Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park

Nevada State Park: The Berlin Mining Ghost Town And The Fossil House Over Ichthyosaur Fossils; The Ichthyosaur Is Nevada'S State Fossil · Gabbs, Nevada

Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park sits at about 7,000 feet on the western slope of the Shoshone Mountains in central Nevada, at the end of a long road east of the small town of Gabbs. It protects two things that have nothing to do with each other and make an unusual pair. The first is Berlin, a gold and silver mining camp that boomed in the early 1900s and faded within a few years, now kept in what Nevada State Parks calls arrested decay: houses, workshops and the big mill on the hillside stand as they were left, stabilised but not restored. The second is the Fossil House, a shelter built over a quarry where the bones of several large ichthyosaurs, sea reptiles of the Triassic period more than 200 million years old, lie partly exposed in the rock where they were found. The ichthyosaur is Nevada's state fossil. The park is remote, with no fuel or food nearby and no phone signal, and it is lightly visited; that quiet is part of its appeal.

State Route 844, Gabbs, Nevada, 89409, United States

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: the park and townsite are open year round, day use from roughly sunrise to sunset, with the campground open all night; Fossil House tours run at set times, usually daily from about Memorial Day to Labor Day and on weekends or by schedule in spring and autumn, and rarely in winter. The traps that ruin a day are arriving after the last tour, running low on fuel with no station for many miles, relying on live navigation with no signal, a flat tyre on the gravel, and snow or mud on the approach roads outside summer. Confirm current times before relying on them.

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