Dino Tracks & Pictographs

My brothers have a love for the outdoors and what it takes to foster wanderlust in remote places: dirt bikes, four wheelers and four wheel drives. On a recent weekend, we went on an adventure in my brother Damon's old Suburban. We headed toward Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Arizona and hung a right to Kanab for a gas stop. Then on to the Johnson Canyon turnout where we swerved off the pavement and onto a dusty dirt road.

The Suburban labored through deep sandy stretches until we turned off on a barely noticeable dirt road. It was actually more of a track, really. We bumped over and around rocks of all sizes as we headed up a canyon. Trees scraped the sides of the vehicle as we crept up the mountain. With one last steep push that felt straight up, we popped onto the top of a mesa. The sun was starting to set and a valley was spread out below us on three sides with a distant ribbon of highway in the distance. Beautiful and worth the trip.

I spotted my brother Charlie hiking below. My sister Elaine and I found a path and followed it down through rocks, brush, and loose scree. That’s when we stumbled across three perfectly preserved dinosaur tracks, as clear as if the creature had stepped there yesterday. One, two, three steps in what must once have been muddy clay, now solidified into stone.

And if that wasn’t cool enough, on the cliff face below the tracks there were incredible pictographs, the best I've ever seen. There was a pictograph of a dinosaur track and it appears people are lined up facing the track, possibly on their knees honoring it or maybe frozen in terror because they're about to be swooped up by a giant bird? I vaguely recall Native American legends of Thunderbirds, but don’t know if Navajo and Paiute tribes that lived in that area had that lore. What an unexpected gift! I had no idea dinosaur tracks and pictographs were in store. You never know what you're going to get with the Roundy boys.