{"id":26200,"date":"2024-08-07T18:57:32","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T00:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/worlds-longest-track-of-dinosaur-footprints-near-ouray-is-now-open-to-public\/"},"modified":"2024-08-08T00:57:32","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T00:57:32","slug":"worlds-longest-track-of-dinosaur-footprints-near-ouray-is-now-open-to-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/worlds-longest-track-of-dinosaur-footprints-near-ouray-is-now-open-to-public\/","title":{"rendered":"World\u2019s longest track of dinosaur footprints near Ouray is now open to public"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Rick
Rick Trujillo at the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trackway, which sits above Ouray at about 9,000 feet next to a couple of old mine claims. Trujillo, a lifelong Ouray resident, is credited with discovering the trackway in 1958 when he was in high school. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

One prehistoric day, researchers say a dinosaur longer than a school bus stomped through a squishy river bed. Somehow, its footprints remained, frozen in time as the Rocky Mountains rose beneath them and the dinosaurs went extinct.<\/p>\n

Now, more than 150 million years later, the public can officially follow the dinosaur\u2019s path, the longest continuous dinosaur trackway in the world, high above the small mountain town of Ouray.<\/p>\n

While the footprints only became public knowledge in recent years, they were actually discovered more than six decades ago, not by paleontologists \u2014 but by a group of local boys looking for adventure.<\/p>\n

Rick Trujillo, now 76, was only 10 years old when he and his friends were scooted outside by their parents, told to go play and not to return for hours. After canvassing the town, the boys explored the spider web of rough trails surrounding Ouray.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how the boys stumbled across what looked like a series of potholes that seemed too evenly spaced to be the result of random erosion.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we said, \u2018Those have to be dinosaur tracks!\u2019 And turns out we were right long, long ago,\u201d said Trujillo, laughing.<\/p>\n

\"Paleontologists
Paleontologists say the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trackway on the Silvershield Trail above Ouray, pictured here June 4, was left by sauropods, millions and millions of years ago. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Rick
Rick Trujillo makes his way up to the the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trackway on the Silvershield Trail above Ouray. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span>Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
A mountain of paleontological riches<\/div>\n

On a bluebird Colorado morning, Trujillo acted as a trail guide for me and someone who knows exactly how precious this dino find is, Julia McHugh, the director of Paleontology for the Museums of Western Colorado.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d just driven two hours and still looked jazzed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m here today to see some amazing dinosaur tracks!\u201d she said, explaining that the Colorado site is one of the only such trackways in the world with a 270-degree turn \u2014 a big deal in the paleontology community.<\/p>\n

The tracks are a marvel that makes dino fans work hard to experience for themselves.<\/p>\n

The Silvershield Trail starts in a quiet neighborhood near downtown Ouray. The trek is only 2 miles up, but a lot of the trail is straight up. The path is a steep luge, littered with tiny, hiker-sliding rocks. It\u2019s also gorgeous, with spruce, pine and juniper providing sporadic shade and vibrant wildflowers popping through tufts of grass.<\/p>\n

As bird song swallowed up the highway noise, the scenery became more lush and alpine during the ascent. McHugh and I took several breaks, while Trujillo waited around, humoring us and helping me \u2014 four months pregnant \u2014 up the steepest grades. A former winner of the Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run, he wasn\u2019t even winded and told us he\u2019s been on this trail hundreds of times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I know it as well as the streets of Ouray because I\u2019ve been hiking it most of my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Lifelong
Lifelong Ouray resident Rick Trujillo, left, is credited with discovering Ouray\u2019s West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trackway in 1958, while he was in high school. He talks about the discovery with paleontologist Julia McHugh with the Dinosaur Journey Museum in Fruita, on June 4. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ouray\u2019s
Ouray\u2019s West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trackway. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

