Fall Fossil Weekend - Day 1

Going back well over 15 years my friend Frank and I have gone on a fall prospecting trip out into the badlands.  Various friends and relatives have tagged along with us over the years.  We missed a big block of years for a while but in recent times have made it an annual event.  This year was to be no exception, and for several weeks now we have been planning to go in mid-October.  At the last minute Frank bailed out leaving just Jim and I to carry on the tradition for 2012.  

I booked a couple of days off work to extend the weekend and make the long trip down to southern Alberta worthwhile.  I didn't get a particularly early start on Friday October 12th.  I slept in a bit, being tired from all the recent activities and the late hockey game earlier in the week.  I finished packing the trailer that morning, and filled it with water.  By the time I fuelled up the truck and hit the highway it was around 10:00AM.  It was a pretty uneventful drive all the way down to our regular camping spot at Sandy Point.  I met up with Jim there at about 4:00PM.  We quickly unpacked a few things and set up camp.  With a couple of hours of daylight left we set off exploring.  We drove for a while and came to an area of badlands exposure.  We asked at a couple of local farmyards for permission to hike onto the land.  By the time we eventually found the landowner we discovered that he wasn't home.  We took our chances and headed in for a short walk.  As we were driving up to the badlands we spooked a Great Horned Owl.  He flew up out of the ditch and perched on a nearby fencepost.

We explored for a couple of hours down in the badlands and I spent most of that time taking photographs with my view camera.  It is such a pleasure and so easy to carry around my new lighter field pack with the Ebony camera and a handful of smallish lenses as compared to the big cumbersome and heavy Sinar kit that I used to carry.  As I was making some photographs I noticed a curious mule deer doe watching me.  She eventually went on her way leaving me to keep making photographs, and Jim to continue exploring for fossils.

Compared to earlier in the week back home it was very mild and pleasant.  I really enjoyed being out in the badlands in the beautiful fall light.  As the sun began to set there was a very noticeable chill falling on to us.  We headed back over to where we had parked Jim's truck and made our way back to the campsite.  By the time we arrived back at camp it was getting dark.  We got a fire going to take the chill off, and set about putting together our evening meal of barbecued steak, potatoes and salad.  We hung around the fire for a while after dinner, but turned in relatively early, wanting to get a full day out in the badlands tomorrow.