Wyoming

Took a long weekend and made the trek down to Kemmerer. Had made reservations at Ulrich’s Fossil Gallery to dig with them them on Monday, so we headed down on Saturday, stopping that afternoon at the Devil's Tower to spend the night. We made it to Kemmerer Sunday afternoon, and since we were digging with them the next day, camped at Ulrich's for the night. I can't begin to describe what wonderful hosts Shirley and Carl Ulrich and their staff were to us - Shirley opened up the old saloon for us when some thunderstorms went through, but we were OK in our tent.



We drove up the next morning with "the boys", where they showed us the general techniques used to quarry out the plates containing the fossils.

We had a terrific time digging





We've got a lot of unpacking and prep work to do, but here's a few of our finds.

I believe this is a priscacara



1/2 diplomystus (I've got the other half wrapped up somewhere...)



a couple knightias





and finally, my son and I uncovered this 18" "shadow" as we were digging.



I didn't know what it was, but I knew what it was

The guides seemed pretty surprised that I recognized it for what it is. We carefully carved out around it enough to be able to get a big (4 feet or so) plate out, that I carefully trimmed down to a manageable size.
We got it back to the gallery, where Jordan from Ulrich's terrific staff cut it down to size for us, and then Mike gave me a crash course on how to prep some thing like this out.



I spent some time on it today, and managed to expose most of the spinal colum of a 16" mioplosus



I'm only spending 1/2 hour at a time at it - I've never prepped something quite like this out before, so I'm forcing myself to take my time!

Very nice, thanks for sharing! Were you allowed to keep everything you found?

Yes! but we didn't find anything notably rare or unusual. That said, what we did find and keep more than made up for the cost of the fee.

That place looks like a blast, great hunt.

I didn't know you could dig the 18" layer. I figured they harvested that only for the prime specimen market. Congrats on some great finds and I'm interested to see your progress on the Mioplosus and Priscacara.

I didn't know you could dig the 18" layer. I figured they harvested that only for the prime specimen market. Congrats on some great finds and I'm interested to see your progress on the Mioplosus and Priscacara.

These were from above, though I think you can pay extra to dig down below. I rode up separately with one of the staff (we wanted to see if the mule deer were around...) and he showed me the 18" layer - pretty cool; you could see shadows everywhere of some pretty sizable fish.

Looks like a really cool trip! Can't wait to see the prepped specimens. GO SLOW!!!

Nice finds! Kemmerer is on my list of places to visit.

Awesome hunting place

And those fishes are tremendous

Thanks a lot for offering these nice scenes

Wow! Great finds! The fish look so fragile!