Dinosaur’s Sound of Silence

We stop for one night in Rock Springs, and camp in one of the over 1200 spots(!) the complex has to offer. Our neighbor suggest that if we like dinosaurs we should visit the local college and see the dinosaurs skeletons that are on display there. We do, and it is interesting, but not quite like a museum.

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The route to Dinosaur National Monument is beautiful, there is a lot to see. We stop at a point of historical interest where a sign tells us about the Northern fork of the Oregon Trail.

In 1909 dinosaur fossil beds in the park were discovered by Earl Douglass, a paleontologist working and collecting for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. He and his crews excavated thousands of fossils and shipped them back to the museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for study and display. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the dinosaur beds as Dinosaur National Monument in 1915.

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plans for a ten-dam, billion dollar Colorado River Storage Project began to arouse opposition in the early 1950s when it was announced that one of the proposed dams would be at Echo Park, in the middle of Dinosaur National Monument.  David Brower, executive director of the Sierra Club, and Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society led an unprecedented nationwide campaign to preserve the free-flowing rivers and scenic canyons of the Green and Yampa Rivers. The conservationists won, and the dam was never built. However, the Flaming Gorge dam, that was built instead, has fragmented the upper Green River, blocking fish migration and significantly impacting many native species.

We camp in the park, next to the Green River, and look forward to have a little dip in it, but the next day the temperatures are much lower and we don’t need to cool off in the fast running river. We do visit the dinosaur fossil beds in the quarry. It is amazing how many bones and whole skeletons were found of the dinosaurs!

Because we start late, at 6:30 PM, we decide to hike just a little bit of the Sound of Silence trail, but because we like the hike so much, we complete the whole loop. It does get darker and darker, and although the trail has multiple signs and there are helpful notes in the trail booklet, we lose our way in the dark.  When the wash turns into less and less of a path, we turn back, and manage to find the last stretch to our car again. We have grown hungry, so back on the campground we enjoy a quickly put together dinner.

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Sweetwater Events Complex
3320 Yellowstone Rd. 
Rock Springs, WY 82901

Green River Campground 
Dinosaur National Monument
Green River Campground Rd. 
Jensen, UT 84035