Tour ice age mammoth bone dig site just outside Tri-Cities. 2025 tickets going on sale
Tickets go on sale Jan. 2 for the 2025 spring tours of the Coyote Canyon Mammoth Site, where the bones of an ice age mammoth are being painstakingly unearthed within a couple of miles of the Tri-Cities.
Tours include the dig site and a visit to the MCBONES Research Center, or “dig house,” with a presentation about the history, discovery and findings at the site; a guided tour of the laboratory activities and displays of key bones and specimens.
Not only are the bones of an ice age mammoth being unearthed, but small objects, such as beetle wings, ground squirrel teeth, mice bones and mollusk shells, found in the soil are being collected.
Changes in objects at different levels of the dig provide information about the changing environment of the Tri-Cities area over thousands of years, including the environment at the time the mammoth lived 17,000 years ago.
Money raised from the tours will be needed as MCBONES has radiocarbon dating done on some of its finds. It also will need to pay for professional identification of some microbiology species.
The tour cost is $10 per person and organizers recommend registering as soon as possible to get the tour date you want.
Go to mcbones.org and click on “menu in the upper left” and then “Tour & Dig” dates.
Public tours are set for 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. April 4, 19 and 26; May 17, 18, 24 and 28; and June 6, 8, 14, 21 and 28. The tours last about 90 minutes to two hours.
After registering, directions to the dig will be sent.
Tickets for the remainder of the 2025 tour season will go on sale later in the year.
MCBONES also can arrange private group tours, depending on volunteer availability, for groups of 10 to 30 people. Cost is $10 per person, including children.
The private events include a tour of the dig site, but likely not at times the actual digging and wet screening are being done.
On-site school tours are also available on Monday through Friday. The tours are for groups of 10 to 30 students and adults.
About the mammoth
The mammoth being unearthed appears to be a male, because bone growth plates take longer to fuse in males. He likely was about 40 years old when it died with a front leg growth plate still unfused.
The animal was large, likely standing 10 to 13 feet tall at the shoulder, making it bigger than modern day elephants.
During the ice age flood water backed up as it hit the narrow Wallula Gap to cover what is now the Tri-Cities. The dig site is at an elevation of about 1,060 feet, and floods may have been deep enough to reach the area about seven times.
The mammoth could have been drowned in the flood, and then the carcass could have been deposited on the hillside as waters receded.
The bones have been found relatively intact — the ribs somewhat jumbled, for example, but not scattered over a wide area.
This story was originally published December 30, 2024 at 11:59 AM.