Badlands Residency Day 18

Gary's last full day today, for this visit.  We both had some business to get done in the morning, then met up for an afternoon hike.  Opted to go walk Notch Trail.  Gary hadn't been there, though I went twice last summer with my family.  Really enjoyable with a very tall log and steel cable ladder to climb, then steep ledges to walk along, with the trailing ending as the buttes split and open up, revealing a view back down upon Cedar Pass, the visitor's center, town of Interior, the White River, and beyond.  On the hikes in and back out, we spent significant time exploring specific fallen boulders.  We identified the rocks that originated in a river channel bed far above us, and knew they were likely candidates for finding fossils.  In our quest, we scrambled up many steep slopes of loose rock, having to return using a special badlands crab-walk technique that keeps you from tumbling down and over the ledge, into the canyon below.  There were so many amazing fossil finds today.  My favorite was the skull that I successfully identified.  Checked with Ed when we got back, and indeed I got it right: a juvenile rhino.  How do we know it was a juvenile?  By the un-erupted tooth that is visible in the back of the mandible. The sky was overcast at first, but towards evening it cleared up beautifully.  Perhaps my favorite new experience of the last two days has been the surround sound effect of water trickling and burbling from all directions.  It is incredible.  You can actually hear the badlands being reshaped.  Sometimes, you hear the water gurgling far below your feet as it works its way through one of the many erosion shafts.  Gary requested one last visit to the Wagon Wheel with Ed and me.

View after climbing up ladder, walking around a curve,
and looking back down.

Same spot, looking in towards
the hiking trail.   If you look hard
you can see the waterfall in the
center, top third of the photo.

Tortoise fossil, breaking apart as it erodes from the rock.

Heading down the trail.  Lots of dark clouds.

The juvenile rhino fossil I identified.
Un-erupted tooth is roughly in the center of the photo.

Same shot with labels.

Clouds start to dissipate.

Standing at the top of the waterfall. 

Looking back into the canyon one last time.

The log and steel cable ladder.

Following the trail back to the parking area.

A pause for a shadow portrait.

Entrance to the Notch Trail.