After discovering the tracks with his friends that day in 1958, Trujillo visited the tracks often. About a decade ago, he decided to start digging them out, to see how many were hiding under the blanket of pine needles and moss. Trujillo wasn\u2019t sure who owned the land and never alerted government officials to the tracks, worried that attention and red tape might keep him from being able to visit the site again.<\/p>\n

Trujillo only told one other person about the trackway\u2019s existence, a professor from Fort Lewis College, about two hours away in Durango.<\/p>\n

Slowly, however, word got out.<\/p>\n

In 2020, former Ouray resident Anita McDonald got a shocking letter: Dinosaur tracks had been found on her family\u2019s land, and a researcher wanted to know if he could study them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea that they were there! No one else in the family had any idea either,\u201d she said in a phone call from her home in Ohio.<\/p>\n

\"The
The San Juan mountain town of Ouray, June 3. The West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trackway sits in an open area atop the cliffs at left. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

McDonald and her family spent much of their summers on these few tucked-away parcels of land. For her father, Jack Charles, this was his special place, which he always hoped to mine \u2014 and strike it big.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s riches on the mountain,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cIt just wasn\u2019t in precious metals, it just turned out to be in paleontology.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDonald thinks her dad would approve of the family selling the land to the U.S. Forest Service in April 2024 and hope the public enjoys the new West Gold Hill Dinosaur Track \u2014 and doesn\u2019t \u201cscrew it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prehistoric craters, preserved<\/div>\n

Nature has fossilized the track in a sturdy mix of sandstone and quartz and the prints now are federally protected. The trail\u2019s gnarliness may also help keep them safe. Even after the pathway to the site levels off a bit, it\u2019s precariously narrow and knee-shakingly high. Trujillo, who\u2019s used to scrambling up quickly, had the longest hike to the tracks of his life \u2014 just shy of three hours \u2014 while McHugh and I slowly made our way up to the spot, more than 9,000 feet in elevation.<\/p>\n

As a flat expanse of reddish rock came into view, McHugh let out a joyful shout.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we are!\u201d Trujillo proclaimed.<\/p>\n

The track site contains 134 consecutive prints, amorphous bowls in the rock making what looks like a cursive \u201cL.\u201d As we stood there, a few other hikers peered into the prehistoric craters that, for decades, only Trujillo and his childhood friends knew about.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m astounded how people seem to be interested and they make the effort to come up to see them,\u201d he said, chuckling.<\/p>\n

But the tracks\u2019 popularity doesn\u2019t surprise McHugh, the paleontologist. Standing there, finally seeing these tracks is \u201cwonderful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Paleontologist
Paleontologist Julia McHugh with the Dinosaur Journey Museum in Fruita, at Ouray\u2019s West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trackway. She\u2019d seen the trackway in aerial photos and on Google Earth, but this was her first time seeing the trackway in person. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Julia
Julia McHugh talks about the importance of Ouray\u2019s West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trackway on June 4, 2024. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

For as long as humans have known about dinosaurs, they\u2019ve captured our imagination, occupying a space between history and legend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey push the bounds of what\u2019s physically possible for an animal to be,\u201d she said, \u201chow big it can be, how ferocious, how scary it can look.\u201d<\/p>\n

McHugh doesn\u2019t know what kind of dinosaur made the tracks, only that it was a sauropod, plant-eating with an elongated neck and a body at least 50 feet long. She thinks that mystery is part of the draw to this lonely, steep mountainside: The public gets to imagine the giant beast that once lumbered through this very spot.<\/p>\n

The proof of its long-ago life is now only a hike away \u2014 albeit a tough one.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Rick
Rick Trujillo on a trail near the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trackway, above Ouray on June 4. Hayden Mountain, in the background, sits above U.S. Highway 550 to Red Mountain Pass at left, and the valley that leads to Imogene Pass and Telluride, at right. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

on a tour with the grown-up boy who discovered them<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2925,28,198,1489,2029],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-geology","tag-headlines","tag-history","tag-ouray","tag-ouray-county"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26200"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}