Take a trip to: Dinosaur National Park!

We travelled here during our WinterPromise trip! This was a wonderful opportunity to see some amazing fossils and so many of them! This park is a must see for any family that wants to become more familiar with the dinosaurs that lived in this part of the world.

This park is home to visible dinosaur fossils! These great beasts once roamed the earth and now in this unique park you and your family can see their fossils right in the ground where they once walked! Who doesn’t love dinosaurs!?

History of the Park

The land where the park is currently has been home to Native Americans for a long time before we made it a national park. The art in the rocks reveal that we are walking on and next to history! The Shoshone were the most recent people to live in the land and some still do in the area.

The fossils were first discovered in 1909, by paleontologist Earl Douglass. President Woodrow Wilson in 1915  officially declare the fossil beds as “Dinosaur National Monument.” At the time it was only 80 acres in size but were expanded in 1938 to the incredible 200,00 acres it is today!

Major Attractions

 What would you want to see here? There are some really cool sites to see. Let’s take a look!

Quarry Exhibit Hall – This is the main attraction for this park. You can now view the roughly 1,500 fossils that’s still lay in the rock visibly. You will walk inside a comfortable building with the rock wall inside creating an awesome viewing experience! Along with that you can see an exhibit that talks about the dinosaurs that have their bones in that rock wall! Amazing!

NOTE: You must go to the exhibit information center about 1/4 mile away and then be shuttled over to the exhibit.

Hiking, Trails, Rafting – In the expansive and mountainous park there is a beautiful river, amazing mountains to view, trails to hike and even a river to raft down!  The hiking and rafting would not be ideal for families but for couples who are experienced in hiking this may be a wonderful opportunity.

Find more information here: http://www.nps.gov/dino/planyourvisit/placestogo.htm

Eating and Sleeping

Where could you stay? Within the park itself there are no hotels or lodging available. But there are a number of RV campgrounds in the park. This would be a great way to spend some family time if you took an RV out to Dinosaur National Monument. It also would mean you could make it a whole trip out west.

Local communities are the places to get good restaurant food. But if you brought food with you, there are a lot of great viewing places that would make for a great picnic!

More information is here: http://www.nps.gov/dino/planyourvisit/eatingsleeping.htm