We visited the Dinosaur National Park a few days ago, but one area that contains petroglyphs was closed due to a fire that occurred the night before we visited. So, we returned yesterday to view the petroglyphs. It was very interesting to see them. The petroglyphs have been dated to approx. 1,000 years ago and are from the Fremont people that lived in the area at that time. Most could be seen from the road or by hiking a very short distance which was convenient.

We also visited another petroglyph area near Vernal that is on private land owned by the McConkie family. We got a brochure about it that stated this was ‘a concentration of some of the best and most easily accessible Native American art to be found anywhere’.

Well, as to being easily access accessible – I find that statement debatable. We climbed up a hillside about 200 feet, then wound our way along the hillside at the base of some very interesting cliffs for about a mile, scrambling over and around rocks on several occasions and up and down some bare dirt embankments that were quite slippery. But, the artwork was worth the hike! Because it’s on private land there was some graffiti in places, and I’m unsure about some of the art that was scratched into the cliffs…it looked too modern! But, all in all a very interesting hike. Here are some pictures we took from both areas:

The Flaming Gorge is a gorge along the Green River as it winds southward to empty into the Colorado River. The walls of the gorge are very steep and red, giving the area its name. The river was dammed at the bottom of the gorge so the river is much higher than it was throughout most of history, and even a whole town was swallowed up by the reservoir when the river was dammed.

We took a long loop trip to see the whole Flaming Gorge area as well as an area called Firehole Canyon which has lots of ‘chimneys’ and ‘spires’ further north of the gorge. Lots of interesting geology! We drove through a small area known as Sheep Creek Geology Area and while the geology was beautiful, we saw no sheep!

Here are pictures we took of the Gorge, the dam and reservoir, and Firehole Canyon:

While in the Vernal, UT area we visited the Dinosaur National Park. It’s an interesting park that spans the border between Utah and Colorado.

The park has lots of interesting geology as well as dinosaur fossils and petroglyphs. The dinosaur fossils in one area on the side of a hill were extracted to a certain point and the dinosaurs, several fairly complete, were sent to museums. At the point where the extractions halted, the whole hillside shows fossils ‘in relief’ meaning they were partially uncovered but left in the hillside quarry, and the whole hillside was protected by building a structure around the hillside to protect it from the elements and a two-story viewing platform was constructed so visitors could see the fossils as they rest in the hillside. The multitude of fossils and the proximity of so many types of dinosaurs all mixed up together indicate that a heavy rain or even flood washed dead dinosaurs downstream and they got jumbled up in a kind of logjam.

The petroglyphs are from the Fremont people who occupied this area of the country around 1,000AD. They hunted and grew crops and their descendants, the Ute people, continued to live in this area until they were forced onto reservations.
Here are pictures we took of the fossils in the quarry, petroglyphs and geology of the area: