NPS Website; Local Website
WHAT IS IT?
The Park gets its name from its imposing dinosaur quarry wall that displays a remarkable picture of life, 150 million years ago.
BEAUTY (6/10)The Quarry Site’s parking lot sits in the middle of a very hot and dusty nowhere. Desert shrubs line steep surrounding cliffs. Is this it? Not quite. An open-air trolley shuttles you up and around a rugged bend in the road, while its PA system declares, “you are traveling through time. Prepare to go back 150 million years.” Then it drops you off at an anonymous building. “So, it is just a museum” we thought, “a whole lotta bluster for nothing.”
Boy, were we wrong. Inside the building stands a remarkably large rock quarry, about 250 feet high and 75 feet long, containing over 1,000 dinosaur bones. The quarry wall is amazing and a bit overwhelming. We excitedly asked the Ranger, “Are they the actual dinosaur bones?” “Of course they are.” “Can we touch them?” was our quick response. Her affirmative response, “Of course you can touch them,” amazed us even more. Wow, real dinosaur bones.
HISTORICAL INTEREST (5/10)
The only place you can get closer to dinosaur bones is in a Natural History Museum and the odds are good that their paleontologists mined some of their bone collection from this quarry. There is something special about witnessing the quarry. No, the bones are not in place. In fact, the wall looks like a jigsaw puzzle just after you pour the pieces out of the box: some pieces remain in the correct order but overall the scene is a complete mess.
CROWDS (6/10)
Somehow, even in these times of high gas prices, enough people travel here to warrant a shuttle trolley. Dinosaur NM is miles from civilization, 180 miles east of Salt Lake City and 330 miles west of Denver.
EASE OF USE/ACCESS (2/5)
Dinosaur NM straddles the Utah-Colorado border. Two roads lead into the Park from U.S. Route 40.
Utah Route 149 travels north from Route 40 at Jensen, Utah and goes to the Main Parking Lot. During the summer, a shuttle traffics tourists to the Dinosaur Quarry Visitor Center. The Quarry is two stories high, located completely indoors and is handicap accessible.
Harpers Corner Drive travels north from Route 40 at Dinosaur, Colo. and travels to red rock canyon overlooks and the Yampa River. There are no dinosaurs in the Colorado section, just beautiful scenery and world-class river rapids.
CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (4/5)
We enjoy dinosaur paraphernalia, the malleable plastic toys, the wooden models, the metal cast allosaurus claws and the dinosaur survival game. We thought the allosaurus and camarasaurus skull fossil reproductions were super cool and reasonably priced at $42 and $63 respectively. We even liked the numerous children’s books with colorful dinosaur pictures and fearsome covers.
But why there are no dinosaur or paleontology books on sale for grownups? Why is the store’s inventory so superficial and aimed only at a preteen audience?
COSTS (2/5)Entry into the Park’s Dinosaur Quarry (Utah) section runs $10 per vehicle or free with the National Parks Pass. There is no charge for the Park’s Colorado (dinosaur-less) portion.
RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (3/5)
Enough to answer questions and give a near hourly talk in front of the quarry.
TOURS/CLASSES (6/10)
Our shuttle arrived just in time for the next 15-minute talk in front of the dinosaur quarry. We were disappointed to find that a Ranger was not giving this particular talk. We grabbed a large-print booklet for a dollar and attempted a self-guided tour of the quarry wall.
The booklet, which resembles a children’s coloring book was quite helpful. Its pages outline and number the most obvious bones on the face of quarry and show you how they might look if they were pieced together properly. Why are these bones bunched together? How can you tell how their owners might have died? The booklet gives a basic paleontology lesson in a few pages and is a handy reference when trying to figure out what the heck you are looking at.
Alongside the quarry is a compact but fascinating collection of fossils and casts, many of them originals. Stand next to a giant dinosaur leg bone or squint and try to decipher the details of miniscule rodent jawbones. We are constantly amazed at the diversity of the collections preserved and protected at each of the NPS sites dedicated to fossils. Dinosaur NM showed us things we had not yet seen.
One thing that paleontologists and Rangers in these sites seem to have in common is a sense of humor. Next to the priceless displays of rare fossils sit two huge binders filled with newspaper clippings describing the world of dinosaurs and the links between prehistoric and modern life. Sources include the National Enquirer, The Star, and Gab’s favorite, the Weekly World News.
FUN (5/10)Michael has never been a dinosaur person; he was bored. Gab insists that she had a good time. Michael thinks the quarry wall was large and incomprehensible, even with the handy booklet. Gab found it fascinating.
Michael feels the same way about dinosaurs as he feels about mound building Native American park sites: there are so many disclaimers like, “we’re not so sure”, “it might have been this” and “we may as well just be guessing” that he reflexively shuts his brain off. For example, first you learn that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was a ferocious super-predator, then they tell you that it might have been a vegetarian, then they tell you that it might not ever have existed in that form and that paleontologists pieced together the wrong bones. Arggggh!
Gab thinks Michael should have relaxed and enjoyed the cool, gigantic fossils.
WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (4/10)
If Michael’s bored mood is any judge, we think all but the most hardcore of dinosaur-loving kids will enjoy the Monument. While Dinosaur NM may be as close to a real-life Jurassic Park as we will ever see, its beasts are not nearly as alive or exciting.
TOTAL 43/80
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