2012/07 Western USA trip - Dinosaur Monument |
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Dear All,
At the end of Part Five of this journal, the wedding celebrations in Steamboat Springs were over and the families had set off to their homes in Minnesota and Alberta. Sandie had left with Christina and Ryan to catch her flight from Denver to Calgary. John, Edna, and I had set off west towards Dinosaur national monument on the Colorado-Utah border.
Thursday July 5th
We soon left the bustle of Steamboat Spring behind us. We were heading west along the Yampa River valley, through a few tiny towns and past the occasional mining road. US40 in this area is a very quiet highway.
We reached the first road into the park in time for morning tea, but we still had a long way to go. Dinosaur is a large park with a number of access roads, but few of them link up. The only way to travel right through the park is by raft! This first road goes to Deerlodge where we had attempted to camp back in ’78, only to find that the campground was drying out after a Yampa flood and was infested with mosquitoes. By that time we’d got used to Minnesota’s state bird, but not to these Colorado bugs, which attacked in hordes in blazing sunshine, so we’d gone looking for an alternative campsite.
This time we traveled only far enough along the road to find a scenic spot for tea, choosing a side road to where the Yampa emerges from a canyon. The parking area there had been badly damaged, the result of another flood a month earlier. Now, though, the Yampa was low enough to walk across in places.
We drove on to the next major road into the park. This is the Harpers Corner scenic drive, and we followed it up to Plug Hat butte, where we walked the rim trail, and to Escalante overlook. Shortly beyond the overlook is a side road that goes nearly all the way back to Deerlodge and then follows a bench above the Yampa before diving down into Echo Park, where the Yampa flows into the Green River. That was one of our most spectacular campsites ever, and we’d got there in ’78 in our station wagon, despite grounding both bumpers. Not a road for a trailer, unfortunately, so we didn’t try this time. The scenic drive continues 
deep into the park but it wouldn’t get us to the dinosaur quarry, so we went back to the main road.
We crossed into Utah and took the road that leads to the quarry, but first we dropped the trailer off at the Green River campground, a beautiful spot, just a few yards from the river. We then scooted back to the visitor centre to board the shuttle up to the dinosaur quarry. Back in ’93, running out of time on their first USA trip John and Edna had chosen to 
visit Mesa Verde’s ruins instead of Dinosaur’s fossils, so this time we were filling in the gaps.
A few years later, the building which houses the quarry wall began sliding downhill and it was closed until a recent rebuild. I think the original quarry wall was kept but externally the building looked quite different from what I remembered. The quarry wall has been excavated far enough to expose the skeletons of a many dinosaurs, and gives a rare view of what paleontologists deal with.
Earl Douglass discovered the dinosaurs in the Morrison Formation about a hundred years ago and shipped thousands of bones to museums. There must be many more skeletons beyond the wall but how many stegosauri do we really need? It’s certainly a place you’re
unlikely to forget.
We walked back down the hill and found the Fossil Discovery trail. Some of the fossils, like the millions of tiny clam shells, were not very exciting but there were a few giant vertebrae like these still embedded in the rocks. This was a slow walk, very hot in the sun.
Later, we were setting off back for a lazy evening in the campsite when we spotted a sign for the scenic drive along Cub Creek. Much later, after hiking a few trails, walking the beach of the Green River, and climbing cliffs looking for petroglyphs, we ended up at Josie Morris’ cabin at the end of a dirt road.
The Green River has always excited geologists as it flows completely through the Uinta mountains, suggesting that the river was already there on a high plateau millions of years ago and has since eroded the plateau into today’s mountains. Today, its canyons provide one of the most spectacular rafting trips in the country, and I watched enviously from the beach as the rafters were coming in to camp for the night.
The Fremont people’s petroglyphs (rock patina scraped off) and pictographs (painted on the rock) were scattered along the trails, some signposted and others a surprise. There were pictures of lizards and people and deer, even a very distinctive flute player.
In other places, the geology itself provided the decoration, like these striped hillocks.
We finished the day at the Josie Morris’ cabin on Cub Creek. It backs onto the canyon where she used to corral her cattle. She was one tough lady, who divorced four husbands, knew the outlaw Butch Cassidy, was accused of rustling cattle, and eventually lived in the cabin alone until an accident finished her off at the age of 90.
Dinner was late that evening.