BC trip - part 5

Carrie and I wanted to go see stuff one day, so we took our 3-year-old niece Andrea to Driftwood Canyon. This area is known for its fossil beds and my family used to go there fairly often back in the tape cassette era.

To our delight, Andrea was basically a miniature grown-up, carrying her own pack and never having to be carried. As a bonus, she proved to be quite the capable mountain goat as well as we made our way up the slopes.

The girls are ready. Awesome rental car huh...


No fear for this kid. There's not much shale on this slope; over the years it has been picked pretty clean. It looks much different than it did when I was a young'un.


The top of the main fossil beds. The rock lies in many loose layers, which have been picked at for many years. You're not actually allowed to excavate at the wall anymore, probably to preserve the area for future fossil finders. And maybe so the cliff doesn't collapse and squish people.


Standing under a tree. Seemed like a good idea at the time.


Why is it always steeper on the way back down? And believe me, it was steep. It didn't help that if you grabbed a branch for support one of two things was likely: either said branch wasn't well (or at all) attached to the earth, or it provided you with a handful of thistles.


Back to being a little kid for a minute.


The upper half of this hill we slid down on our haunches; it was our best bet for a controlled descent.


Since we didn't expect to find any fossils at that slope, we headed down the unmarked trail leading to the much better section. When I was younger, someone exploring there fell and broke a neck or back or something fairly important, which resulted in a bad reputation for that section. I thought a few years ago there were signs warning people of this area, but now there's nothing at all to acknowledge its existence. So off we went.


Andrea wasn't shy at all about hanging out under tons of rock.


Very interesting formations... as seen from below.


Well, here's our haul for the day. Fish and fly fossils have been discovered in the past, but we had to settle for ferns and some snazzy patterns.


The view on the way home; who wouldn't want to live here?