Wooly Mammoth Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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Parking is available along the north bound lane of the
highway.
Terrain is mild but not handicap friendly.
Wooly Mammoth
Cache is in an ammo can.
Northwest of this location in August of 1961 while hand digging a
well on his new home site, Seighardt Klaus noticed some bone
chippings in the dirt he had removed with his shovel. Looking
closer into the hole he could tell he had uncovered a large
bone.
He stopped digging and his wife drove into town to relay the
information to the local newspaper. The editor advised that they
contact the Denver Museum of Natural History which in turn notified
Dr. Ernest Untermann, who was the director of the Utah Field House
of Natural History located in Vernal, Utah. As the field house was
looking for specimens for display Dr. Untermann immediately drove
to Craig to ascertain what type of fossil had been
discovered.
Within two days, he and his assistant uncovered enough of the
skeleton to determine it was the remains of a Wooly Mammoth (also
known then as a Columbian Elephant). The Wooly Mammoth was a large
hairy animal 10 to 15 feet in height resembling an elephant with
great curving tusks 10 to 12 feet long. They had roamed over a
large area of the Rocky Mountains during the Pleistocene period
15,000 to 20,000 years ago. The dense hair helped the mammoth cope
with the ice age and glaciations prevalent during that era.
Remains had been found in Idaho, Utah and on the plains of Colorado
as well as Alaska, Siberia and other sections of the United States.
However this was the first find of this species on the eastern end
of the Uinta Basin giving it historical significance. The remains
were found at a depth of 12 to 15 feet in a clay formation. It is
believed the animal had washed down Fortification Creek and been
buried by successive deposits. The skeleton was eventually removed
with great professional care and placed in the Vernal, Utah Field
House where it remains to this day.
Please stay within the highway right of way and off of private
land. Nothing remains of the well or any trace of the activity
relating to the recovery of the mammoth.
Photos are courtesy of the Craig Empire Courier newspaper.
Have fun!
cocoalminer and utwildflower
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