Dinosaur National Monument - Day 1

You'd think that Dinosaur National Monument would have something to do with dinosaurs, right? Well... not so far on our visit. We are in the "Canyons" part of the park, and WOW, is it ever GORGEOUS!

Our drive over from Maybell was just over 1 hour. US 40 is nearly deserted in this part of the state.

Canyon Visitors Center at Dinosaur National Monument

Plug Hat Butte is one of the first things you pass on your way up into the monument... the left side of the butte...

.... the right side of the butte.

We had to disconnect the Jeep to get Miss Doozie around the parking lot at the visitor's center, and since it was just 12 miles to the location where we planned to park for the night, we elected to keep them separated. I took a quick picture of the Jeep as Dwayne was driving through the Plug Hat Butte.

We got to the location where we planned to park Miss Doozie for the night - and what a view we have out the front window! Days End Directory gave us the directions to this beautiful spot!

Driving further into the park on Harpers Corner Road.

A tree at the Canyon Overlook picnic area

At Canyon Springs Overlook

A close-up of the view

We plan to visit Echo Park on Wednesday

See that curvy dirt road?

It leads down to Steamboat Rock.

Miss Doozie won't be going!

Island Park Overlook gave us a view to the northwest...

Uinta mountains in the distance.

We were in open rangeland - so those are a couple of cows behind me!

Echo Park Overlook allowed us to see "Steamboat Rock" from above.

Juniper berries

Pinon pine

Another view from Echo Park Overlook

 

When we got to the end of Harpers Corner Road, we hiked Harpers Corner Trail -

Beautiful views all along...

The trail was a little more difficult than we were anticipating - mainly because it started downhill so we had a large uphill at the end when we returned. The turnaround point of the trail is just over Dwayne's left shoulder.

We could see the Green River just below us, and the Yampa River meets it a Steamboat Rock (to the right of this picture). The Yampa River is in the canyon at the middle of the picture.

The rock layers were SO interesting.

The Green River continues on to the west (we plan to camp along it further west into Utah in a couple of days).

One of the closer-in ridges.

 We had a wonderful time exploring along Harpers Corner Road. We have fueled up the Jeep in anticipation of driving Echo Park Road on Wednesday!