Dinosaur National Monument

After I finished my survey for the day, I drove north to the town of Vernal, Utah. The people of Vernal like two things: dinosaurs, and Jesus. A pink, long-necked dinosaur with prominent eyelashes holds a sign welcoming you to the dinosaur state. A 30-foot-tall t-rex with a bandana around its neck and a lasso in its claws watches while you drive down main street. Every gas station has a dinosaur outside it, often but not always wearing a cowboy hat. There is dinosaur mini golf, dinosaur laser tag, and a dinosaur museum. Punctuating the Jurassic paraphernalia are billboards with bible proverbs and signs reminding you to think about the state of your immortal soul. To my intense disappointment, Vernal never combines the two elements (although a nearby town advertises a “Dinosaur Bible Study”).

As birds are the modern descendants of dinosaurs, it seemed fitting to visit the nearby Dinosaur National Monument. If there are any doubts about this lineage, the song (although song is a generous term) of the yellow-headed blackbird should be enough evidence in itself. In fact, I’d heard yellow-headed blackbirds a couple of days before at the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge (approximately 35 miles away as the blackbird flies and 55 as the ornithologist drives).

A coworker and I made plans to check out the Monument in the afternoon after we finished our surveys. She had to end her survey early that day because of a looming thunderstorm. I had watched the clouds building up in the distance during my own survey while I listened to rock wrens and horned larks on a patch of rolling sagebrush. Unfortunately for her, she was significantly closer to the storm than I was, and the storm chased her back to her car with thunderclaps and flashes of lightning. Besides her own safety, it was also the threat of rain that drove her away. Many of the roads in northeastern Utah are unpaved and turn into an impassable soup when they become wet. A careless ornithologist could end up stuck in the mud and hoping their food and water supplies last until the road dries out enough to drive away again. Wisely, my coworker left before this happened and went to the library to do data entry instead. The thought gave me a small pang of guilt. I was already behind on my own data entry with no sign of catching up.

After a quick stop a so we could refill our water bottles and I could wash my armpits in the library’s bathroom sink, we drove east to the Monument. Harper’s Corner Road, which leads to an overlook of the Green and Yampa Rivers, was closed due to poor road conditions. So much snow had fallen late in the year that many of unpaved roads in Colorado and Utah were still blocked by snowdrifts, even in May. Keen readers may note this as an example of foreshadowing.

Instead, we stopped at the visitor center and then hiked to the quarry to see dinosaur fossils. My coworker had worked on a paleontological crew in the past and had a practiced eye for pointing out pieces of bone and petrified wood in the rocks lining the trail that I would have lumbered by like an oblivious diplodocus. I knew for a fact that she owned an Ankylosaurus costume, so I knew I could trust her.

The quarry is exactly what it sounds like—a great excavation site littered with fossils still half-encased in the rock. These fossils are no longer being excavated but left in situ for visitors to enjoy.

Literal tons of material had been shipped off to museums in Pittsburg in the early 20th century, but much of it stayed in the quarry. There are remains of eight different species in the quarry and the bones lie over each other like the aftermath of a morbid game of Twister. They include an Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus, and the crowd favorite: Stegosaurus. Some of the fossils had been articulated so that you could walk by them and compare yourself to them. Unlike most museums, touching was allowed in certain places, and you could fondle a 4-foot-long femur if you were so inclined.

For the visitors who find themselves overwhelmed by the bigger fossils, there were also smaller specimens, like some clams. There were also the pitiful remains of some small mammals that make our own ancestors look rather pathetic compared to the dinosaurs.

After we poked around the quarry, we went for a couple of small hikes to admire the landscape and the Fremont petroglyphs that decorate the sheltered sides of the rocks. We explored up a box canyon until the trail got too steep for our sandalled feet and we turned around. White-throated swifts chattered overhead in their neat tuxedos. If you hear white-throated swifts, you can be sure that you’re close to some kind of steep cliff. Their scientific name, Aeronatures saxatilis, not only sounds cool, but also translates to “Air sailor amongst the rocks”. Fitting, as they remain airborne after fledging and eat, drink, sleep, and mate while in flight. They only land again when it’s their turn to breed and they need to incubate eggs or feed their chicks.

In the distance was the figure of Split Mountain, a great cleft in the landscape. From far away it looked imposing, like the site where some great creature had burst forth from the earth. There are no trails that lead to it, although that describes most of Dinosaur National Monument. It’s a park that’s meant to be seen from the water, not from land. The Yampa River runs through the Monument and cuts down through eons of rock to form deep canyons. The river grows turbulent in the canyon, white water sending rafts shooting down it while they battle the river to keep upright amidst the rocks and foam. Years ago, I had backpacked to a bird survey on the north side of the park and picked my way through fossil-studded boulders while I looked over my shoulder for mountain lions. In the distant corners of the park there were huge bull elk that never saw people, and goshawks (the undisputed monarchs of the forest) nesting in ponderosa pines.

In a couple of hours, we had only seen a tiny portion of the Monument. It’s a wild and ancient place and I wish I had more time to explore it. My coworker and I said goodbye to each other at the end of the afternoon and drove in opposite directions to our next surveys and new adventures.