The day started a little rough. The school had done an update to the software and students and teachers were having a hard time accessing their accounts. The boys couldn’t log on at first, then their “live” session links were missing, and once those showed up, their assignments disappeared. Some of their classes were cancelled because of the issues. Hopefully, it all gets resolved for tomorrow!
Once school and work were finished for the day, I wanted to go see some of the dinosaur bones and petroglyphs in the area. It was much cooler today, so it was perfect for hiking. The morning was in the 50’s and the high forecast for 82!
Our first stop was at Mill Canyon. It is right off of 191. The drive starts off going through private land and ends up on BLM land. Mill Canyon is a dirt/gravel road until you reach the Track Site. You might be able to use a car on this road to reach the dinosaur track site, but they do recommend 4-wheel drive. If you want to get to the dinosaur bone trail, you definitely need 4-wheel drive and probably a vehicle that sits higher up (SUV/truck/Jeep). It was the first time we had tried a more challenging terrain or used 4-wheel drive in the truck. We did alright and didn’t get stuck in the deep sand.
The bone trail is left open to the elements. There are informational signs at each stop, but it was really hard to see the bones in most of the locations. We had the information pamphlet and the plaques to help guide us, but other than look “four feet to the left” or look for purplish spots in the rock, there wasn’t anything to really guide you to find the bones. It would have been super helpful to have a simple diagram of the rock or something.
At the end of the bone trail, you can see the remains of a copper mill. It looks like the back wall and corners of a stone foundation.
(NOTE🙂 I have a lot of pictures from the trails. I only put the a couple above, but if you scroll to the end of this post I have a few more pictures as well.)
We went back to the truck and headed back toward the dinosaur track site. There is also a path for the Halfway Station, an old railway station. However, that sandy path looked even rougher than the one we had just gone on and we didn’t want to risk it.
At the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite, there is a gravel parking lot, a campsite, and a bathroom. There is a short trail down to the dino prints. The site is fenced off and once through the gate, you walk on a wooden boardwalk in a loop around the footprints. There are informational plaques around the trail/boardwalk. Some prints are easier to see than others, but you can definitely see some.
I think my expectations were a little too high. Will and I still enjoyed it, but I think Ben and Nick were not very impressed. Ben especially started loosing interest when the dinosaur track plaque stated they didn’t know what kind of dinosaur made the track and then showed what they thought it would look like. There are a few other dinosaur sites near Moab, but it seems that they all require off-roading or 4-wheel drive.
After Mill Canyon, we went to Poison Spider Trail. Poison Spider has two slabs with dinosaur tracks and some petroglyphs. The trail information I read beforehand claimed you could see them from the parking lot. I guess technically you can, but you would need to know exactly where they are and probably need binoculars to really see the tracks and petroglyphs. We took the trail and saw one slab with tracks. These tracks were a little easier to see. We didn’t see the petroglyphs until we were almost back to the parking lot. I turned around for one last look and just happened to see them.
There was a saving feature to our adventure today, one that everyone loved: Utah Highway 279. We passed this turn-off (toward Potash) every time we drive back towards Moab. This time we took the road to get to the Poison Spider Trail. We saw people rock climbing along this stretch of highway and there was the Colorado River near the road as well. The main attraction (for us) were the petroglyphs along the cliff walls. Some were faded, but most of them were easily visible. There is a small sign stating “Petroglyphs” by a small pull-out, so look for it as you drive by. There were so many of them, it was amazing. Ben claimed everything was worth it just to see them.
(Side Note: At the corner of 191 and the turn-off to 279, there is an UMTRA Energy Project. The area is fenced off with an electric fence and there were radioactive symbols around. I looked it up later and they are removing uranium tailings. I guess there used to be a uranium processing plant there.)
This is so interesting!!