When people get the opportunity to see and touch dinosaur bones, it can be “surrealistic,” said Alan Westfall. marketing director for Adventure 360, which hosts amateur archaeological digs.
Jefferson Countians will have the chance to experience that feeling at the Eureka Senior Expo, set for Wednesday, Nov. 3, when Westfall gives a presentation about the Adventure 360 nonprofit organization.
“We’ll have a table with an exhibit of dinosaur fossils and bones,” Westfall said. “We’ll probably have a T-rex bone, a triceratops and other various fossils. Many of them you’ll be able to touch.”
The senior expo, which will be from 8 a.m. to noon at Victorian Gardens, 15 Hilltop Village Center Drive, in Eureka, will include other speakers, as well as vendors and other programs and entertainment.
Westfall said when he gives presentations about Adventure 360, which is based in Fenton, and brings along show-and-tell items, like bones and fossils, things can get crazy.
“We have a dinosaur femur that’s 2 feet long, and we encourage people to touch it,” he said. “A lot of these people have had an interest in dinosaurs since they were little children. When they touch this femur – we also encourage them to have a picture taken with it – you can see the tears in their eyes. They say, ‘I never thought I’d get to touch a real dinosaur.’
“At these presentations, I usually start out by asking the audience, ‘How many people like dinosaurs?’ About 80 percent raise their hands. Then I ask, ‘Do you have a child or grandchild who likes dinosaurs?’ Then everybody’s hand is up.”
Westfall said he will outline the three types of archaeological adventures Adventure 360 offers.
“We offer experiences for students as young as 8 years old to 85,” he said.
All the expeditions, grouped under the title “Paleo X,” are based in Jordan, Mont., Westfall said.
“It’s in what I would call east-central Montana, near North Dakota,” he said. “The reason we go there is because that’s where the dinosaurs were. They started finding fossils in the general area 100 years ago, and we’ll continue to find them for the next 1,000 years.
“Once we’re out in the field, which is the desert, it’s pretty primitive conditions. There are no hiking paths, no shade. Believe it or not, someone once asked where the concession stand was.”
The agency offers adventures for adults, giving them the chance to spend a week digging up bones. Family days also are offered.
“If you want to bring your child or grandchildren, you can spend a day or two. Usually we’re part of a vacation, when the family is visiting Mount Rushmore, which is about six hours away, or Devils Tower National Monument, which is about four hours away, and then spend a day or two with us.”
The third type of tour, field school, is for students and teachers.
“We get high school and college students, including graduate and doctorate students. A lot of colleges nowadays don’t offer field experience to their geology students, so they direct them to us.”
Westfall said Eureka High School students have participated in past field schools.
“We’ve had students from Puerto Rico, England and British Columbia come,” he said. “It’s a very unique program. It’s an educational program. We want to get people excited about science.”
In all cases, Westfall said, the amateur paleontologists are not allowed to keep their finds.
“We’re mostly on federal land and operate under permits from the federal Bureau of Land Management. Sometimes a teacher will find parts and pieces of fossils, and we tell them to box them up and put a nice note in it that says, ‘May I please borrow – and that’s the key word – these fossils for educational purposes?’ About 99 percent of the time, the (teachers) get them back. But if the government ever says it wants them back, they need to be returned.”
Start of Adventure 360
Westfall, 61, said the concept of Adventure 360 started years ago at the St. Louis Science Center.
“They had a lab downstairs where they studied and repaired dinosaur bones, but they needed someone to find the fossils. Ron Giesler, who worked for the Science Center and is now our program director, stepped up and said he’d do it. He developed relationships with the people in Montana – the shop owners, the ranchers who will allow us on their land and everyone. Then in 2012, the Science Center stopped funding it and Ron quit after working for them for 19 years.
“Everyone thought this idea (of going to Montana to find fossils) was too good to let go and Adventure 360 came from that.”
Westfall, who is on the five-person board that governs the nonprofit, said Giesler is its only paid employee. A staff of six others are primarily volunteer college doctoral students.
“They find it looks very good on their resumes,” Westfall said.
He said that while his experience is in sales and marketing, and he owns Westfall Co. Inc., a Eureka-based industrial supply company, he has long had an interest in archaeology.
“When I was about 50, I went back to college. I got a certificate in archaeology from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. It’s always been a passion of mine,” he said. “I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was young, but life got in the way.”
Westfall said he has built his company up to the point where he has the time to take part in the trips to Montana.
“The company is 39 years old and I’ve got one employee who’s been with me for 30 years. Several have been there 10, 15 or 20 years. You know you’ve built a successful business when your presence is not needed constantly,” he said.
The experiences offered by Experience 360 are not inexpensive. The weeklong adventure for adults, he said, costs about $1,300, and includes two meals a day, hotel fees and supplies and two dinners, on the first and last days. Participants must arrange their own transportation to and from Jordan, Mont.
The student weeks average about $1,000, although Westfall said some scholarships are available when donations allow.
The family package, he said, costs about $72 per person per day.
Westfall said reservations for tours in 2022 are filling up.
The organization’s website is adventure-360.org.