Another Bad Lands Scene
We descend the south slope of the ridge, past the new Cedar Pass Camp, and drive five miles or so over a good road into Interior. On the way, however, we stop and walk for some distance among the hills. We find the clay to be hard and firm, resembling baked mud in texture. Each rain washes a little of the clay down, causing a gradual erosion through the years. This process has gradually uncovered the remains of life of this country at the time of its formation. We find a petrified tooth of some great animal. The tooth is about four inches long and two wide. Some distance farther we run across a mammoth rock formation embedded in the clay. It resembles and may have been the remains of a turtle six or seven feet in diameter, with head and feet protruding out of the bank. From these same environs scientists have taken great petrified skeletons of ancient mastodons, reptiles, birds and beasts of all shapes and sizes. We can easily imagine how these beasts got bogged down in this once soft, spongy ex-sea-bottom, there to remain through these centuries.
We spend more time than we had planned examining the place, so we find ourselves in Interior for the night. We pitch camp, and during the night receive our first rain on the trip. Our sympathy for the poor little mouse who had appropriated a little of the tent roof for his nest is not very pronounced.
The next morning we rise early. We hike to “Big Foot,” a high clay ridge south of town, and climb it. It proves much higher and more difficult to climb than first appearances indicate. The climb is a thriller, especially as the clay is a bit slippery this morning.
Manitou Mountain in the Bad Lands
We return for breakfast, stopping in a field on the way to examine a huge oil drilling rig which has been wrecked many years ago. It is made almost entirely of oak, some timbers being two feet square and very long. The main belt wheel is twelve feet in diameter, made also of wood. To us this is a sight.
Castle of Ancients, near ScenicCanedy Photo