Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park

A very remote park in the middle of nowhere in Nevada, but is absolutely worth a long detour. The views and the location are awe inspiring. This park has it all: one of the best preserved ghost towns in the West - Berlin, a former mining town that could rival the famous Bodie; interpretive trails of multiple adjacent towns such as Union with their own ruins; and a sheltered display of a paleonthological marvel- a huge ichtyosaurus skeleton.

There are multiple hiking trails you can take and see some other fossils literallt falling out of the earth, as well as great picnic and camping facilites. Entry is $10 cash of you are out of state.

A trip to this park was a highlight of the entire offroad trip to Nevada.

What an absolutely wonderful place to visit! Aside from being truly in the middle of nowhere, lol, it was definitely awesome. We camped over the weekend, and toured the ghost town of Berlin on our own, as well as went on the guided tour of the Ichthyosaur fossil house. We have visited many many state parks, and national parks for that matter, but this one stands apart as highly impressive in the care that the ranger, staff, and whoever else helps, put into it. The entire park, as well as the campground, are beautifully kept, clean, and natural. Not a lovely subject, but I'd be wrong to not mention that there are more than enough vault toilet restrooms all throughout the park and campground, and while staying and hiking, we did not find one, not one, that wasn't as clean as it could be, and that was really really nice. TMI, but, there have been plenty of those type facilities, in other places, that we've nearly screamed, slammed the door, said no way, and held it 'til we got somewhere better. Not here though, it made things much more comfortable and we appreciated it, lol. That level of care and meticulous upkeep was not only in restrooms, it was everywhere we could see... the entrance, the ghost town, the fossil house, and especially our campsite. We stayed in #3 for reference, but they all looked nice when we were walking around. Beautiful views, clean site, table was in new condition, grill was clean (we didn't use it but it was nice) fire ring was cleaned out and clear of old debris (we didn't think fires would be allowed, so we hadn't brought firewood, but it was a very nice spot) and the shelter (canopy, pergola, awning, pavilion, whatever you want to call it) was fantastic, sturdy, clean. You'll see in the photos. Anyway, the ghost mining town of Berlin is charming and a wonderful step back in time, and you can walk around and tour it at your own pace. The fossil house was very cool. It covers the excavation site of several Ichthyosaur (trying to be vague as to not spoil details for anyone.) After tour hours, the house is locked but it has big viewing windows at each end that you are welcomed to step up to and look in and read the info plaques. The guided tour is done at 10am and 2pm. We attended the 10am tour on our way out of the park. The Ranger (I'm sorry I didn't catch his name) was very knowledgeable, very friendly, and very patient with questions from all different members of the group. I don't have one bad thing to say about any part of the park. It was lovely from beginning to end, and I'd highly recommend it as a weekend getaway, but then there were other hiking, as well as driving, trails there, so I'm sure you could even make a week out of it.

Answers to questions I could think of...

- There was no electricity or water at any campsite, but there are water spigot/pump things throughout the campground.

- We have Verizon, we had 1 bar of 4G on our 5G phones at campsite #3, which was enough to get calls and texts, search the internet, social media, and download a movie on the laptop. When you hike around a bit, it goes in and out, but we had that 1 bar more than not throughout the park.

- We saw where people complained about the road in... I don't know why, we came in from Dayton, through Fallon, Middlegate, past a town named Gabby, which we didn't really see, and the road was just like a country backroad, yeah it had a few potholes but you could miss them, not like there was anyone else on the road at the same time, lol, and there were some spots not perfectly smooth but it isn't a raceway anyway, it's just a slow peaceful backroad drive to take to get you somewhere cool to visit. So go slow.

- Wildlife... we saw none, we heard a mule deer grunting near our camper one morning, but we didn't see it. There are supposed to be deer, coyotes, mountain lions, and rattlesnakes in the area, but we didn't have any scares from them, and all the trails we walked were nicely kept, cleared. We could see a good ways through clearings and the sides of the trails.

- Camping 15.00 per night. Fossil tour 5.00 per adult