Dinosaur Ridge

Yes this place was quite difficult to find but it’s because the map leads you to the trail you have to go around the mountain to get to the bus tour location but when you find it it’s not a bad way to spend your time. You can walk this trail for free or pay the $ 6.00 for the bus tour which takes you to all the stops and is much more informative than if you did it on your own. On the tour you’ll get to see parts of dinosaur bones and tracks and the impressions of waves in the rocks since that whole part was once covered in water really educational and fun the tour isn’t very long.

This place is difficult to find, however, it’s well worth the effort. At the main building you can take the $ 6 van-​guided tour or walk the entire roadway. We did both. Wear a hat!

Came here expecting a bad tourist trap, but it ended up being interesting and not crowded at all, despite it being Labor Day weekend.
We needed something to kill the time before we were meeting up with friends for lunch, so we stopped by here. The trail is actually the paved road that the tour buses drive on, and if you hike, it’s free and pretty easy, with information along the way about the different fossils and rocks. Not having too much time though, we decided to do the bus tour. It was $ 6 a person [plus whatever you put in the tip jar] and about 45 – 60 minutes long, depending on how long people want to spend at the three different stop locations.
The first stop was easily my favorite — the huge wall of dinosaur tracks. Our guide was very knowledgeable of the different dinosaurs who made the tracks and answered all of our questions. The second stop was to look at different dinosaur bone fossils embedded in the rocks. Apparently, it would take years to chisel them out, and since there are no complete skeletons, they decided to just leave the bits and pieces of fossil in there. The last stop was to look at molds of different footprints. While there, take the time to look out at the surroundings. The view is breathtaking.
I absolutely want to come back and hike it. While we got a lot of information from the tour guide at the three stops, we did pass by other interesting locations, and it’d be good exercise in some fresh air.

We had a blast at Dinosaur Ridge!!! Rock Doc was our tour guide and she did a wonderful job. If you go I would say that you should take the guided tour because you get a lot of information you wouldn’t get if you did it by yourself. Another plus was that one of the ladies in the smaller gift shop gave us a dollar off coupon. I would also say use the bathrooms at the smaller area they are nice and clean… in the larger area they are more like potter potties… all in all we loved it and would definitely go back again.

Dinosaur tracks? Real ones, BIG ONES! Yes please!
This little ridge, that you can hike with your kids in about an hour, is rich with history, loaded with DINOSAUR bones and footprints, is also very scenic!
Back in the late 1800’s, this site was famous for being the #1 original dinosaur discovery that brought all the famous paleontologists from the East Coast out to begin the great dinosaur hunt– This is the site where Brontosaurus (he’s back!), Stegosaurus (among others) was discovered!
Imposed on an exposed and tilted rock face (viewable from c-​470), footprints of dinosaur herds moving along a beach are preserved! Not only that, but there is a mamma/​baby set, a predator set, and some carrion footprints– allowing quite the drama to be unravelled– Yes, it’s 80 million years old, but we can clearly see a story here!
Around the corner form the dino prints, there are bones and massive impressions of Gigantic footprints (called brontosaurus bulges) that can bee seen.
This is a cool, quick outdoor trip from Denver, you can cover it in 1 hour, then head up to Red Rocks, then down to the Morrison Inn for margs (or to Blue cow for brunch!) — Don’t miss it!

So cool! Right next to red rocks, this «trail» was such a great trip. Finding it was a little difficult but once you do there are footprints and fossils and guided signs along the way. Parking and walking up is free and it’s well paved.
I’m in my 20s and this was awesome. Kids who love anything vaguely dinosaur should LOVE this!

