Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite
Personal Notes
This page contains our personal notes on our visit to the Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite in Wyoming.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
1:01 p.m.
We drove along the Red Gulch / Alkali National Backcountry Byway, coming in from the south, near Hyattville. We were glad to find modern vault toilets and covered picnic tables. Before we toured the Dinosaur Tracksite we stopped and ate some lunch. The day was a bit overcast, so the sun was not an issue. But the area is exposed, and in the middle of the summer it could be quite hot out there. The site is about five miles south of Highway 14, along a graded dirt road. From the north this site could be reached by a typical car.
2:06 p.m.
This is a BLM site that had two volunteer rangers who were very helpful in identifying the dinosaur tracks. Once you know what to look for on the solid sandstone or mudstone surface it's pretty easy to see many of the three toed tracks crossing this way and that. It's not a large site, but well worth at least a few minutes to stop and take a look, especially if you have kids. You can look for small fossils in the loose sediments along the side of the wash, and keep what you find.
We were surprised at the number of people out there visiting this site in the middle of nowhere. But everyone seemed to be having a good time spotting tracks and collecting fossils.
From there we headed north to just west of Shell, then drove on south, back to our campground in Thermopolis.
