Clayton Lake State Park

State Park In The Far Northeast Corner Of New Mexico Holding More Than 500 Dinosaur Tracks Exposed In The Lake Spillway, And Certified As An International Dark Sky Park With Its Own Public Observatory · Clayton, New Mexico

Clayton Lake is a small reservoir on Seneca Creek in the far northeast corner of New Mexico, an hour from the Texas line and two from Colorado, and it would be an unremarkable fishing park except for two things. When the spillway was cut, it exposed a bedding plane of Cretaceous mudstone carrying more than five hundred dinosaur tracks - ornithopods and theropods that walked across a shoreline about a hundred million years ago, with skin impressions in some and a tail drag in at least one. A boardwalk runs over them. The second thing is the sky: the park is an hour from any town of size, sits on the high plains at 5,000 feet with almost no light in any direction, and holds an International Dark Sky Park certification and a public observatory where a volunteer astronomer runs star parties on announced evenings. The tracks read only in low-angle light, so come early or late rather than at noon, when five hundred dinosaur footprints flatten into blank rock and most visitors walk over them without seeing a thing.

141 Clayton Lake Road, Clayton, Clayton, New Mexico, 88415, United States

Open all year, day and night, with a day-use fee collected at a self-service station. The dinosaur trackway is reached by a boardwalk from the spillway and is walkable in daylight hours whenever the park is open. The campground runs year round with reduced services in winter. The observatory holds public star parties on announced evenings, mostly around the new moon in the warmer months, with a volunteer astronomer.

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