thanks to the internet, I was able to find a place to hunt trilobites in NY. I was in the same area last Jan., but the snow was about 2 feet deep. (Special thanks to a couple forum members for giving me some tips) Here is how things went.

I drove like a mad-man across Nh, Vt, and Ny, to arrive at a hotel south of Buffalo at about 11:30 last night. I went to sleep with visions of fossils, keeping me from getting much sleep. (that and the guy next door who snored so loud I thought he had snuck into my bed)

This morning I awoke at 6:30 and was listening to the radio as I got ready. The DJ said it was 3 degrees out and it was supposed to get up to 13. I looked outside, and the sun was getting ready to rise with no clouds in the sky. It looked nice??? After getting on my warmest cloths I went outside to a very warm morning. I then realized that the radio was on a Canadian station, and they were talking in Degrees Centigrade!

I arrived at the parking lot, and started down the edge of the crick on large chunks of ice and snow. The water was high due to the warm weather, and I was hugging the cliff, trying to move along. I looked down into the water and saw it was only about 3" deep. A few steps later, I broke through the snow, and into the water. Then I broke through the bottom. The melt water was flowing on top of the ice, and the water was just over my boot top. (as usual)

I then went back to the road and crossed on the bridge and followed a trail down to the lake shore. Along the way, I used a fallen tree as a bridge to cross a little feeder creek. When I got to the lake, I started finding lots of pieces. I guess that's what trilobite hunting is all about. I couldn't crack a rock without finding at least one or two pieces. I then went down a little further and found My best find. Laying at the base of the nearly verticle wall was a rolled trilobite about the size of an acorn!!! I found another complete one, and many more that may be complete after I get them home and cleaned up. I only hunted about 1 1/2 hours and headed back to the truck. Crossing that tree with about 50lbs of rocks in my pack made me a little nervous, but I made it. I'll get better photos when I get home, but I need to get some sleep and hit the road early tomorrow to get home.

Sorry this was so long, hope you enjoy.

[Mike Owens]

Happy to hear your efforts paid off. Get those photos posted ASAP.

[MikeD]

Nice, Ramo. It looks 13 there. We got up to 78 today. Our unusually prolonged winter has finally moved on. Hope you find some nice goodies in that 50 pounds of rock.

[patrick hendriks]

Thanks for sharing. Your heart must have mist a beat when you saw that little beauty lying on the ground. Hope that you got a lot of nice ones in those rocks to.

Greetings Patrick

[Hawkeye]

Cograts on the finds Bowkill! Good luck with cleaning up the rocks you brought home.

[scmense]

Cograts on the finds Bowkill! Good luck with cleaning up the rocks you brought home.

Excellent Bowkill. Good effort, good finds.

[Auspex]

WooHoo! What a great trip

Murphy's Law (he was a fossil hunter, you know) states that boots are never quite tall enough...

[Nicholas]

Sounds like a good trip, It doesn't look like that area had much snow at all. Wait? It's March, all ready? geeze!

I'll be waiting patiently for those pics!

[Shamalama]

Great finds! I'm excited to head up there in another month or possibly sooner. Any other fauna found or were you just Trilobite hunting?

[lordpiney]

awesome finds ramo! im gonna try and get up there this summer.

[worthy 55]

Great report of your hunt and it looks like you found some nice goodies also.

[Taxman56]

You got to love fossil hunting in Bufffalo in the winter.

[sue in ohio]

Where is this place??? I wanna go too... I'm going to be slightly northeast of Buffalo towards the end of May..would love to stop and explore this place while I'm that close by and any other places anyone could suggest.