Douglass dinosaur quarry museum
I have never seen so many dinosaur bones in one spot, actually I’ve probably never seen as many total dinosaur bones, as there are on display in the dinosaur quarry at Dinosaur National Monument. We arrived at the visitor center just in time to take the first shuttle, a short five minute ride, to the building which was built to showcase the dinosaur quarry here. Discovered in the early 1900’s by Earl Douglass, the quarry exposed many complete dinosaur skeletons. So many fossil bones were discovered here that eventually the quarry was closed to further digging, as it was becoming redundant.
Instead of an active quarry, the site was turned into a museum where the bones of the dinosaurs lie in thousands visible on a rock wall over which a building was constructed. A ranger gave us a quick introduction to the site, and then we walked through ramps in the building looking at and photographing the bones.
We went on a ranger led hike through the hills surrounding the museum. The ranger explained the various geological formations, and pointed out fossils, some tiny clams found in the river bed, and other larger dinosaur bones, including one large femur. Some of the tour participants spotted other bones, one of which the ranger had not seen before. I’m sure that the illustrators for “The Flintones” either were here, or saw photographs of this area, because it looks very much like Bedrock!
Fremont culture rock petroglyphs
After lunch we drove through the southern part of the National Monument on a self-guided auto tour. We saw a large number of petroglyphs carved by the Freemont people. Like most rock art we’ve seen, the figures of humans have a body that is very wide at the shoulders, tapering to a narrow hips. The body almost looks triangular, but isn’t quite. However these are the most intricately carved works that I’ve ever seen. Some of the faces showed a great deal of decoration, including what appeared to be necklaces.
At the end of the road there are the remains of an old homestead which belonged to Josie Bassett (also known as Josie Morris). She lived there until 1964 when she died at 89. The story told about her in the guide book painted her as a rather colorful character, with five husbands, and twice charged with cattle rustling.