Quarry Exhibit Hall — Attraction in Vernal

The last time I was here was in 1997, so the Quarry Exhibit Hall looked totally different to me. I was expecting the spiral stair case of years ago. But this new building (circa 2011) is refreshed with the same wall of bones you've always known.

There are plenty of water filling stations, bathrooms (outside the quarry, though on our visit at the end of June, the bathrooms were out of order), self-guided booklets of the bones you are looking at on the wall (you can borrow and return it, or donate $1 to take it home with you) and rangers stationed throughout to answer your questions.

Upstairs has more of the history of how this quarry was discovered, what dinosaurs bones have left and gone where, and what's left (what you see when you visit today). There are plenty of benches throughout that give you a good place to sit, look and just rest.

Downstairs is more about the bone discovery and the common dinosaurs there. Some exhibits on display of findings. The classic touch wall is still there for you and your little ones to touch a dinosaur without fear. Hand sanitation stations are constantly re-filled, which is necessary with all the hands that have touched those bones throughout the day.

You can either get here by walking up the Dinosaur Quarry/Fossil Discovery Trail or take the shuttle that goes from the Monument Visitor Center. The shuttle departs every 15 minutes. On the shuttle, there's ranger narration of the different rock formations and geological times you are looking at as you go past. The open shuttle welcomes a small breeze - enjoy it!

A MAJOR highlight of any trip to Dinosaur National Monument for sure! It doesn't take long to walk through, but take your time, enjoy and see how many bones you can...

The Quarry Exhibit Hall is an amazing facility that shelters one of the great fossil beds in the Western United States. I first visited the Quarry Exhibit Hall when I was a kid in 1977, and the wealth of dinosaur fossils embedded in this upturned ancient river bed was mind boggling. I just returned to the quarry as an adult last year and the site has lost none of its magic. Visiting the quarry provides the opportunity to see very large, well-preserved fossil specimens actually embedded in sedimentary rock.

The western section of Dinosaur National Monument is easy to access and the park grounds around the quarry are also awe-inspiring. The quarry and visitor center are located very close to both Vernal Utah, where you can visit the Utah Field House of Natural History, and Flaming Gorge Dam. The scenery and the science are both incomparable.

There is a lot of information about the Carnegie Dinosaur Quarry on the National Parks website, but in summary it is the location of a 150 million year old river bed. The river was a main water source for animals in the region at that time, and dinosaurs would drink at its banks. Sometimes they would also fight and die in the river vicinity. What makes the fossil bed remarkable is that the river was also prone to flash flooding. Flooding would drown live dinosaurs in the area and carry all of the carcasses downstream until they reached a pond, where the bodies sank in the mud and were eventually fossilized. Over millions of years the deposits in this interior pond included at least eleven different species of dinosaurs and many individual specimens. This site is as close to Jurassic Park as we'll ever get...

I had been there once before about 25 years ago. It's very cool to be able to see the history of the dig site, see so many fossils in situ, and touch real dinosaur bones. There is a short (0.7 mile) fossil discovery trail between the Visitor's Center and the Quarry Exhibit Hall that looked interesting, but we were not equipped to make that walk in the heat, so I can't review that part. If you are interested in doing that trail, I recommend dressing appropriately (including footwear) and bringing water with you. The exhibit hall does have water bottle refill stations, but the only place to purchase drinks is the Visitor's Center. There is a free shuttle between the Visitor's Center and the Quarry Exhibit Hall. If you want to do the trail, I recommend taking the shuttle to the quarry and then following the trail back to the Visitor's Center as you would then be walking downhill. Entrance to Dinosaur National Monument is $25 per vehicle and is good for 7 days. There is not any additional fee to visit the...