Written Thursday February 09, 2006

dinosaurs 02-09-2006

Tags: 3 month trip colorado

Dinosaur National Monument was pretty impressive. It not only houses one of the richest beds of dinosaur fossils in the US, but also the quite spectacular ridges and canyons surrounding the Green River. I recommend a visit if you are passing by.

I arrived at the Utah entrance to the monument on Tues (Feb 7th) night. Since the Quarry was closed, I did the “auto tour”, looked at
petroglyphs
(more here, here)and did some wandering around. It was right at sunset and I got some great photos. (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here andhere)

The next day I got up early as I wanted to hit the Quarry and then do some hiking in the Colorado portion of the monument. The Quarry is pretty specatular. If you are into puzzles, you could spend hours attempting to figure out how many dinosaurs are entombed there. (It is a 100ft high wall of stone with the bones still in the rock for your viewing pleasure).

Afterwards, I went over to the monument entrance in Dinosaur, Colorado and drove about 5 miles in, which is as far as they plowed the road. I went for a little hike around the plateaus. Here I am all ready for the hike(a close up). On this hike is when I noticed just how quiet things were. I could not hear any cars, planes, people, etc….. nothing. I really love the feeling of being miles from any other person and then randomly choosing a direction and start walking. No plan, no agenda, just walking and looking.

More photos here, here, here.