This past weekend was absolutely gorgeous here in Denver, so James F and I wanted to take advantage of the lovely weather by getting some fresh air and a hike!
Our initial hike, Mount Galbraith outside of Golden, was thwarted due to snow and ice along the trail. Without the proper boots and crampons, it was a bit too dangerous to attempt. So we decided to go check out Dinosaur Ridge, hoping for a little less snow.
As we rolled into the visitor’s center parking lot, we were greeted by a few life size dinosaurs! I love stuff like this, so it made me grin ear to ear. We were a bit antsy to get out on the trial, so we skipped the visitor’s center.
The first part of the trail is along a closed-​to-​thru-​traffic road, so the slow incline is rather easy. Along the way, you can view prehistoric history in the stones: ripples that formed along the ancient ocean floor, small fossils of shells and clams, and even many dinosaur tracks. It’s pretty cool and quite educational.
We continued along the Dakota Ridge Trail, which snakes its way along the top of the ridge. The trail is fairly easy, but gets your blood pumping! The views from the top are beautiful: the plains to the east and Red Rocks to the west. Because we tackled this trail during winter, the path was very muddy in some areas. By the time we got to the end, our boots had an entire extra layer of mud and straw caked on. It was pretty great, actually.
If you’re looking for a fun and easy outing close to home, definitely check out Dinosaur Ridge. Educational with a great hike!

They say birds evolved from Dinosaurs 66 millions years ago when they went extinct. It costs $ 5 to take the guided tour bus up the hill to check out some fossils. It gets windy so pack a jacket. You can also park your car and walk up for free. They have bunch of events for kids posted on their calendar.
Leave your human footprints here so in another 66 millions years, this place will be renamed Homosapien Ridge.

This is a nice place to walk around if it’s nice out and you happen to be in the area looking for something to do over an hour or so. I wouldn’t go out of my way to come here. It’s a paved road with a lot of theories along the way finally culminating with some bones in the rocks. It is pretty underwhelming, to be honest, but it’s worth the walk if you have the time.

DINOSAURS PEOPLE. THERE ARE DINOSAURS HERE. Or at least dead ones.
I was thrilled to come to Dinosaur Ridge, the place where the Stegosaurus was first discovered. I’ll preface my review by saying it isn’t a large museum or impressive Smithsonian-​style experience. Quite the opposite in fact — the whole place consists of a very small hut containing a very small children’s room ($ 2 a person) and a gift shop that sells stuffed dinos, rocks, and VHS tapes. There are also models outside of dinosaurs painted in red, white, and blue and other bright colors. Very little kid friendly.
But that’s not the main attraction here. For $ 5 a person, you can take an old rickety minibus up the mountain to see dinosaur tracks and bones still in the rock. This was especially cool — our tour guide was a University student well-​versed in the bones/​tracks on display, and we were even able to touch them. Very cool.
If you have children or an interest in Dinosaurs, it’s worth the drive and the measly $ 2 – 7 a person to see all of this stuff up close.

Love this park! It is always fun to go here and take my son on the walk up to see the tracks. He also loves looking for «fossils» in the sand box!

The coolest thing about this place is probably the fake dinosaurs at the entrance. The bathroom is a port-​a-​potty. There is no clean drinking water there so bring your own or buy it from their gift shop for $ 1.08. Their little museum thing is dark and covered in flies and costs $ 2. It also smells like horse poo.
The dinosaur trail is actually just a road you walk on.

