Dinosaur Footprints in Butler Wash

Bears Ears National Monument

Click for map.

One last thing I want to see today are some much older artifacts. Dinosaur footprints! These are right by the side of the road and were reported in 1992, decades after the road was built. There is no space for parking near them, so a parking area has been made a short way away and a short trail heads down to them. A sign and register have been installed at the start. The sign says to follow more signs to find the tracks, but when I get to the slab of rock at the end of the trail, there are no more signs.

Looking down on the wash beside the tracks.

I do wish there were signs still. It takes me a while to finally decide where one set is. Unfortunately, that means I've missed a set.

That looks like three footprints crossing the rock from the bottom left to the upper right.

About the same size as my foot, but does that make it bigger or smaller than me?

They need a barrier to keep cars off the footprints. It asks, in an out of the way place on the sign, that people please not park on them, but the tire marks show folks might have gotten here without even noting the sign at all. In fact, when I first drove past here, I briefly wondered which way the road went followed by a realization that going the wrong way would have been rather unhealthy. Since it is so close to sunset, I walk a little further to get up higher and watch it.

The sunset is again just a little bit of color in the light and a general darkening. There is nothing in the sky to really set it off.

When the sun is down, I head back to the slab of rock and ponder it some more in the different light. I had thought maybe I'd missed them for being small, but maybe this big depression is one? I really can't sort it out.

Maybe? Maybe not.

Then back up to the sign. The back has more information that I had missed before including a reference to a paper and a pair of drawings of footprints. Both detail a footprint about 18 inches long. That's quite a bit longer than my foot. There is still no map drawing of footprint locations on this slab.

A few flowers where there aren't many.

©2019 Valerie Norton
Written 9 Nov 2019