Benson Creek Falls Regional Park has a trail system through thickly-forested canyons, with a beautiful medium-sized waterfall called Ammonite Falls. There are other smaller falls along the creek; at low water, you can explore many parts of the creek bed and look for fossils.
The most common approach is from the east, where a wooden staircase leads from a point above the waterfall, down to a viewing platform just downstream from the bottom of the falls. This was a massive improvement to the park in terms of accessibility; before the stairs, you had to shimmy down a very steep, muddy slope!
Give yourself a couple hours to complete this hike if you're approaching from the east (Jameson Rd). If you're coming from the Doumont Rd side, things can easily take longer because it's easy to get disoriented (unless things have improved there since the 2000s).
Fossils!
Ammonite Falls is named for the fossils found in the sedimentary layers of rock behind the falls and throughout the region.
There are places all along the creek bed where fossils can be seen, and concretions (spheres of rock which may contain a fossil) roll down from the hillsides. Most concretions contain merely a speck of nothing, while others break open to reveal ammonites, snail-like creatures similar in shape and form to the modern nautilus. These were very common in Paleozoic and Mesozoic oceans, 400 to 65 million years ago.
Many large shells are embedded in the stone of the riverbed (one at least is as big around as a vinyl record, and a meter-across fossil was found in the area in the early 2010s). I have also found bivalve shellfish fossils there, such as oysters.
Where to Park
You can also approach from the Doumont Rd side, but orientation is more difficult, and so is the terrain.
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