I finally hit my 1 year mark with my new job in Southern Idaho, so that meant I got access to some PTO. We decided to build a family vacation around visiting Dinosaur National Monument, and seeing some other sites along the way.
We were able to get out of town Friday evening and make it to our place for the night in Ogden, UT. We had wanted to take the kids to a the Children's Treehouse Museum Saturday morning (located in Ogden). It's a pretty neat place for the kids with multiple levels of toy set ups, books, and all sorts of ways for kids to use their imagination. The price was pretty good too. We spent about 3 hours there before we continued on our way across Utah.
We finally arrived in Dinosaur National Monument early evening and we set up our camp in the Green River Campground. It would be our home for the next three nights. The Green River Campground lies just a few miles past the Dinosaur Fossil Quarry, and as the name suggests, is along the Green River as it makes its way out of the canyon area. It flows South from this point towards Canyonlands National Park.
In the morning, we set out for the nearby Fossil Quarry Visitor Center to start our first day exploring the park.
As we rode the shuttle bus from the visitor center up to the quarry building, you pass through numerous rock layers on the steep drive up. They narrate your ride up with the usual talking points of "millions of years". But when you reach the main quarry which has been preserved, you are in what is known as the Morrison Formation. This strata is made up mostly of mudstone, sandstone, and other lesser materials. It stretches a huge swath of North America and has yielded the most and best dinosaur fossils, There are small areas accessible in Montana, Idaho, and the Dakotas, but the American Southwest (due to the excessive erosion and canyonlands) provides the easiest access.
When you walk into the Quarry Exhibit Hall, you are literally looking at a giant wall of dinosaur bones. There are numerous species, including some of the well known ones such as Diplodocus, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Apatosaurus. When the National Monument was established fossils were left in the rock wall as they lay. It is incredible to see so many species in a jumbled mess all buried in the same place. It's almost like there was a cataclysmic disaster that buried all these creatures in a mass graveyard... But the National Park Service can't admit that Noah's Flood is a real historical event responsible for this. They insist that over eons and eons of time dinosaurs died and were slowly buried and then slowly turned into rock. When you view the wall of incredibly preserved bones you have to be a fool to not see a worldwide catastrophe.
(A rarity, a fully intact Camarasaurus skull. In fact, they believe most of the animal's skeleton is in the wall)
Over the course of our time in Dinosaur, we ended up going into the Quarry three different times. Addie certainly loved riding the shuttle bus, and it remains her most talked about item of excitement from the trip.
(Allosaurus replica)
Following our first visit to the Fossil Quarry, we went out to the Josie Morris homestead site, located at the end of the Cub Creek Road. Josie Morris was a divorced woman who build a life for herself in the wilderness of Dinosaur country. She lived in her cabin for 50 years without running water or electricity. She raised crops and livestock and even used one of the canyons (called Box Canyon) near her homestead as a natural animal corral. We did this very easy hike with the kids. Even on a hot summer day it still affords some shade, and the views are pretty.
Also of note along the Cub Creek Road are some pretty impressive petroglyphs left by the Fremont group of people.
That evening we enjoyed relaxing in our campsite as a family, and walking along the Green River. We even tried going to a ranger talk on animal's night vision, but of course with little toddlers we only lasted 15 minutes. The views of the area are amazing. It's about at this point when the Green River leaves the canyons and flows across the Uinta Basin on its way South. You are treated to stunning views both in the campsite, and up on the bluff above.
The next morning we would be going over to the Colorado side of the Monument and doing some exploration of the even lesser visited canyon lands. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the dinosaurs, but I was in particular excited about hiking the Harper's Point Trail.
The Green River's headwaters are in the Wind River Mountains of central Wyoming. Once the river leaves the mountains it flows South across what settlers called the lush Green River Valley. It does this relatively unimpeded until it reaches the Uinta Mountains. The Uinta Mountains are a geographical oddity in that they run East-West, while most other mountain ranges in North America are North-South. The peaks highest points range between 11,000-13,000 feet. The mountains are primarily located along the Northeast corner of Utah but do slightly spill over into Wyoming and Colorado.
It's at this point that the Green River flows directly into the Uinta Mountains (another oddity). The general agreement is this begins around Flaming Gorge (more on that later) and winds its way through the remote backcountry of Dinosaur until it exits the mountains near the Dinosaur Quarry. If you study a map of the National Monument, you will see just how much backcountry there is to explore. Huge swaths of untouched canyon lands that remain the same as when the first white American explorers dared to travel the river.
In 1869 one of the last unexplored places in North America was the Colorado River system. Major John Wesley Powell, a one armed Civil War Veteran, led his first expedition beginning in Green River, WY. Upon reaching what would later become Dinosaur, they entered a huge narrow canyon with imposing and challenging rapids. He named this section "Gates of Lodore" and today it denotes the Green River's entrance into the Northern tip of the National Monument.
Unfortunately we didn't have the time or money to explore a lot of Dinosaur's backcountry; maybe on a return trip someday. We were, however, going to drive the Harper's Corner scenic drive. You start in the small town of Dinosaur, Colorado and wind your way up onto the Yampa Plateau. After many miles of driving you begin to see glimpses of the canyon lands stretched out before you. We only stopped at the end of the scenic drive: the trail head for the Harper's Point Trail.
The Harper's Point Trail is about 2 miles round trip. You pretty much are confined to a narrow ridge and you hike out to the most extreme point. At the end you have about 300 degree views all around you. To the West you watch the Green River disappear into Whirlpool Canyon (another name given by Powell's expedition). To the East stretches more immense canyon and a view of Steamboat Rock. You can see the Yampa River and its confluence with the Green River is just obscured behind Steamboat Rock.
(Looking West)
As I have never been to the Grand Canyon, or Black Canyon of the Gunnison yet, this was by far the grandest canyon view I have ever beheld. And what made it better, was our family had this view entirely to ourselves. There are nobody else on the hike when we did it. That beats the crowded South Rim of the Grand Canyon any day, as far as I'm concerned.
After making it back to the Utah side of the National Monument, we finished out our day with another shuttle ride and quick tour of the Quarry Exhibit Hall, before enjoying time together for our last night of camping by the Green River.
The next morning we packed up camp and took the shuttle bus up to the Quarry one more time. It was "cooler" a bit earlier in the day and we had wanted to hike the Fossil Discovery Trail downhill from the Quarry to the main Visitor Center. We strapped the kids into our backpacks and set off. It was pretty views and there were three main areas to view fossils still embedded in the rocks. There was an area of small corals and shells, a band with dinosaur bones, and another band (which we didn't take the spur trail to see because the kids were losing patience being hot and in the carriers) of fish scales.
After finishing our hike we left Dinosaur National Monument. We headed into nearby Vernal (the Utah gateway community to the Park) and killed some time with the kids until we could check into our Airbnb. We were hosted by a nice couple with a small farm outside of town. We had our own private house with fresh eggs and honey from the couple's chickens and beehives. They also provided us with plenty of firewood. The next couple days consisted of enjoying the comforts of a soft bed, exploring the Utah Field House of Natural History, playing with the kids at the park, and sampling some local food. By Thursday morning we were packed up and ready to take our time heading home to see some new stops along the way.
