Stonerose Interpretive Center & Eocene Fossil Site - Republic (WA)

5 /5 Andy Jones: The museum was being refurbished, so I can only comment on dig site - it was fun! Bring your own tools, pretty much any chisel will work. Site is in full sun so be prepared. You can leave site (lunch) and return. The site is short walk (200 yds?) from museum, disabled parking at dig. Pretty much 100% you will find some sort of fossil, likely fern or leaf, even without tools.

5 /5 Patti Miller: Definitely wear shoes that you can walk up a hill covered in sharp rocks and pants not shorts. It takes some skill to figure out how to find the rocks with nice layers, and then tap them hard enough to split them along the seam but not shatter them. Many of the slabs are small, so it’s hard to get complete specimens. Overall a very cool experience. I’d definitely do this again if I lived close. Bring drinks and a hat if it’s sunny. Many of the people who go there regularly brought 5 gallon buckets to be able to move rocks to the tables if you’d rather not sit on the ground. The employees were also very helpful.

5 /5 Erica Booth: We had such a great day… Simon was super helpful and friendly! We had our 3 year old with us and the terrain was manageable… we found some cool fossilized leaves. Overall a wonderful experience!

4 /5 Eric Jain: The center has a nice collection of fossils, and the volunteers gave us a great introduction. At the dig site, promising pieces of slate were hard to come by -- spent an hour looking for and splitting rocks, found two small fossil fragments. There are better fossil sites in western Washington, but worth a stop if you are in the area!

5 /5 Alison Jean Cole: I’m sorry but if splitting rocks to reveal a leaf fossil to a sun it hasn’t seen in 50 million years isn’t pure poetry to you, are you even living??