Dinosaur National Monument

 

It was just a 66 mile drive from Flaming Gorge to Dinosaur National Monument, but it took over two hours due to the climb over an 8,400’ pass through almost zero visibility due to low clouds, rain and 20 mph switchbacks. I drove the Subaru ahead of Jim and was glad I did.

Our site in the Green River Campground on the Utah side of the park.

No hookups, no dump, but there are flush toilets and drinking water. We don’t normally like sites where you have to just pull off the road but this one is huge with no site across from it. $9 with Jim’s senior pass.

We visited Dinosaur National Monument in 2010 but the Quarry Exhibit Hall was being rebuilt so we didn’t get to see the displays. We remembered that we liked it here so wanted to return and check out the places we missed the first time.

Views of Split Mountain and red rock from our site.

The day we arrived we hiked a mile along the River Trail, which goes from the Green River campground to the Split Mountain group campground. Excellent views of the Green River, which is now red with mud from the recent heavy rains. In fact it rained during our first night and into the next morning.

Looking back over the campground where you can see more rain on its way.

Jim had to get to the highest point.

Since it was cold and rainy on Saturday we made the 20 mile drive to Vernal for laundry and grocery shopping, which seemed to take nearly all day. Nice little town with a decent laundromat.

On Sunday we went to the visitor center to check out the quarry.

You can see how it was constructed around this wall of rock.

The 150’ wall contains over 1,500 fossilized dinosaur bones. It is thought that a devastating volcanic/flood event carried the bones and deposited them here during the Jurassic Period, some 150 million years ago.

It was fascinating to see. The park ranger stationed there answered several of our questions.

Actually 5000 fossils have been discovered in this area but the rest are in collections all over the world, including at the Carnegie Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian.

But the dinosaur fossil exhibit is just a small part of this 210,844 acre park located in northeastern Utah and northwestern Colorado. When we visited the first time we checked out the pictograph/petroglyph sites so we skipped that this time. We also drove to the Colorado side for the scenic views and a hike so this time we just hung around and hiked the trails closest to the campground.

Sounds of Silence trail, 3.3 miles made difficult by the fact that the heavy rains turned parts of it to mud and washed away some trail markers.

River trail to Desert Voices trail, a 6 mile loop right from the campground.

I was trying to test the water temperature but slipped in the mud. I didn’t realize Jim caught me in the act. Just happy I didn’t go into the river.

Green River float trips end here.

This was some of the most colorful hiking we’ve done in awhile. We enjoyed our second visit to Dinosaur National Monument as much as we did the first time. It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re in the area.

Today we’re heading to Colorado National Monument for more red rock.

Flaming Gorge: Red Rock and Green River

 

On Monday we drove 250 miles from Grand Teton National Park to Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area near Dutch John, Utah. We don’t normally drive that far in a day, but there just really isn’t any place to stop in between, although it’s a lovely drive. Many of the forest service campgrounds are closed for the season, so the closest one open that we came to was Dripping Spring, just a few miles from the Flaming Gorge Dam. Due to a fire here many years ago, our first impression was that we’d spend the night and find something better the next day. As it turns out, we spent four nights. It kind of grew on us, and there have only been a few other RVs here so it’s been very quiet.

The entrance wasn’t too appealing with all the dead trees still standing.

But we liked our site with the surrounding rabbit brush in bloom.

We are still fighting colds, but on Tuesday we drove down to the dam and Red Canyon see if we felt up for a short hike. Unfortunately there was a controlled burn going on near the canyon so the air was hazy and the views not so great, but it was nice being back in red rock country.

We walked the rim trail for a mile, which was about the extent of our energy levels.

Flaming Gorge Dam. Here’s a bit of history from the Forest Service website:

Flaming Gorge Reservoir was created in 1962 with the completion of the Flaming Gorge Dam on the Green River by the Bureau of Reclamation. At 502 feet tall, the dam is part of the Colorado River Storage Project, and provides water storage,
hydroelectricity, and recreation. There are three generating
units in the Flaming Gorge Power Plant, which produce enough
energy annually to serve about 50,000 households.

And reservoir.

We were feeling better on Tuesday so decided to go for a hike on the Little Hole Trail. We were here in 2010 at a different campground and hiked several miles of the trail right along the Green River across from the dam, but this time we were closer to the other end of the trail, just a couple miles past the campground at the Little Hole boat launch area, so we started there. Apparently although we started at the trailhead sign, we didn’t realize the trail continued past the boat launch so we actually hiked away from the dam and missed the trail right along the river.

Looking back through the dead trees to our starting point by the boat launch.

Although most of our hike was not by the river we still enjoyed the scenery.

When we saw this we decided to keep going.

It was 1.75 miles until we got down to the river.

One of several river campsites we passed.

It was so peaceful. Wish we could have gotten out on the water.

We only saw this one boat of fly fishermen.

It rained all day and night yesterday but luckily the predicted heavy winds and severe thunderstorms missed us. I did a little cooking and cleaning, while Jim did some sorting and scanning of papers that somehow continuously pile up. Today we’re moving on to Dinosaur National Monument.

Parting shots of our ever-changing view.