Round Trip Distance: 0.2 - 1.4 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 3102 - 3187 feet
Cellphone: 3-5 bars
Time: 30 mins.
Trailhead: Dino Hills
Fee: none
Attractions: dinosaur tracks
The Dino Cliffs Dinosaur Tracksite is located in the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area in St. George, Utah. The site boasts 17 tracks that have been identified as Grallator, Kayentapus, and Eubrontes tracks. Paleontologists suggest the tracks were made by bipedal meat-eating theropods during the Jurassic Period (199.6 to 145.5 million years ago).
To get to the trailhead from Interstate 15 take either Exit 13, if coming from the north, or Exit 10, if coming from the south. On the north side of the interstate follow Buena Vista Blvd. to Main St. and turn north. Currently the pavement ends at Brio Parkway. They were doing some roadwork nearby so this may change in the future.
Follow the dirt road for just over 3/4 of a mile. Moderate ground clearance, or a careful driver in most any vehicle, is required beyond this point. For those that choose to park at this turnoff the round trip distance will be about 1.4 miles to the dinosaur tracks and back. Our experience has been that driving apps do fine getting to this point but don't seem to know enough about any of the side roads to provide instructions that are useful.
From the turnoff the road climbs a moderately steep hill up to some water tanks. At the top of the hill keep following the road as it turns sharply to the right.
It is a couple hundred yards from the water tanks on the hill down to a parking area where the road levels off.
From the parking area follow the markers for the Dino Hills trail.
After passing through a fence that marks the boundary for the Red Cliffs NCA the trail continues down a sandy hill.
The trail levels off as it reaches the wash where the dinosaur tracks can be found in an area of slickrock.
The tracks look how you might expect them to for a spot where a dinosaur stepped in the mud over 100 million years ago.
It's still pretty easy to pick out the bird like theropod tracks. Notice that there is another smaller track to the lower left of this one and a partial track just above that.
A few of the tracks might form a trackway where multiple tracks are made by the same dinosaur. There is a grouping of 6 tracks in this photo and 3 of them are evenly spaced.
