Just the Bare Bones: Hagerman Fossil Beds Nat'l Monument 8/12/12

So what's a man to do after coming face to face with the wounds of history? After peeking behind the curtain of American myth and finding little but shame, regret, and racial animus? Why, dine and dash with a typically underwhelming fossil bed, of course, as if there could be any doubt. And while Minidoka NM angered, fascinated, and exposed, Idaho's Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, the poor stepchild of the "fossil family" that all but makes Nebraska's Agate NM a Death Valley-like expanse by comparison, grates with its self-imposed limitations, as if one can and should drive hundreds of miles to look upon an unremarkable field having already been plucked of its treasure. No, we do not expect any of the fossil beds protected by the NPS to be teeming with bones, but after the din of the dig has subsided, what on earth would compel a man to visit? Yes, Hagerman is important. Yes, one is glad they have removed elements of our past for further study. And yes, one would rather have this 4,281 acre slab left to the winds than the filth of a strip mall, but scientific value need not translate into eye-popping excitement. It does not, and never really could.

So what is Hagerman? Simply put, and in words more complete than I could ever hope to muster, "The 600-foot-high bluffs rising above the Snake River and comprising the Hagerman Fossil Beds reveal the environment at the end of the Pliocene Epoch." In other words, "the sediment layers from river level to bluff tops span some 550,000 years: from 3.7 million years old at river level to 3.15 million years old atop the bluff." So what did they find in this wonderland of extinction and death? Well, more than 35 plant species, along with 180 animal species, the most famous of which is the Hagerman Horse (Equus simplicidens). In hundreds of individual fossil sites, striking examples of the horse were discovered, including many complete skeletons (at least 20 such examples so far). Starting in 1929, paleontologists began their research, and over the years, their findings have startled the scientific world. Again, no one is disputing the glory and achievement associated with this fossil-rich soil. In order to ensure further study and, hopefully, bigger and better finds, the federal government had to keep treasure hunters and nitwits far, far away. By all means. But absent a few token displays at the stuffed visitor center (located several miles from the actual dig site in the town of Hagerman), much imagination is required to feel any sort of connection to the discovery. It's like trying to share in your baseball team's ticker tape parade after failing to watch a single game all season.

And while you might spend a protracted 15-20 minutes at the visitor center, what with the underwhelming film and no-more-than-a-few display cases (as well as the Minidoka NM "memorial" in one of the building's spare rooms), you will spend even less time on the sacred soil itself. See the above picture? The one with the lookout over water and such? The first of many along an extended driving tour? No, sir. A hint of things to come? Not on your life. That, dear friends, is the sum total of the Hagerman Fossil Beds experience. No more, no less, and thanks for coming. I get that I can't dive into the dirt and pull out a jawbone for my personal collection, but what on earth am I looking at? I've been told what lies before me changed science, but how would I know? Couldn't everything have been done down the road, and I was just a victim of the old bait and switch? Were shiny bones with angel choirs tucked back at the Bell Rapids Dock? Nope, this was the Snake River Overlook, and I'd been had. Okay, so there was an Oregon Trail Overlook a few dozen yards away. And? No, wait a minute, I can see the wagon ruts in the fields of grass. Yeah, that's pretty cool. <sigh>

In many ways, we feel guilty for our collective yawn at a site like Hagerman, if only because prizing the passport stamp above the park experience feels so....well, cheap. But, as always, we calls 'em as we sees 'em. We certainly count ourselves among the fossil fan base - Dinosaur NM, now that you should see - but the beds themselves, curiously enough, made us think of sleep, and we'd always rather be elsewhere. To date, whether it's Agate, Fossil Butte, or Florissant, we just don't get the appeal of looking at mounds of empty dirt and wavy grass, unless of course we're talking about a battlefield. But isn't that the same thing, you might ask? In one sense, both have as their defining element something that happened long ago, but unlike the sacred ground of a bloody skirmish, a fossil bed, even during its heyday, would never have been more than nerdy scientists hammering away at rock. Yes, I have sufficient imagination to picture them at work, but even the most eccentric geologist can't hold a candle to a bearded Civil War general atop a brave steed, roaring to be heard over cannon fire. So dig away, friends of Hagerman, and I salute your thankless, difficult work. But I'll be at the next park unit, hoping to have my juices stirred by more than the theoretical remains of an abstract muskrat.

FINAL RATING

2/10