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Start: Vernal, UT
End: Steamboat Spring, CO
Distance: 360 miles
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The highlights of this leg was Dinosaur National Monument. The Dinosaur Quarry Vistor's entrance, is #2 on the map. When the original visitor's center was built, it was built on top of the quarry site for the dinosaur fossels. The soil is shale which over the years has moved causing structural damage to building and closing it. The NPS is developing a plan to repair / rebuild the orignal visitor's center and provide better viewing sites of the fossels
and fossel exploration. For the time being, you have to hike about a mile one-way to view 3 visible fossels. The detailed map of the park
After exploring some, we headed for Dinosaur, CO (#3) to get a bite to eat. The second "half" of the park is the Echo Park Overlook entrance (#4). It is approximately 60 miles round trip from Dinosaur to get some interesting parts of this section of the park. The road was in good shape but boring. For our money and time, it was not worth it. If we rode off-road bikes and were camping, there looked like there was some very interesting roads that went from the rim into
the canyon.
We had a warm ride from Dinosaur to Steamboat Springs. We'd original planned to spend the night Craig, CO but when we changed to Vernal, we changed to Steamboat Springs. From what we saw driving through, good choice - Craig, Steamboat, Craig, Steamboat.... the winner is Steamboat. Unfortunately, the downtown hotels and motels where full when we called but we got a room in the Comfort Inn on the East end of town. The room was comfortable, the staff was helpful, and they had a hose and towels to wash the
bikes. We were in the mood for a good beer and food so we got a cab and went to the Mahogany Ridge Brewery and Grill. We sat at the bar as the indoor and outdoor dining was packed. We were not disappointment with the beer or food - a definite go back.
Dinosaur Quarry Vistors entrance
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2 of 3 fossels visible
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Echo Park Overlook Entrance
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