Prehistoric Trackways National Monument

Today we headed over to the Prehistoric Trackways National Monument. 

"The trackways contain footprints of numerous amphibians, reptiles, and insects (including previously unknown species), plants, and petrified wood dating back 280 million years, which collectively provide new opportunities to understand animal behaviors and environments from a time predating dinosaurs. The site contains one of the most scientifically-significant Early Permian track sites in the world."

- From the Bureau of Land Management site.

We parked the car and headed over to the entrance of the trail to the trackways where there were several boards talking about what a trackway is and the fossils that have been found here. 

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After we read all about the site and what we would see, we headed to the trailhead. We weren't able to tell how far we had to walk or climb or what exactly we would see even after reading all this information.

It was quite a hill to get to the top of the ridge and since we  haven't done much hiking in the last couple of years, we were feeling it.

We took this picture as we got partially up the trail and could still see our car.  

This is looking  at the scenery from where we were.

This rock sort of looked like what we are looking for but we aren't close to that site yet.

 

We walked to the end of the ridge that we were on with no signs of any trackways. We were at the point we would go down from the ridge we were on and go up another one. 

Just as we were debating whether to go on or not, we ran into  a  much younger woman who was heading back. We asked how far we were from the site and she said it was quite aways yet and that the trail got more difficult as you went on. She said that while there were some rocks with some specimens in them ahead, that the large rocks with specimens had been removed to various museums. And there were only a couple small rocks with specimans on them. So, with that knowledge, we decided to head back the car. It was a trek in itself.

When we finally got back to the car, we saw another entrance and those guys had the right idea as they were doing some ATVing in the area.