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Goodbye, Dinosaur!
We’ve completed our 2 month volunteering position at Dinosaur National Monument. Although we are looking forward to getting on the road again, we will miss the beautiful scenery, the people we worked with, and the many, many visitors we interacted with. We’re hoping to find another equally interesting volunteer position in the future. Here are some closing pictures:
A last sunset, picture taken in front of our motor home, showing Split Mountain and the Green River
Even our shadows (look closely!) are waving goodbye...
A last hike takes us over the high ground....
And finally back to the start at Split Mountain.
Goodbye Dinosaur, and all the great people we met here!
A most pleasant day
Today we hiked Sounds of Silence again. So much to see! New flowers are blooming, bringing a new color cast to the desert. Want to know why it is called Sound of Silence? Once you get around some of the rocks there is no sound except local animals. In fact, the silence is so great that it has been measured: at less then a quiet sound room for music recording! Some pictures:
The path through the red wash, uphill to the plateau
A view from the plateau
A splash of white, in the middle of the desert
Coming down from the plateau requires walking down slick rock, OK when it is dry but really slick if wet...
Somewhere in there is the "path" we took back down. A good test of nerves, and hiking shoe traction. Slick rock photo taken at the top
“Sounds of Silence” hike
There are several very nice hiking trails in Dinosaur National Park. One, called “Sounds of Silence”, is only 3 miles from our camp site. Yesterday we walked it, about 4 miles long and VERY varied terrain. In fact, this variety is what makes this country side so interesting. Take a look at the pictures below.
Start of the trail, rock formations ahead
A look at the trail ahead, Split Mountain on the horizon
Even the desert has its blooms
A variety of colors as well
Some of the trail was in clay hills
We believe this to be a cougar print; about 4" across
Don't slip, it's a long way down!
Some of the trail required scrambling
A very pleasant hike indeed. We’ll have to do it again!
At work at Dinosaur
This was a momentous week for us– both Romola and I went back to work! Well, work: we’re volunteers at Dinosaur National Monument in far eastern Utah. We work for a total of 32 hours per week (that’s 16 for Romola and 16 for me) in the visitor center. Our job is to hand out maps and answer questions. So far, it’s been fun meeting a huge variety of people.
We also have to learn a lot so that we can answer the many questions. That in itself is pretty great, it is extremely interesting to learn about this area and the historically important dinosaur find (more dinosaur bones have been found at this site than anywhere else in the world). Here we are, with out official shirts and smiles on:
Posing in front of the visitor center....
Skeleton of an allosaurus, one of the few items here older than we are
If you’re interested in finding out some more about the park check this link: http://www.nps.gov/dino/index.htm
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