A Day of Exploring the Rest of Dinosaur National Monument

While still there, we went out early one morning for a little hiking and exploration.   The other fascinating thing about the park area, besides the dinosaurs, are the rock formations.  Plus,there are many ancient petroglyphs throughout the park.  The park map gives the locations along with hiking trails all through the park to view other petroglyphs and canyons not visible from the road.   So, one of our first stops was at small area of petroglyphs just a few yards from the road.  You can clearly make out what some of the figures are, and others are totally strange.  What were these ancient people trying to tell us?

 

We took a short hike up a canyon called “The Sounds of Silence”.  Yep, once you get back on the trail, it is pretty quiet and you are surrounded by rock.  Just the way the rock has been pushed up from horizontal to vertical is amazing.  It is hard to imagine the tremendous force that could easily change the landscape like that. 

  

  

Then we drove several miles along the scenic road out to “Jossie’s Cabin”, which is within the park boundary .  The surrounding landscape is more of the same interesting rock formations.  Jossie homesteaded way out in a canyon for 50 years.  She was divorced and her children were grown up.  She just wanted a place of her own.   She died at 90 in 1964.  An unbelievable totally independent woman.  Water from a spring, no electricity, and no telephone.   Yet she built her cabin with a dirt floor, put up her own fencing, raised cattle & chickens, grew her own food, and got her water from a spring.  She did all that alone!  Her cabin is still there and is now a open to the public and there is a picnic area.  Plus, there is a trail head for some hiking. 

  

We took a short hike up into the box canyon that Jossie used to put her cattle in when rounded up.  The canyon is narrow with a path through the trees.  It wasn’t very far at all but I was glad to leave because there were signs on the restrooms to beware of bears and cougars!  I don’t like those kind of hikes! 

So back to the campfire and that night we roasted hot dogs.  Not the best diet, but hey, it is what you do when a fire pit is right there begging for a roaring fire!   We had a great time at Dinosaur National Monument and recommend it to anyone who may be in the area when travelling.