Combine a trek along a northern Wyoming backcountry byway with a visit to a newly developed dinosaur track site.

Take part in a dig at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. Visit the fossil-filled hills near Glenrock.

Options aplenty abound in dinosaur-rich Wyoming.

The Bureau of Land Management has now installed interpretive signs and accessibility improvements at the track site near Shell, Wyoming on the western slopes of the Big Horn Mountains. Rare fossil footprints from the Middle Jurassic Period can be seen near the Red Gulch/Alkali National Back Country Byway.

Hobbyists may collect petrified wood, invertebrates, and plant fossils, but vertebrates are kept in the public trust through the Bureau of Land Management. (Fossils are for personal use and may not be used for resale.)

This is the largest track site in Wyoming. Experts say Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite is an excellent learning tool and is changing how scientists view the geology of this area. Contact the BLM at (307) 347-5154 or visit www.wy.blm.gov/rgdt/.

In Thermopolis you can visit the Wyoming Dinosaur Center with over 16,000 square feet and 200 interpretive displays, dioramas and life-size dinosaur mounts throughout the museum. The Center also offers three weekends of “Kids’ Digs for Dinosaurs” (Jun 29-30, Jul 13-14 and Aug 3-4) for ages 8-12 which include active field work at nearby dig sites, class activities and lab work. For more info call: (800) 455-3466 or on the web at: www.wyodino.org.

Further south and just north of I-80 is Fossil Butte National Monument. Like many areas of Wyoming, this area was once part of an ancient lake. This 50-million year old lake bed is one of the richest fossil localities in the world. Recorded in limestone are dynamic and complete paleoecosystems that spanned two million years. Preservation is so complete that it allows for detailed study of climate change and its effects on biological communities.

Visitors discover that this resource displays the interrelationships of plants, insects, fishes, reptiles and mammals, like few other known fossil sites. Now protected and managed by the National Park Service the site is open year-round. For more info call: (307) 877-4455 or on the web at: www.nps.gov/fobu/
 

Courtesy of the Wyoming Department of Tourism.

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