Okay, maybe it was the extra hype on the website, but I was expecting a lot more. And, I admit, I’m slightly bitter about our fall. But, wait – I’m getting ahead of my story here. Let’s back up a minute.
My husband and I decided to take our three small kiddos to Dinosaur Ridge. Our oldest son (just 4 years old) is beginning to take an avid interest in dinosaurs and we love taking all our children on hikes with us, so the idea of a hiking trail along which intriguing dinosaur evidences could be viewed was exceedingly intriguing. Generally, on our family hikes, my husband puts our 2 year old in a shoulder pack, I carry the baby (5 months now) and our 4 year old walks very well, getting a lift every once in a while in my husband’s arms if he needs it.
So this isn’t our first rodeo. We like hikes. Our kids like hikes.
I think I feel the need to explain myself and family in advance because I have to admit that if you could have seen us fall, it probably would have been on the level of a 3 stooges pratfall. Seriously.
So we go to the visitor’s center (an overpriced small building with dino info), but from what I could see, the only bone was the leg bone at the entrance. We opted not to pay to view what could be better enjoyed on the internet at home. The kids played a little in the sand pit, and the lady at the entrance explained where we needed to go to begin the hike up Dino Ridge. It was a fair jump away from the center where we’d parked, which she failed to elaborate on in her explanation. And it was already slightly uphill, so our 4 year old was ready for a short rest by the time we got to the gate. There is no real «trail». It is a road, and not in the greatest of shape, gated at the bottom.
«Why do they have a gate here, Daddy? Why can’t we just drive our car on this road?» Got to admit, kids sometimes have the best of questions. Why, indeed? Why not have a radio station that plays a tour recording to which you can tune in for your drive up this road that is clearly not a hiking trail?
Well, it became more evident as we walked. The walkers/​hikers were NOT the priority here: the road was saved for the tour buses that opened the gate and drove up, making the people walk off to one side along an asphalt edge that has NOT been laid down with walkers in mind. At some points, the asphalt is about a foot above the dirt on the edge of the road, and if you’re not careful it can be treacherous.
So, along came one of these little trams (there were three in operation on the day we were there), and to make way for it, we moved off the side of the road. The asphalt is buckled and curled, and my husband rolled his ankle. I watched him go down in horror, with my two year old on his back and my four year old held in his arms. I rushed to help and hit the same roll of unsafe asphalt and my ankle rolled under me, too. Down I went with my 5 month old attached to my front. It would have been hilarious had we not had small children connected to us.
The little tram slowed down (to better their view of this comic relief, perhaps?) and KEPT RIGHT ON GOING. They did not stop to see if we had broken a two year old’s ribs or fractured one of our ankles. With Epic Unconcern of our plight, or that of our children, the driver trucked steadily along. Some of the walkers who had seen our fall came to see if all was well after the tram drove on past. We were shaken, of course, but for the most part, we had survived with little casualties. Our two year old was in tears, our four year old was sobbing with gravel in his hand and up his nose, traumatized by the whole experience. Thank God he and my husband were both wearing jeans. I was nursing my ankle but it seemed okay, so we walked on, laughing at ourselves, and yet miffed at the driver of the tram. Couldn’t he have at least ASKED if we were okay? We made it up to the Dinosaur Tracks before I realized that my ankle was in much worse condition then I previously thought. We stopped for a rest and it became decidedly worse. Stiff, and painful to walk on. Two days later, I am still hobbling.
I’ll be honest. Had we not fallen, I may have given the experience a 3 star review. The dinosaur statues near the parking lot are fun to take photos with. The sand pits for the kids to dig around in are a good idea. But, I really had a very different expectation based on the website, which gave me visions that promised a much more exciting experience. I wasn’t intimidated by the steepness of the trek: it is, as many have said, an easy trail to walk, were it not for the fact that this whole place definitely seems to give preference for the vehicles which hold the paying customers, and is apparently lacking any concern about the rough edge of the road where the walkers must move to when one of the vehicles comes along. Eh, give me a dirt hiking trail any time.
All in all, not a good experience.

This is a really fun place to come with kids that are walking age. They have a chance to take a nice long walk and go see some dinosaur tracks as well as some dinosaur bones if they’re up for it!
Of course there’s always the tour bus as well so it makes it easy to be able to see all the sites and have a fun time without getting too tired.
The gift shop is nice and it has lots of distracting and entertaining things for the kids to look at and play with.
It seems like the staff is a hodgepodge of some folks who love being there and some folks who can’t imagine standing another minute of it. But the ones who love being there make it totally worth it!
I would definitely recommend coming with the expectation of taking a nice long walk with your family. It’s a great way to spend a couple of hours together!

This place is really cool! My friends in Denver took me to explore the dinosaur fossils here and it was a lot of fun. We didn’t take any of the shuttle buses but instead walked up the trail which looks steep but is actually pretty easy. We had a baby with us in a stroller, too, although I didn’t have to do the pushing so maybe it would have been a little more difficult of a walk for the stroller pusher.
There are lots of great geological artifacts to explore and the signage is just informative enough without going into so much detail that you zone out. I was able to see ancient preserved footprints and ripples from the old sea bed that used to be there. There were also dinosaur fossils in situ in the side of the hill that you can touch. Amazing site!
And if you like to geocache, there are many traditional and earth caches to choose from. However, beware of the rattlesnakes. We came across a rattler while replacing a geocache at the foot of a tree and it rattled several times before we knew what was making the noise and we skeedaddled when we saw the snake coiled up at the base of the tree.

