Dinosaur Footprints — Attraction in Holyoke

Free and easy-to-access right off the highway. I went at night when it's technically "closed", but it's just a short path to get to the prints. In any case, I'd recommend going during daylight hours.

I went down to the water first, and there are some prints there, but you'll find the real trove if you continue on the path past the steps down toward the water (as indicated on the sign). The sign says not to cross the railroad tracks but there is a well-worn path over the tracks down to the water.

These footprints were made by dinosaurs that lived approximately 200 million years ago. That means that the dinosaurs that died in the Chicxulub meteor impact 65 million years ago were 3x closer in time to us than they were to the dinos that made these prints. These are very old prints!

It is amazing to see them and touch them. There are prints from many different species, some big, some small. The bigger ones are easier to see. Interestingly, almost all the prints are pointing the same direction, which some have cited as evidence of interspecies herd behavior (though it's not clear if the prints were made at the same time -- they could have been made hours or even...

I give this 5 stars because they are legit fossilized dinosaur footprints.

That being said, this destination is directly off the side of a busy Route 5. There is parking for about 10 cars max. If you came with kids, don’t expect to make it very far since I didn’t find very many trails that I could walk down with my 1 year old, if there even are any. To go anywhere he needed to come out of the stroller.

If you came just for seeing the dinosaur footprints and couldn’t care less for hiking, the path from your parked car is about a one minute walk that you could maybe just stretch out to two minutes. At the end of the path, directly next to the highway, is about a tennis court sized area of what looked to once be mud that fossilized. In it, are dozens of dinosaur footprints.

Pretty cool overall but don’t plan a day...

Very interesting site. Someone made chalk outline and circles around the tracks so you can see them better but they stand out really well anyway. Very obvious what they are. Amazing they have not been destroyed by vandalism yet or by people walking on them. They are just out fully exposed to walk around and on. Walking around could be a bit tricky so I would bring a walking stick. Says private property down by the river but there were other people down there so we went also. Might be more tracks there to spot. Worth the stop and short walk. Parking is just a very small pullout from the highway for maybe eight cars so it will fill up fast. I don’t think people will stay long so you could come back in a few minutes...