If I Were Going...: Dinosaur National Monument

The last stop of our little trip was Dinosaur National Monument -- a very cool place on the Colorado/Utah border. The bright sunshine helped us forget the harrowing drive the night before.

We usually forget to pose by the sign

Located at the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers near Vernal, Utah, and Dinosaur, Colorado, the park contains more than 800 paleontological sites and has fossils of many dinosaurs found there. The large number of bones is due to a bend in an ancient river, where the remains of animals killed in floods over 150 million years ago collected and were compressed in the mud.The area then uplifted and erosion eventually exposed some of the bones.

There's bones in them thar hills

I remembered visiting years ago and being impressed by the Visitor Center, which was built up against a quarry wall showing exposed dinosaur bones.

Visitor Center

It was those exposed bones that got the site national monument status back in 1915. The initial dinosaur find resulted from seeing bones sticking out of where the rock had been eroded.

Exposed bones

After a number of excavations, many of which resulted in the fossils being shipped off to institutions including the Carnegie Museum (and later the Smithsonian, among others), the lead paleontologist, Earl Douglass, thought it might be a good idea to preserve a section of unexcavated quarry. It was his goal to educate people about the process as well as the history and geology of the area.

When we arrived, we were surprised to see a Visitor Center we didn't recognize. At first, I thought we were at the wrong VC (we were at the one near Vernal; not the one near Dinosaur).

What is this?

But, it turns out that the old VC is now the Education Center and it is reached via a quick tram trip (handicapped guests can drive there, but everyone else must part at the new VC and take the tram).

A quick tram ride

The old VC (now EC) was built on unstable ground and, in 2006, it was suddenly closed because it was in danger of collapsing. Over the next five years, it was dismantled, reinforced and rebuilt and a new VC was built using materials taken from a rotunda that was not rebuilt.

Now the Education Center

In addition to modern-day dinosaurs, such as the Western Whiptail Lizard that was running around the tram stop ...

... Dinosaur NM is chock full of some very impressive bones, including full skeletons embedded in the rock ...

Wouldn't it be cool to find this?

... a very rare intact Allosaurus skull ...

Plus, this is REAL; most bones you see in museums are casts

Dinosaur skulls are rarely preserved because they are made of very thin bone that is easily crushed. The one at Dinosaur National Monument is one of the best skulls of any Late Jurassic predatory dinosaur in the world. This one is huge -- at least three feet long with three-inch teeth. The full dinosaur was about 30 feet long.

We spent some time looking at all the bones ...

Lots and lots of bones, all in one place

... touching the ones you are allowed to touch ...

You can even legally touch them

... trying out the cool benches ...

Bone bench

... and listening in on a Ranger presentation to a bunch of children ...

Note the cool Centennial badge

There's a whole additional part of Dinosaur that I hadn't really explored before. This is the part in Colorado, near Dinosaur. It's not as popular as the Utah side (the VC staff seemed a little miffed that they hadn't gotten a lot on Centennial memorabilia like the "more popular" VC on the other side). The large track of land has several outstanding features, including petroglyphs and pictographs ...

One of the richest (and most consolidated) collections I have seen

The drawings are 1,000-year-old relics of the Fremont culture that existed along the Fremont, Green and Colorado Rivers.

An alien?

In the Dinosaur National Monument area, archaeological evidence of the Fremont culture dates from about 200 A.D. to about 1300 A.D. Archeological evidence suggests they lived seasonally in this area when water and food was available.

Messages in the rocks?

What happened to them isn't clear; their lifestyle may have changed because drought or other climatic factors, dwindling natural resources or the influence of other neighboring cultures. Regardless, there is no evidence of them after about 1200 A.D. The petroglyphs and pictographs survive and they are really impressive.

The area also has some spectacular vistas ...

Great views

... and rock formations ...

A turtle?

There is a cabin that once belonged to Josie Bassett Morris, a true pioneer woman, outlaw or nutcase, depending on how you look at it, who lived most of her 90 years in a rustic cabin she built.

