The Saturday Tour includes the Nature Walk 'Diane Gabriel Trail" as well as the lab access. $10, the fossils in the lab are pretty cool, I wish you had more time with them. Tour is done by the seasonal intern, but worthwhile if you happen to be able to catch it. Trail no longer has the large Hadrosaur on site unfortunately, although its to preserve it.
No trip to Makoshika State Park would be complete without visiting the small free museum and visitor's center, which houses a variety of small fossils that can be touched as well as information on the surrounding badlands, the KT boundary, and the dinosaur fossils that have been found at the Park.
I believe this was also a replica, but possibly had some original fossil section, of a Triceratops fossil found at the park.
Ancient Bison skull found at the park. Shows the massive difference in sized between Bison then and now. They didn't list the date on this, but the 'Ancient Bison" species was 10k-70k years ago.
Replica of dig site of a Thescelosaurus found at the park.
The following are all from the lab section and only seen on the tour. Also had some turtle shell fossils and other coll oddities.
Part of a fossilized brow horn from a triceratops, along with a rib head.
'Hand' bone fossils of a Champosaurus.
A fossilized Ceratopsian rib bone. Almost the size of my wrist.
Fossilized redwood tree pine cones.
This started me wondering why megafauna was extra-mega, like those bison, or wooly mammoths... could it be the ice age climate? Like how humans in say Scandinavia are larger because it's more advantageous in a cold climate?
And will humans start to grow smaller as the earth heats up, or are we offsetting that with our improved childhood nutrition and modern healthcare?
Also, I think I need to put Montana on my roadtrip list. I've been fossil hunting near Kemmerer, WY and that was all kinds of fun!