Dinosaur National Monument

On September 7-8, 2018, we visited Dinosaur National Monument.  The NM is half in Utah (the dinosaur fossils) and half in Colorado (the Green River, Harpers Corner, and Echo Valley).  We planned to spend one day at the dinosaur fossil part and one day in the Harper Corners Road part but the dinosaur fossil part was really only a morning, although it was very interesting.  I discovered that the fossils were discovered about 100 years ago and some virtually intact skeletons were taken to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, PA, where I saw them as a child and marveled at them.  It was so cool to see the site now, and to see where they found all of the fossils.

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We used the rest of the first day to go to Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area which we visited about 13 years ago and got to see again.  It is upstream of the NM along the Green River and there is a dam that created the NRA.  The gorge above the NRA (and the NM) are spectacular.

​The next day, we traveled to the Harpers Corner side of the NM and it was equally spectacular to Flaming Gorge and the west side of the NM.  The road goes out a ridge high above the Green River which loops around it.  We walked the Harpers Corner trail which goes to the end of the high ridge where you are on a knife edge of land way above the river.  Then we drove down Echo Valley Road to Echo Valley, a spot along the Green River.  This "high clearance" gravel road took us down from the high ridge to the river through a set of valley cuts that were spectacular.  
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On the way to Dinosaur NM, we stayed at New Frontier RV Park in Winnemucca, NV, and Mountain Valley RV Resort in Heber City, UT.  Both were good.

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