The idea for this trip started with the urge to visit Dinosaur National Monument. It sits there way up in NW Colorado and crosses the border into Utah, and nobody I know has ever been there. The Colorado side is super cool, though we couldn't explore much in our van. The Utah side is where they have all the dinosaur bones. We ended up finding BLM land just outside the monument to crash for the night. We hope to return someday to raft through the park, which seems much cooler than exploring by foot.
There is not much in the town of Dinosaur. A liquor store, the last one before Utah, two gas stations, and a bar. The Highway Bar. Had some good beer from Steamboat Springs and a surprisingly good bacon cheeseburger.
We went to Vernal, UT, for night number three. It kicked off a period of huge failures of finding decent beer. I didn't even buy any from Vernal Brewing to bring home to give away. We stayed this night at the BLM land known as McCoy Flats. Great camping and lots of trails. $100 biked here and I took the dog hiking and later went for a run. Not worth making this area a trip in itself, but if you ever find yourself in Vernal you should check out these trails.
The next day we started to make our way to the Kings Peak trail head, which is so far north in Utah you have to go to Wyoming to get there. Drove the Flaming Gorge scenic route along the way.
1 comment:
I've been there, been like 8-10 years, and thought it was pretty cool. I liked the McCoy flats trails (and Red Fleet), not too techy but flowy and scenic. Like much of Fruita, I'd definitely prefer to ride than run -- basically one main guy (Troy) has been building the trails for mt biking for a few decades, or so the story goes. Did Katie enjoy the trails?
The nicest hike in DNM is in the Jones Creek canyon, but looks like it doesn't allow dogs, which you probably saw and probably found annoying.
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