Dinosaur Ridge
A National Natural Landmark On The Hogback West Of Denver. The Place Where Arthur Lakes Found The First Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus And Allosaurus Bones In 1877, Setting Off The Bone Wars, And Where Around Three Hundred Cretaceous Dinosaur Footprints Are Exposed In The Rock. · Morrison, Colorado
In 1877 a schoolteacher and amateur geologist named Arthur Lakes was walking the hogback west of Denver and found enormous bones weathering out of the rock. They turned out to be the first Stegosaurus, the first Apatosaurus and the first Allosaurus ever described, and the letters he wrote about them helped ignite the Bone Wars, the twenty-year feud between Othniel Marsh and Edward Cope that produced most of the dinosaurs anybody can name. The ridge is still working. On its western side the Jurassic Morrison Formation has bones visible in place in the rock face; on the eastern side, in younger Cretaceous sandstone, around three hundred footprints run across a tilted slab - iguanodont trackways, crocodile marks and ripples from a shoreline that was here when this was the edge of an inland sea. A paved road runs between the two and it is free to walk, which surprises people who assume a National Natural Landmark with three hundred dinosaur footprints must be a ticketed attraction.
16831 West Alameda Parkway, Morrison, Colorado, 80465, United States
The visitor centre keeps daytime hours year-round with reduced winter hours. THE RIDGE ROAD ITSELF - West Alameda Parkway over the hogback - IS FREE TO WALK OR CYCLE and is closed to through traffic on certain days, which is when walking it is best. Guided shuttle bus tours run on a schedule and are ticketed. The Trek Through Time trail and the Discovery Center have their own arrangements. Red Rocks is immediately north on the same hogback and event traffic there affects the roads.