My dad stopped to inquire of a ranger about some dinosaur tracks, and she told him instead of a canyon with a trail that goes past numerous dinosaur bones that are still in the sandstone. So we went there:

At first I had trouble locating the bones, even with helpful informational signs; the bones looked quite different than I expected they would.

Below is a sauropod bone (the sign didn’t say which one):

Camarasaurus leg bones:

Sauropod vertebrae:

Sauropod foot bones:

According to the signs, the purple color is due to mineralization.

This makes me think I’ve seen dinosaur bones in rock many times before and just didn’t realize what they were.

There are quite a few bones sprinkled both in the sandstone along the trail and in boulders littering the hill on the other side.

The dinosaur bones weren’t the only eye-catching scenery along the trail.

Looking back along the trail

Sauropod tail bones:

Sauropod ribs:

I believe this is an allosaurus femur:

And these may be stegosaurus bones (I’m basing this guess on the informational sign, which pointed out various scattered bones attributable to different types of dinosaurs):

Another glimpse up the canyon. The twin spires are called Determination Towers.

Apparently the bones were deposited here by an ancient river. The gravel riverbed is also preserved in the sandstone:

And now we come to the portion of our walk that features fossilized wood

including this impression of age rings from the mold of a stump:

And, finally, random photo of the day: The Scooby Doo Mystery Machine, spotted outside a gas station in Crescent Junction, Utah (or maybe the gas station IS Crescent Junction, Utah; there was some question about this point):