We meant to go to the Green Mountain, but kept missing the parking lots, so we ended up in this place. What a great mistake we made! I got educated about dinosaurs, geology, and had a fantastic walk. The view at the top is great. The highway is a little noisy but that’s the only down side of this trial. It’s great for biking and hiking.

We did a small self-​guided hike up the trail to see the dinosaur tracks. We took our small dog for some exercise too. This was a nice experience with information boards along the way explaining some of the geological points of interest. As you can see when you drive up the trail is all uphill, but I didn’t find it overly strenuous. It was really neat to see dinosaur footprints and get so close to them. We enjoyed it and will be back.

I’m a Denver native and I remember the time when the old Hogback was an open road for both motorists and cyclists alike. It was a convenient short cut to drive from Alameda and Rooney Road to get to Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison or Golden in minutes (this was before C-​470 had even been built). And to be honest I kind of miss that. When I was in high school I drove it almost every single day and I used to ride my bike up it after school nearly every day and I never even noticed there were any dinosaur footprints. That’s because, until they decided to close off the Hogback to public transportation and turn it into a geological park/​preserve, there were no signposts or fences or other enclosures saying «Here look at the prehistoric dinosaur footprints!»
Yeah, they are neat to see but, and let’s be honest, it’s pretty much just one rock wall of footprints and that’s pretty much it. Other than that, it’s just a geological point-​of-​interest to see how the geological fault line had pushed up what was once a flat sandy beach along the ocean floor hundreds of millions of years ago as well as a scenic hiking trail with a spectacular view of Denver from the foothills. You can take a bus from the Visitor Center (which, btw, also never used to be there) up to the top and down the other side for $ 4 because, unless you are elderly, physically out of shape, or handicapped, I wouldn’t recommend wasting your money on. You can park your car at the bottom along Alameda and Rooney Road or the Visitor Center parking lot and just get out of your car and start walking up and getting some exercise. The asphalt has been bisected for hikers to keep to the right and cyclists on the left with the occasional tour bus driving through. There are biking trails across the rocky terrain of the foothills which are both scenic and challenging. Oh yeah there are signs for rattlesnakes all around too (which, btw, also never used to be there when I was growing up) because somebody probably saw a rattlesnake once and now, due to liability and all that, they have to warn you that there could be rattlesnakes nearby. I used to walk the rocky dirt trails in sandals freely and never once encountered a rattlesnake but BE AWARE!
It’s a great place for hiking and biking, but don’t expect Dinosaur Ridge to be Jurassic Park. Five minutes of looking at fossilized dino footprints and you got it. Skip the Visitor’s Center unless you absolutely have to have a plush Stegosaurus that you could buy at pretty much any toy store for half as much just to keep feeding the tourist dinosaur.

There are many places to hike in CO but Dinosaur Ridge has some pluses. You can either pay a mere $ 4 for a guided bus tour that stops at 3 of the stops or hit the trail by foot and take in the scenery while getting some exercise.
They have a small exhibit which is a good place to get some background on Dinosaur Ridge. It is only 2.5 miles round trip so I decided to go by foot. There are about 15 stops pointing out the geology, history and other tidbits about the sites. The amount of fossils in this one area is amazing. Worm holes, ripples, foot prints and dinosaur bones are vast. You also get a great view of the mountains and part of Red Rocks.
Seeing traces of dinosaurs in nature is truly amazing.

Well I really do like this place a lot, but I kind of wish the tour was longer, but hey for being only $ 4 per person for them shuttle tour you really can’t beat that. Out tour guide was very informative and she was really thorough in answering questions everyone asked her. The footprints and bone sites were amazing and I’ve not seen anything like it even in a Dino museum I went to in WA. I would def. Recommend taking a tour on the shuttle and then maybe get off at the top and walk down. It is a steep hill, but the view is beautiful. I mean the exercise is perfect if you like and can stand the heat. I really am. Looking forward to going back soon.