I have been looking forward to this trek for about 4 years. My friend Bill Prescott (a geologist) told me that his friend Gerry Morgan (a geophysicist) knew of some locations where we could view and legally collect dinosaur bones. Bill organized an expedition and off we went to a location about 100km North East of Calgary, in the heart of Alberta's Badlands. The day was cloudless but hazy because of some residual smoke from burning forest fires hundreds of miles away. The temperature was a dry 28C.

We parked the car at the bottom and proceeded to climb to a top of the ridge (about 400 vertical feet).

View from the top of the first ridge. Note the van parked on the side of the road at the center of the photo.

Once at the top of the ridge we trekked about 1.5 km over grasslands to the edge of a second ridge.

Gerry standing at the edge of the ridge where we are to start our decent.

Looking down from the top of the ridge.
Our viewing and collecting area was on the right hand side along the relatively ush valley floor below.

We started our decent. Although it had rained (and snowed) over the last 3 weeks, the ground was quite dry which permitted us to make our decents (and ascents). The hills are made up mostly of bentonite clay which, when exposed to water, will turn it into a mud which is essentially as greasy as Vaseline. It is impossible to walk there when conditions are so.

We trekked along the valley floor and up and down on the sides of the ridges from about 10:30 to 15:00. We found 5 locations which were quite rich with dinosaur bone fragment which had been eroded from the cliffs and washed down to the valley floor. Only at one location did we find a major bone fragment still buried (these bones are just for looking; they cannot legally be dug up). We walked about 4 km down the valley floor, not counting the zigzags we did while looking for interesting sites.

The weather stayed warm and dry with a reasonably steady breeze to keep us cool. At 15:00 we decided to go back, this meant trekking back up the valley floor some 4 KM to the bottom of the 400 foot hill. At this point I was getting rather dehydrated and the climb back up was not pleasant by any means. About half way up I found that I would become totally out of breath. It would take me 5 minutes to catch my breath well enough to walk up another 20 feet before having to stop again. I was getting a bit worried. We did get to the top and back down the next valley to the van. We were totally out of water by then. Thankfully the van had a cooler which had a container of ice water. Man that water tasted good.

Here are some additional photos. Hope you enjoy them.
Bill and Gerry, Thanks for arranging this wonderful experience for me.

Ray Verdone.

Bone fragments, right side of the hammer, eroded from the hill side, lying in Bentonite clay.

Large bone still buried in the ground. These should not be disturbed.
Most of the bones in the area are likely that from Hadrosaurs and are about 70 million years old.

The "catch of the day". This bone fragment weighed about 30 pounds.
Needless to say we did not bring that one out.

Typical scenery at the bottom of the valley. Small hoodoos are common.
Dinosaur bones are common in the rubble in some areas.

More badland scenery (Can you spot Waldo? Uh, I mean Gerry?)

Gerry and Bill, Thanks for a great day.