Dinosaur National Monument

Uintah Basin Road Trip | Day 5 | Hiking to Moonshine Arch | Visiting Dinosaur National Monument | May 2022 | Written by Curtis

This morning began with packing up our campsite at Red Fleet State Park and continuing on our road trip to Dinosaur National Monument. But Jess had one other hike saved on the way there that we decided to still do because it was dog friendly, and there weren’t many trails Charlotte could do inside the monument.

The hike was to Moonshine Arch, because you simply can’t take a trip to Utah without hiking to see an arch! It was about a mile there and not too challenging, making for a pleasant morning stroll. We had the arch to ourselves, and so we spent a while there enjoying it. Jess said it was her favorite arch we’ve hiked to simply because of the experience of being here all alone, walking up the sandstone, and letting Charlotte explore as much as she wanted.

The hike back to the car was uneventful, and soon we were driving through Vernal, UT heading back East on US-40. Right near the border with Colorado, we jogged North to the first, and arguably the most famous, section of Dinosaur National Monument – the Quarry. We stopped at the visitor center to get our park stamps and get the lay of the land as well as check some of the road conditions. The rain the night before might have made some of the roads sticky, but nothing that we had planned that day. From the visitor center we drove all the way to the end of the road, admiring the way the morning light lit up Split Mountain and the Green River.

At the end of the road, we found ourselves unequivocally in springtime. At least once a year, every Midwesterner has the realization that ‘it is finally spring’ and ‘everything is so green’, and for us it happened here. Here at the far end of a valley, we found the homestead of Ms. Josie Morris, who at the age of 40 built a cabin and ran a moderately successful cattle ranch almost exclusively by herself. For 50 years she lived here, from 1913 until her health declined in the 60’s. And spring was here. The trees were starting to leaf, wildflowers bloomed, and the lilacs smelled so sweet. I watched Charlotte while Jess followed a short trail up into a nearby box canyon.

We began our drive back again admiring the steep walls of Split Mountain. We parked at one of the two campsites along the Green River and started following the Green River Trail upriver towards the second campsite, as this was one of the few trails dogs are allowed on. But it was getting warm, and the sun had burned off the clouds…it was spring alright. Fortunately, we managed to make it to a promontory that gave us a great view of Split Mountain and the Green River. Here, the Green River exits out of a series of narrow canyons that are almost completely inaccessible except by the river itself.

But this is Dinosaur National Monument, we had to go see some dinosaurs, and the trackway we had seen the day before just wasn’t going to cut it. We returned back to the visitor center and then made our way to the Quarry. It’s an indoor space, so we took turns going and looking at the fossil beds. The fossil beds are honestly unlike anything we’ve seen before, and probably the first real dinosaur fossils we’ve seen in situ. The fossil bed is a vertical wall of fossilized bones spread out over 100’x30′. But that was only a fraction of the original fossil bed! Originally, 8 vertebrae of an Apatosaurus were found by a Carnegie University Paleontologist (Earl Douglass) at the top of a ridge line in 1909, and over the next 20+ years the ridge was split in two lengthwise revealing a fossil bed roughly the size of a football field with 1500+ different fossils from the Jurassic Period. The archaeological philosophy of the time was very Indiana Jones – “collect, remove, research, this belongs in a museum!”, and the bulk of the fossils (>60%) were removed from the wall and transported across the country to various institutions, including an almost complete Stegosaurus which is on display at the Nebraska History Museum. But Douglass had a vision (which proved to be ahead of his time) of leaving a remnant of the fossils in the wall exposed for study, but also for the benefit of the populace to enjoy. And it’s a wonderful thing he did, compared to the contemporaneous excavations at Agate Fossil bed in Nebraska which today has next to no fossils to display, even in the visitor center, the Bone Wall at Dinosaur NM is incredible. And that mentality is pervasive to this day with dig sites like Ashfall Fossil Bed and the Hudson-Meng Bison Kill in Nebraska focusing on preserving the fossils and artifacts as they are found (there was also a change in that archaeological philosophy which certainly helped).

But there is so much more to Dinosaur National Monument than Dinosaur bones, so we continued further East into Colorado. After a brief dip South on CO-64 to grab another county, we started the very long drive through the high plains along Harpers Corner Road. The road climbed up and up out of one watershed and onto the Yampa Plateau and finally out onto a point ‘overlooking’ the confluence of the Yampa and Green Rivers. Truthfully, I don’t think you could see either river except for the tiniest sliver here or there, but the views were never-the-less stupendous. From our viewpoint and the road we could look East up the wide but deep canyon of the Yampa River with such a juxtaposition of gentle plain and steep cliffs. To the North we could trace the Green River as it made its course South from Flaming Gorge and Browns Park through the Gates of Lodore. And to the West the Green Continues through more canyons until it exits where we started the day, only to travel through more parks and canyons until it forms the Colorado in Canyonlands National Park. And to think they almost dammed this whole area.

It is difficult to describe how beautiful these scenes were to us and me personally. Pictures only go so far, and describing the hydrology and topography are lacking. But, as I said to Jess as we made the long drive back to US-40, I was not on the verge of tears. But I was on the verge, of the verge of tears – I really liked Dinosaur National Monument and easily place it as my #1 National Monument and probably in the Top 10 for National Parks.

But our day at Dinosaur still wasn’t done. We continued still further east until US-40 crossed back into the Yampa River valley. There we followed a road back into the Monument to Deerlodge Park, a campground along the Yampa, and one of the only vehicular access points to either river between where we were and where we began our day almost 50 miles away. As such, we weren’t alone this night but were accompanied by a whole troop of rafters; a large group of 16 were going those 50+ miles on 8 rafts…needless to say I was just the slightest bit envious.

We set up our camp, had some dinner, and since the sun was still up, Jess let me wander a ways down the Yampa River. I walked cross country through the campground and surrounding flood plain to the end of the road and a small infrequently used trail head. There I followed the Deerlodge Trail into Disappointment Draw where the official trail ended, but bushwhacking was permitted and there were plenty of pleasure trails to follow. I found myself being lead to what looked like an old homestead dugout and outhouse which, paired with the setting sun and the red cliffs around me were picture perfect. I then made my way over to the River and watched the waters entering into the canyon to the West until the sun started to dip below the canyon walls.

Overall, our day at Dinosaur was very thorough; the only area we hadn’t seen was the North end by the Gates of Lodore. But I would gladly return and explore some more. Most of the surrounding land is BLM, which would make hiking with Charlie allowed, and we found that the Yampa river had many, many, boat launches further up river – though we are still far off from attempting any sort of rafting trip.