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Description
This was taken at Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park in the Badlands of central Alberta, Canada.

These dark clouds started rolling in and we knew we had to leave before it started to rain. As I mention below, these hills are incredibly slippery when wet, and we had no desire to get stuck. As it was, the hill was so steep we weren't sure we'd make it back to the top.

This is my favourite photo from the Dry Island series.

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It was in this park that Joseph Tyrrell (of Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology fame) discovered the first skeleton of Albertosaurus.

Of course, there's also a buffalo jump here. That's place where Native Americans used to drive bison off a cliff in large numbers. They would then harvest them for meat, skins and other useful things. If I remember correctly, this park has one of the largest buffalo jumps, the cliff here being about 45 m tall. Most jumps are only 8-9 m tall.

It is a spectacularly beautiful place, and I could probably spend ages taking photos here. It's one of the least visited provincial parks, possibly because camping is prohibited in most of it. I'm not sure exactly why, but possibly because it's mostly made of bentonite deposits. Bentonite comes from volcanic ash, and it is incredibly slippery when wet. (It's actually used as an industrial lubricant and a drilling mud in the oil and gas industry.) So if you drive into the valley, and then it rains, you can't get back out again.

This area is highly fossiliferous. I found some spectacular fossil leaves and even a fossil stick here! (I should take pictures of those...) Once you know where to look, you can't help but find fossils here.

There's also birdwatching here, and fishing, and canoeing... It is well worth a visit, if you ever find yourself up this way.

Description
This was taken at Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park in the Badlands of central Alberta, Canada.

These dark clouds started rolling in and we knew we had to leave before it started to rain. As I mention below, these hills are incredibly slippery when wet, and we had no desire to get stuck. As it was, the hill was so steep we weren't sure we'd make it back to the top.

This is my favourite photo from the Dry Island series.

---------------------------------------------------------

It was in this park that Joseph Tyrrell (of Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology fame) discovered the first skeleton of Albertosaurus.

Of course, there's also a buffalo jump here. That's place where Native Americans used to drive bison off a cliff in large numbers. They would then harvest them for meat, skins and other useful things. If I remember correctly, this park has one of the largest buffalo jumps, the cliff here being about 45 m tall. Most jumps are only 8-9 m tall.

It is a spectacularly beautiful place, and I could probably spend ages taking photos here. It's one of the least visited provincial parks, possibly because camping is prohibited in most of it. I'm not sure exactly why, but possibly because it's mostly made of bentonite deposits. Bentonite comes from volcanic ash, and it is incredibly slippery when wet. (It's actually used as an industrial lubricant and a drilling mud in the oil and gas industry.) So if you drive into the valley, and then it rains, you can't get back out again.

This area is highly fossiliferous. I found some spectacular fossil leaves and even a fossil stick here! (I should take pictures of those...) Once you know where to look, you can't help but find fossils here.

There's also birdwatching here, and fishing, and canoeing... It is well worth a visit, if you ever find yourself up this way.