While most famous for it fossils, there is a more to see at Dinosaur National Monument than the remains left behind by ancient reptiles. Ancient humans also left their mark on the area in the form of petroglyphs and pictographs. You can still see these ancient drawings when you visit the petroglyphs at Dinosaur National Monument today.
Where to See Petroglyphs at Dinosaur National Monument
There are a number of sites where petroglyphs and pictographs can be seen. There are three that are easily visited in the main area on the Utah side of the monument, we visited two of these while we were there. There are three other sites that are more difficult to reach that require entering the park on different roads.
If rock art is really your thing and you want to see all the sites you should come in a high clearance vehicle and be prepared for a bit of driving. Ask a park ranger for a petroglyph pamphlet at the visitor center so you can see which roads to use to enter the different parts of the monument.
If you just want to see the petroglyphs that can be found along the main road (Cub Creek) you still might want to grab a pamphlet because they can be easy to miss. What you want to watch out for are the little auto-touring signs that have numbers on them. These numbers correspond to stops in the guide book you can buy at the visitor center for the whole park, but three of them (#1, #13, #14) are also the locations of rock art.
The numbers have pull offs nearby, and then it is just a short walk to most of the petroglyphs. We missed number one on our way out, stopped at number thirteen, and didn’t do number fourteen because it is farther away and Lucy was tired by that point. We stopped back at number one on our way out of the park. All the petroglyphs are on cliff faces on the North side of the road.
What You Will See at the Petroglyphs at Dinosaur National Monument
I’ve looked at a number of different rock art sites over the years, Newspaper Rock is probably the highest density I have ever seen. But the sites here are also quite prolific. After you take a short walk up to the location you can see basically all the art from one spot.
One of the interesting aspects of the petroglyphs at Dinosaur National Monument is that some of them are made up of dots, like a primeval form of pixel art.
Sum Up
It is worth stopping to view the petroglyphs at Dinosaur National Monument. Some of them are not very far off the road and show an interesting part of human history. Keep a sharp lookout for the pullouts on the side of the street. And remember that stop 1 comes very quickly after leaving the visitor center on Cub Creek Road.
There are no facilities except information signs at the sites, but bathrooms and picnic areas are at both the visitor center and the cabin area.
