Saturday, June 1, 2024 we left Ken’s Lake Campground outside of Moab, Utah and drove 3 1/2 hours to Dinosaur National Monument in Jensen, Utah. The drive took us through the western edge of Colorado and over a high, winding mountain range road known as Douglas Pass. The Pass reaches an elevation of 8,205 feet and is pretty much impassable during the winter due to heavy accumulations of snow and ice. The drive CAN be a little hair-raising when you’re pulling a 30 foot trailer, but the views were spectacular.
Still, to Cindy’s everlasting gratitude, it was nowhere near as hair-raising as when we left Bighorn National Forest last year, lol.
We arrived at Dinosaur National Monument campground around 3 pm and were all set up by 4 pm.
Sunday morning we stopped by the Dinosaur National Monument Visitor Center. Cindy was disappointed that they did not sell dinosaur fossils. But as the Ranger reminded her, “Our aim is to preserve the artifacts.”
Afterward we drove to the nearby town of Vernal and looked for some stores or shops selling fossils, but could find none. As a consolation we had lunch at Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers or, as it’s more commonly referred to, Freddy’s. They are a lesser-known version of Steak & Shake and I haven’t eaten at one since I was working in Baton Rouge more than 3 years ago.
Monday, June 3rd we were up early and back at the Visitor Center by the time they opened at 9 am. We caught the first shuttle bus up to the Quarry Exhibit Hall and were the only ones on the shuttle. Yay for early starts!
Quarry Exhibit Hall
The Quarry Exhibit Hall is an amazing two-story building built right onto a wall of disarticulated dinosaur bones. These bones are made up of adults and juveniles from at least seven species of dinosaurs. This location used to be a vast river before a long drought killed many of the dinosaurs. When extensive rains returned, floods drowned some dinosaurs and swept up carcasses of others that were already dead. The fast-flowing river carried the bones downstream along the river bottom. As floodwaters receded, the river slowed. The bones dropped to the river bottom and began to pile up. They were covered by sand and mud.
The result was the dinosaur “logjam” that you see on this section in the exhibit hall. In some sections of the land, sand buried some bones quickly, so the skeleton stayed complete. Here the skeletons were separated and scattered over long distances and so different dinosaurs make up the “logjam” on the quarry wall.
The Quarry Exhibit Hall also contains displays of dinosaur skeleton “casts” which are representations of what a fully articulated set of bones would look like. There are also some stand-alone bones that have been removed from the ground over the years. You can see Cindy standing next to one of these giant bones in the photo album for this post.
As you would expect, there is a lot of history in this building and we spent more than hour trying to absorb it all as best we could.
Fossil Discovery Trail
When you finish up at the Quarry Exhibit Hall you can either take the shuttle bus back down to the Visitor Center or choose to hike the 1.5 mile Fossil Discovery Trail which will take you back to the Visitor Center.
As I mention in the accompanying video, this old dinosaur chose to walk where dinosaurs had walked. We stopped first at the Stump Formation. Despite its name, there are no tree stumps. This layer of rock formed from a sea-floor deposit that extended over a vast area some 161 million years ago. It gets its name from Stump Peak in Idaho where the formation was first researched in depth.
Then it was on to the Morrison Formation. This trail leads you through rock layers with different colors, textures and fossils. The narrow, uneven steps up to the sandstone cliff hug the rock wall formation on your left and there is nothing but air on your right. This was a tough one for Cindy as sometimes heights give her trouble. Coming back down was even harder because the angle was steeper than you have with regular staircases. But my brave wife made it up and down those steps like the champ she is.
On the way to Mowery Shale we passed a pretty good sized cave off of the main trail but on a smaller trail you could still walk on. I wanted to see what was in it but Cindy didn’t so she filmed me walking over to it. It was dark inside of it so I threw a rock into the opening. Nothing moved so I got closer and then I swear SOMETHING inside made a noise, lol. Anyway, no critters came out to kill me so that was good.
Finally we arrived at the Mowery Shale. In this area some 97 million years ago ash from erupting volcanoes killed the fish swimming here. Currents at the bottom of the sea that was here then scattered their scales. Now you can see tiny gray or golden scales fossilized in these rocks. Personally, I could not see them but Cindy said she could and that’s good enough for me.
Then we followed the trail back to the Visitor Center. Most of this was flat, sandy and covered with desert ground foliage. It was also an apparent Prairie Dog home as we saw lots and lots of them darting around. As hot as it was Cindy was so entranced she kept taking photos and videos of them as they scampered around us.
Petroglyphs
When we got back to Voyager we drove farther into the park to see sites with petroglyphs and walked along the bank of the Green River. It was a long, full day of exploring for us and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
Tuesday we returned to Vernal. I had called the Chamber of Commerce to ask if they knew of any places in town that sold fossils. They weren’t sure but they thought a business next to an antique store might. We called the antique store and they knew of the business but did not know if they sold fossils and had no contact information. So we drove to it and found it was closed down. We ran a few errands and headed back to Nomad.
Wednesday was a day of rest so we could be ready for a long drive to Snowville, Utah.
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