Rob-n-Hild, oot and aboot eh? Sorry - 2022

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Calgary (522 km. 5 hours 48 mins. Max elevation 1,103)

Hild found a great guided tour for today in Dinosaur Provincial Park, but with a 9 am start, we had to get up early and were off before 6.30. It took just over two hours to get to the park - with Rob clocking up some faster speeds as most of the route was on a nice fast road. According to the instructions, it was a three-hour tour walking 4 km return into the restricted area of the park to a centrosaurus bonebed, so we got our boots on and packed plenty of water and met up with the guide and the other 6 tourists and set off.

We weren't sure what to expect and as we walked through the fascinating rock formations created by the relatively recent glacial erosion (10-15,000 years) our guide explained the process of fossilization and how dinosaurs came to be fossilized in this area. Our goal was to reach a rock formation called "the Citadel". It looked impossibly far away!

We learnt about the various layers in the sedimentary rock: sandstone, mudstone, and claystone. Clay stone being the hardest one that protects the layers below from erosion thereby creating hoodoos all around us.

On our way to the Citadel we stopped several times for water drinking and more information from Josh, our guide. At one point we split into teams and played "fossil - or - not a fossil". Our skills were not honed yet, but we learnt about looking for smooth surfaces, heavy weight, and dark colours. He also added a trick question because one of the items could have been a fossil if someone hadn't dug it out. It had not been the required 10,000 years underground to be called ancient.

While we were looking at rocks and plants, we also avoided nud puddles and sinkholes. How very exciting!

By the time we reached bonebed nr 43 we thought we had a handle on things, but then the guide rolled back a cover to show a pile of fossil bones embedded in the rock! Then, as we looked around the area ourselves, we kept recognizing more and more bits and pieces of fossilized bones - they were everywhere once you knew what to look for!

At this bonebed alone, paleontologits have identified 75 centrosaurus occipital bones (meaninng at least 75 individuals) and they reckon there could be a lot more - possibly as many as 1,000 mostly all jumbled up. It was the lack of nice organized single animals that had meant the site was left for so long, even though it originally found in 1925. The theory is a sudden flood buried a whole herd of these small-car sized dinosaurs, preserving them from predators as the fossilization process took place. Sorry for being nerdy, but it was a great tour and we really enjoyed learning about as well as actually finding fossils. The fellas also enjoyed looking at fossils!

The walk back out to the car was quicker than on the way in. We only stopped a few times to drink and chat about what we had learnt. The view of the rock formations stuck with us.

After that, we had our usual picnic lunch at the day area of the Dinosaur campsite. The temperature had risen to 25 Celsius and we found a table nicely shaded by a tree.

Next we drove up to Drumheller - the original dinosaur town where fossils have been dug up for over a century. On the way we stopped to look at some more hoodoos - the weird stone statues caused by a hard piece of rock protecting the softer sedimentary rock underneath from erosion. There are lots of these, but the collection just south of Drumheller is one of the most photographed. It seemed weird to us how they didn't wash away in the first big rain and they are eroding at a noticeable rate - photographs from 40 or so years ago show how much they have changed even in that short time.

As in Canmore, the hoodoos remind us of the Pinnacles and the Bungle Bungles in Western Australia.

Read more about 1998 Lionel the Landcruiser and Tap-Tap go Walkabout

In Drumheller proper we stopped to take photos of the World's Biggest Dinosaur. Rob even tickled it's chin! There were a good selection of other dinosaurs in this park on the corner of Tyrannosaurus Drive and Albartosaurus Street. They included: a hockey mascot, a triceratops, an allosaurus, and some less scientifically accurate ones.... including Eugene and Patty the Parasaurolophus!

Another quick stop to look at Horseshoe Canyon showed a lovely example of the "badlands" as this area is called. So much of the area is cultivated prairie with cattle and grain crops that we didn't understand why is was called this, but then you see how it looks when glacial rivers erode through the soil and it can look like another planet. It is a nice trip to walk down into Horseshoe Canyon, but after our early morning walk, we decided against that and drove back to Calgary.

Tomorrow is another driving day as we will leave Alberta behind and head back into Saskatchewan.

May/June 2022

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