Red Canyon - Dinosaur National Monument

Hello Everyone,

On Sunday, Sept. 1st we left Rock Springs, WY, and drove 70+ miles down the East side of the Flaming Gorge scenic byway to the Flaming Gorge Dam which is situated at the end of the canyon, just a few miles over the border into Utah. There we stopped for a quick tour and some advice from the visitor's center. Then we went on to Red Canyon Gorge, another beautiful red-hued canyon that adjoins the Flaming Gorge near the Dam.

As the sign says, the gorge is 1,700 feet deep, that's more than a quarter of a mile down.

Mom took a great picture from the observation windows of the visitors center built on the edge of the cliff. I met some very nice people there and made friends with all of them.

There were several overlooks along the path outside the visitor's center, and warning signs to remind parents to watch their children as the terrain was very dangerous and there were many places where there were no guard rails or other forms of protection from the sheer cliff edges.

Add to that several deep fissures in the cliffside, it was one place that seemed less than safe for families although it is spectacular to view and explore.

We spent the night in Vernal, Utah, an interesting small city near Dinosaur National Monument, located in Jensen, Utah.

On Monday, Sept. 2nd, Labor Day, Dad went to Dinosaur National Monument, while Mom and I stayed at the hotel to do some planning for the next part of our adventure.

There he met this life-sized Stegosaurus at the entrance to the visitors center.

There he boarded the people-mover for a short ride up a box canyon to the dinosaur quarry exhibit hall. He could have hiked up there, but it was nearly a mile and a half in 90-degree weather.

Inside, he found an exhibit of an archaeological dig with numerous excavated dinosaur bones embedded in the sandstone surfaces and some exhibits of fully reconstructed dinosaurs.

Here is my Dad standing next to a femur bone (thigh bone) of an Allosaurus, one of the most prolific predators of North America. These dinosaurs had serrated teeth, the better to tear the flesh of their prey.

Here is a full-sized skeleton of the Allosaurus, over twenty feet high and more than forty feet long from snout to tail. A human being would have made little more than a small meal for these creatures.

I wouldn't want to meet him in a forest or a swamp. He probably would think I was his afternoon snack. I'm sure glad there aren't any dinosaurs left.

From there Dad went out into the desert on a trail called the "Sound of Silence Trail". 

Notice the haze in the picture below from the extreme heat in the desert air generated from the rocks at noontime.  

There he found petroglyphs carved into the stone and left there by ancient people called "Fremont people", about 1,000 years ago.

Some of the depictions resemble aliens, no one is certain as to why?

The temperature was 92 degrees, so he didn't stay long, or finish the trail (about 5 miles into the desert).

In the afternoon we drove South about ninety miles to Helper, Utah where we are staying for the night.

 Tomorrow we will explore Goblin Valley, State Park, near Hanksville, Utah😊.