Woman power

Young Josie

When she was young, Josie's parents moved to a ranch in the area. She and her sister Ann learned to rope, ride and shoot and, after attending prominent boarding schools, returned to ranch life.

Their father supplied beef and fresh horses to many outlaws, including "Black Jack" Ketchum, Butch Cassidy, Elzy Lay, Kid Curry, Will "News" Carver and Ben Kilpatrick.

By 1893, Ann was romantically involved with Butch Cassidy and Josie was involved with Lay, Cassidy's closest friend.

When Cassidy went to prison in 1894, Ann became involved with Kilpatrick. Josie was then involved with Carver, who left her for the outlaw Laura Bullion. Josie, in turn, became involved with Cassidy, until Cassidy again became involved with Ann. Despite all these romantic entanglements, there is no indication that there was ever any animosity because of it.

Sundance and Etta (Ann?)

Ann has often been alleged to have the Sundance Kid's girlfriend Etta Place, who mysteriously disappeared from public records in 1909 not long after the Kid's death.

She allegedly led a double life, dating Cassidy as Ann Bassett and dating the Sundance Kid as Etta Place -- being involved with both outlaws at the same time, apparently with their full knowledge.

When the Bassett girls refused to sell the ranch In 1896, the cattlemen's association hired cowboys to harass them by stampeding and rustling their cattle.

The sisters, in turn, began to rustle cattle from the cattlemen.

Living most of her life operating her father's ranch, Josie married five times. She divorced four and may have poisoned the fifth. She had two sons.

In 1913, Josie started homesteading the area. She built the current cabin in 1924.

A nice place

She was very creative (devious?), circumventing water legislation by trapping water underground so that she could claim it rather than ceding to neighbor's downstream water rights. She also used a nearby box canyon as a cattle pen, thus reducing the amount of fencing she had to maintain.

Box canyon

Josie, despite her wild ways, was a good neighbor. During the Depression, she supplied food to others in the area.

Older Josie

She was known for her prowess at hunting deer, which she often did for her own family and to help feed less fortunate neighbors. In addition to ranching, she also made soap and sewed her own clothing.

During Prohibition and into the 1930s, Josie brewed whiskey, apricot brandy and chokecherry wine. She only stopped when warned that "revenuers" were looking for her still.

In her younger years, she wore skirts as she did all this work, only switching to more practical pants later on.

Josie was tried and acquitted twice for cattle rustling when she was in her 60s.

At 71, in an ambitious move to revive a profitable cattle business, she deeded her land away in a poor business deal. She lost all but the five acres where the cabin stands.

In December 1963, she broke her hip when a horse knocked her down. She died of complications in May 1964 at the age of 90. She was the last remaining associate of the Wild Bunch gang, as well as the last direct source of information about its members.

Quite rustic, considering it was still in use in the 60s

Caty and I also drove out to the end of the scenic drive in search of good views of Steamboat Rock, which is prominently displayed on many park signs. It was very unclear whether we should have been able to see the rock, but it appears that one must either hike in or drive on a primitive road. We opted not to risk the drive, especially since a storm was approaching.

Where was it?

It looks very pretty, but it's a bit frustrating with so little information about how to get the views that are on poster, prints and books.

Arches and caves

What we eventually saw was the back of the big rock that sits in a bend in the river.

A really big rock

Of course, we were also on the lookout for animals -- all we saw were Deer ...

A nice rack

... damselflies ...

A Bluet

.. and Harvester Ants ...

These were very large Ants

Our original plan was to drive home after visiting Dinosaur, but, as usual, we took longer than planned and we didn't want to drive home over Trail Ridge Road (Rocky Mountain National Park) in the dark. So, we decided to spend the night in Kremmling, Colorado. And, we had to dodge a few deer and one coyote on our way to the hotel, proving the wisdom of our decision.

The next morning, ironically, dawned rainy and foggy, so we were a bit concerned about the drive up over the mountains (Trail Ridge tops 12,000 feet and can be dicy in rain/snow). It was a surprisingly animal-less drive home -- no moose at all. But, I did see the only kestrel I have ever seen in RMNP, and he posed nicely for me.