![]() ![]() The creatures teemed in this area when it was an inland sea during the Cambrian period, which ended 500 million years ago. He showed us samples of the bug-like marine arthropods, 2 inches long at best, that had gotten themselves immortalized in stone. The U-Dig manager, Gene Boardman, greeted us at the shed and handed us a photocopied trilobite identification chart. In high summer here, without plenty of water and sun protection, you’d soon be a fossil yourself. It occurred to me how lucky we were that the day wasn’t torrid. Nine miles later the desert yielded to a moonscape of broken shale, interrupted only by a wooden shed and two portable toilets. Trailing a plume of dust, we intersected with another gravel road about when it seemed we should, and to my intense relief, a sign pointed toward the quarry. As Tony snoozed in the back seat, Elena and I navigated by odometer readings, daring to hope that the deserted, unmarked gravel road we were bouncing along for the final 31-mile stretch was the right one. Once we had passed Delta, about 100 miles out, we started using the local map I’d printed from the U-Dig Web site. Monday morning we checked out of the hotel and drove southwest to the fossil quarry. As we proceeded through the caverns, the formations became more spectacular, climaxing in Timpanogos Cave’s colorful draperies, flowstone and dense helictite display. Experts think the caves started forming tens of millions of years ago, as the geological forces that built up the Wasatch Range fractured the rock and mineral-laden water seeped in.Ĭhandra noted that the caves are famed for their world-class array of helictites-gravity-defying calcite clusters that project from the walls in random directions. The lung-busting, switchbacking ascent rewarded us with sensational views of the surrounding mountains and, beyond the canyon’s mouth, the broad Utah Valley to the west.Īt trail’s end, 6,730 feet up, we and 17 others joined park ranger Chandra Vostral on a half-mile, hourlong walk (with the occasional crouch and squeeze) through Hansen, Middle and Timpanogos caves, three natural chambers linked by man-made tunnels. “Up” is the operative word: The paved trail gains 1,065 feet in elevation along its 11/2-mile length. Getting to the caves requires a hike up from the visitor center. The river is snowmelt from the surrounding Wasatch Range, its water temperature never rising above the mid-40s.) Though I was grateful for Rob’s expertise at low bridges and rocky spots, I was a little sorry we hadn’t braved an unguided kayak run. ![]() Running a gantlet of fly fishermen in pursuit of brown trout, Tony, Elena and I shared a raft with a genial young guide, Rob Hamblin, who did most of the paddling on the 11/2-hour excursion along the pleasant, woodsy river. After zigging and zagging past it several times, we finally spotted a yellow “Rentals” sign 1.7 miles past the waterfall.)Īlong with a couple of dozen other takers, we piled into two vans and were driven a few miles upriver, where we strapped on life vests and scattered into tubes, kayaks and inflatable rafts. (The directions the company had provided on the phone were next to useless. on a Saturday, picked up our rented Chevy Malibu, grabbed drive-through tacos and set out for Orem, about 40 miles south on Interstate 15.Īfter checking in at La Quinta, we jumped back in the car for the drive up Provo Canyon, past picturesque 607-foot Bridal Veil Falls (where, alas, we had no time to join the hikers visible high up on trails amid the spray), to the trailer that houses High Country Rafting. Clinching the deal were two Web specials, $138 round-trip tickets from LAX to Salt Lake on Southwest Airlines and a National car rental at $14.95 per day, plus an auto-club rate of $49.99 a night for a room and breakfast at La Quinta Inn & Suites in Orem. With help from a few guidebooks, our goals were set: a raft float on the Provo River on Saturday, a hike in Timpanogos Cave National Monument on Sunday (of our three activities, only Timpanogos was open Sunday) and the fossil dig on Monday. ![]() We’d make it three days in June, I figured, doing something special each day. My husband, Tony Litwinko, and our 12-year-old daughter, Elena, were game.ĭelta is in west-central Utah, about 130 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. So I typed “trilobites” into an Internet search engine and surfed my way to U-Dig Fossils, a quarry west of Delta, Utah, where visitors can take home any trilobites they find.Īn adventure was taking shape. Years ago a colleague had written an amusing article about hunting down trilobite fossils in some remote corner of the Southwest. Facing another weekend of ferrying kids to the mall and catching up on the laundry, I racked my brain for a getaway. ![]()
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