Dinosaur Bones and White Water!

View across the Green River from our campground.

We moved to Dinosaur National Monument, near Jensen, UT on Sunday, 6/23. The route took us over a mountain pass and it was a crazy steep, windy road. We had planned on coming back that way to boondock in Flaming Gorge, but decided to rethink those plans. Lol.

And that was just one section of crazy! Lol.

We were in the Green River Campground and the pups loved being back near water. They insisted on multiple pilgrimages each day to the river for a little off-leash water sports. Oh, and in case you're wondering, the reflective jacket helps keep Raney cool. It was originally Riley's and we called it his "baked potato jacket". I think she looks like a caped crusader! Lol. 

During one of their play sessions, I managed to drop my compact camera, a Sony RX100-VII, in the water. Even though I quickly snatched it out and dried it off, it immediately started having issues. Sigh. This has been a bad trip for my cameras. First my waterproof camera died at Balmorhea and now my expensive travel camera appears to have bit the dust (or in this case, drowned. ☹). 

River time!

Raney and Ruby on the run!

Rog decided to take a dip, and Riley is very concerned. Lol.

Beach art.

Monday was our last full day with Bob and Carole, so we continued our breakfast tradition of strawberry pancakes and mimosas! Yum! With full tummies, we headed for the Quarry Exhibit Hall, which, in my opinion, is the highlight of Dinosaur National Monument. Where else can you not only see 1500 dinosaur bones, but actually get to touch them? It gives me chills to realize I’m laying hands on the femur of a Sauropod that lived 149 million years ago. That is just way too cool!

My new favorite camping tradition.

The Quarry Exhibit Hall.

The 2-story wall of bones is absolutely phenomenal, and...

...you get to touch real dinosaur bones.

In 1909, Earl Douglass a paleontologist from the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, PA found eight tail vertebrae from an Apatosaurus here. Over the next 15 years, a section of sandstone 600 feet long and 40 feet high was removed, unearthing literally tons of dinosaur bones. A section of the hill and over 1,500 dinosaur bones was left in place so we could experience the wonder of his amazing discovery.

This graphic shows the scope of the excavation and
the remaining Quarry Exhibit.

Why are there so many bones in one place? The theory is that this was a site of an ancient river. A drought caused a huge die off with many dinosaur carcasses left along the dry riverbed. When the rains returned, the bones were swept into large piles, which were later silted over and eventually fossilized. Bones from ten different species and over 400 individual dinosaurs were found at the quarry site.

I'm calling this guy, Smiley. 

Fossils in the Quarry.

A logjam of bones is a good description.

The view from the Quarry wasn't bad either!

Later in the day, Bob and Carole drove down Cub Creek Road past petroglyphs and turtle rock to see the Josie Morris cabin. Josie settled there in 1914 and lived alone without modern amenities, raising her own livestock and food until she died in 1964 at the age of 89. Married five times, she ultimately chose to live alone. Quite the character, she was accused twice of cattle rustling (but never convicted) and was an alleged associate of the outlaw Butch Cassidy.

Petroglyphs.

Turtle Rock, yes it is. 

Josie's cabin and the box canyon where she corraled her livestock.

Bob and Carole and Ruby pulled out early on Tuesday, 6/25. We were sad to part ways, but they had a family commitment to make. They had a very long driving day ahead of them, with plans to make it all the way back home in three days and squeeze in a visit with Bob’s sister in Yakima. We will be taking a much more leisurely approach. 

In fact, we opted to stay another two days at Green River Campground and do a white-water rafting day trip on the Green River! Yay!! But first, we had to relocate to one of the first come/first served sites, since the one we were in was reserved for the next day. One advantage of already being in the park, we got a great site with easy river access for the pups.

We snagged an excellent site for the next two days.

We walked down to the river again and I had my second, too close for comfort, “wildlife” encounter on this trip. The first was at our boondocking spot in the Badlands, when I had a mouse run across my foot in the dark. I did the highland two-step thinking it was going up my pantleg. Well, down at the river I was walking Raney along the shallows and a snake darted out of the grass and slithered right across my bare foot. I really did break out ALL the dance moves this time. Luckily it was just a harmless garter snake, but geesh! No touching!

I had all the moves when this little guy dashed across my foot.

We scheduled our white-water rafting adventure for Wednesday, 6/26.  (Happy Birthday Tom! Wish you were here!!) We booked the trip with Adrift Dinosaur, a rafting outfitter that operates out of Jensen, UT. We met at their headquarters at 8:30am and after getting loaded up in the van, drove about 40 minutes to the put-in spot at Rainbow Park. We would be rafting through Split Mountain Gorge and taking out at Split Mountain Campground. Enroute to Rainbow Park we stopped to view petroglyphs left by the Fremont peoples who lived in the area 1,000 years ago.

We went with Adrift Dinosaur rafting outfitters in Jensen, UT.

Our route on the river.

While we have a little experience paddling in white water, when we floated the Colorado and Lower Salmon, we were usually on boats rowed by the guides. For this trip, the 11 guests were divvied up between two paddle boats. We had three guides, Maya and Bella steered the paddle boats and provided instruction, while Bill trailed along in his kayak to scoop up any accidental swimmers. Lol. We started off with a safety talk and some basic paddle instructions. The river was high, flowing at about 8,000cfs due to a recent release of water from the Flaming Gorge Dam. One downside of being in paddle boats, it’s very hard to take pictures! It seemed like every time I tried to grab my camera, Maya would tell us to paddle. Lol. (Oh, and one bit of good news, my waterproof camera seems to have resurrected itself!)

The water flows were moderately high - perfect for rafting.

We were only on the water for about 10 minutes before we hit our first rapid. There are several Class II and III rapids on the nine river miles we floated. The second rapid we hit, Moonshine, was the biggest roller coaster of the day.  On the calmer stretches, we enjoyed the absolutely gorgeous scenery in Split Mountain Canyon. The striated red rock and tortured anticlines were spectacular. In places, the dramatic colors and folded rock walls of canyon looked like pulled taffy.  

Entering Split Mountain Canyon.

  

Our guide, Maya, expertly steered our raft while
shouting instructions to us newbies. Lol. 

White water!

The scenery throughout the canyon was stunning.

Bill paddles his kayak through the canyon, and...

...tries to make friends with a family of Bighorn sheep. 

We stopped for lunch and our guides laid out all the fixings for build-your-own Split Mountain burritos with chips and cookies for dessert. We hit a few more rapids after lunch, with Last Chance (to swim) rapid not far above our takeout point. We exited the river and the guides quickly stowed and loaded the gear for the short drive back to their building. 

We pulled over for lunch around noon.

Bill, Bella, and Maya prep the ingredients for Split Mountain Burritos.

Back on the water.

Last rapids of the day.

Take out!

The weather was perfect for our paddle, warm enough that getting drenched by a wave or taking a dunk in the river felt refreshing, but with some afternoon high clouds that kept us from frying in the sun. While we floated the canyon, the pups were napping in air-conditioned comfort and had no complaints. An excellent day all around.

View from the overlook above the takeout point. 

We were glad we’d added a few extra days at Dinosaur, but it was time to move on. We headed out Thursday, 6/27, with several more stops planned before home and more adventures to come!