Ashfall State Park

Part 2 of our Memorial Day Extravaganza was a visit to Ashfall State Historical Park, about 1/2 hour south of Niobrara. This is the coolest place in the complete middle of nowhere that has hundreds of excavated fossil skeletons still in place where they were found.

The Rhino Barn is the central hilight of the park. It's a large barn that was built over the excavation and lets visitors see how the bones are arranged. Each bone was left in place and the remaining ash was dug out down to the underlying sandstone that formed the original ground surface.

This area was a watering hole similar to those you see on National Geographic full of rhinos, camels, and deer. A gigantic volcano in southern Idaho erupted 12 million years ago and blanketed the area with 10-20 inches of ash. The watering hole filled in, animals came here seeking water, died, and were buried by more ash. There are unborn Rhinos still in the womb, big rhinos, baby rhinos, etc. The whole thing is very cool.

We got a special treat and got to meet Dr. Voorhies, the guy that runs the whole thing and has been here forever. He was busy digging out some bones and took a few minutes to talk geology with me and the boys. He made the mistake of giving each boy a handfull of volcanic ash to inspect - GP unloaded it from him upwind and gave him a facefull of ash. Sorry Dr. Vhoorhies!