On a recent Sunday, my wife, Celia, and I decided to undertake an excursion. The trip would have to be short because we had a 5 p. m. dinner scheduled with some friends. I reviewed my mental list of “one of these days” spots – places I’d said to myself I should go, but never got around to it – and came up with the BLM’s dinosaur track display near Shell. So, we headed out of Worland about 10 a. m.

It only took about an hour to come to a sign declaring “DINOSAUR TRACKS,” found about 10 miles east of Greybull on the south side of U. S. Highway 14. We turned right and encountered another sign saying that the site was five miles ahead; you follow a gravel road south through the back country. We found the dinosaur tracks site easily, being about an eighth of a mile to the right off the main road. The site is clearly designated, is new, and is compact.

A short pathway from the parking area leads to a gulley in which the floor of this dry stream has been cleaned down to stone. I don’t know what kind of rock this floor is, but presumably a kind of sandstone since explanatory signs said it was an ancient beach (167 million years old), and it did look like a place subject to waters coming and going. If it is sandstone, it is an unusually hard sandstone.

Those explanatory signs also point out the location of the tracks; as well, there are a couple of viewing tubes which aid to find the tracks. To get down to the rock in the gulley you have to follow the display area maybe thirty yards and then a pathway leads downward. We did descend to the rock and for 15 or 20 minutes we looked and looked for tracks. After a while I began to despair that we’d ever find them. But then I came across a depressed area and, maybe because the angle was better, suddenly recognized a big turkey-like track, maybe four or five inches long. It was not a distinct depression, with sharp lines in the stone, but a more general deepening of the rock. Once you figure out what you’re looking for, the tracks are easier to spot, however, and we noticed a line of three or four other tracks.

Coming out of the gulley we re-traced our steps along the display area and then saw tracks embedded in the concrete walkway. Of course, these weren’t made by dinosaurs, but by BLM employees, and they were fair examples of what we’d finally detected. I wish we’d seen these concrete tracks earlier, because they clearly demonstrated the size and general shape of the tracks in the gulley and would have made our quest much easier. But we did find the dinosaur tracks and they were inspiring: You could visualize dinosaurs (probably small upright predators) working their way along the ancient seashore.

This Sunday was a beautiful day, unusually cool for August, under a big deep blue sky with a few cotton ball clouds. The drive back to the highway was spectacular. The badlands close to the site are colorful, low hills and above them rise the dramatic formations of the Big Horn Mountains behind Shell. The Big Horn Basin is a very large area and most of it is not wonderfully scenic, so we sometimes forget that there are parts of the Basin, many parts really, which are amazingly scenic. When you arrive back at Highway 14 the Shell Creek Valley spreads before you and above it are Big Horn Mountain rock formations looking like they’ve been cast by an angry, but artistic, iron monger. Most of you have been to Shell and know what I’m referring to.

All in all, we counted our small Sunday excursion a great success, and my wife and I would recommend it to all of you.

John Davis was raised in Worland, graduating from W. H. S. in 1961. John began practicing law here in 1973 and is mostly retired. He is the author of several books.