Bare Bones Information:
Hours of operation:
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. except Sundays noon to 5 p.m.
Memorial Day through Labor Day - Daily
mid-March through Memorial Day - Fri., Sat., and Sun.
Labor Day through end of October - Fri., Sat., and Sun.
Fee:
Cash or check only, no credit/debit cards
$5 per person aged 16 and over; under 16 is free;
America the Beautiful, Golden Age, and Golden Access passes accepted.
Contact information:
Price Field Office 435-636-3600
Location:
Approximately 30 miles south of Price, UT, with the final 12 miles being well-maintained, mostly graveled, county road.
Tendons and Ligaments:
Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry contains the densest
concentration of Jurassic-aged dinosaur bones ever found.
The deposit is also the largest collection of a large meat-eating dinosaur (allosaurus fragilis) ever found.
There are more museums around the world with material from Cleveland-Lloyd than any other dinosaur quarry out there.
Paleontologists and other earth scientists are still debating how it all got there. No hypothesis yet proposed has withstood testing against the data.
Fleshing It All Out
Having bravely traded the comforting sound of pavement beneath your tires for the thunder of gravel and dirt; passing through miles of sage-covered uplands, pinyon pine and juniper covered hillsides, and red, gray, purple, and green colored badlands; at last the visitor center for the quarry is in sight. Inside the building, friendly and knowledgeable staff awaits to help you realize what a wonderful and puzzling place this is. While many folks actually head for the restroom first, the visitor center is the place to start your visit to this National Natural Landmark. Reopened in March 2007 after some 20 months worth of renovations, this visitor center is the first one the BLM ever had. Ninety percent of the two dozen exhibits contai
ned within are new, so even if you've been here before, this 147 million year old bone bed holds something new for you. Most visitors spend 20-40 minutes here before heading down the ADA-compliant 200 yard long sidewalk to the quarry buildings.
The two Butler buildings were erected in the mid-1970s for several reasons. The primary one was to spare paleontologists the time and expense of burying the deposit at the end of every field season and re-exposing it at the start of the next. This had the happy side effect of allowing the BLM to keep the site open for dinosaur enthusiasts to come and see real dinosaur bones still in the ground. The recently completed renovations improved viewing opportunities in the north quarry building by replacing the old catwalk with two new viewing platforms. One in the north corner maintains the previously available bird's-eye view of the dep
osit. The other new platform is just inside the new door installed in the southeast wall. From it, visitors get more of a paleontologist's-eye view of the bone bed. Interpretive panels on the railings help answer some of the questions that might spring to mind while viewing the deposit.
Having gone through the "organized" activities at the site, visitors looking to stretch their legs have several hiking trail options. The Rock Walk is the interpreted trail with brochures stocked in a box at the base of the sign at the start of the trail. This 1.4 mile loop trail gives hikers some idea of the geology, natural history, and human history of the immediate area. The Raptor Point Trail starts just over the hill to the north of the quarry building. The trail climbs some 180 feet in 3/10s of a mile from the sign at the start to the viewpoint at the top, Raptor Point. For those interested in even more scenic walking, the Rim Walk takes off from the Raptor Point Trail a few hundred feet west of Raptor Point. From the sign marking its start, the Rim Walk extends to the southwest for a mile before a small loop sends the hiker back to the start.
All this activity might have sparked a bit of hunger. If so, and you brought food, seven picnic tables are available to the west of the visitor center in an area filled with room-sized boulders. Drinking water is available for visitors on the site usually from late March to the end of the season depending on the weather.
Although we hope you actually leave the site frustrated without having an answer to the question of "What happened?!?", we hope you enjoy your visit to Jurassic Utah.
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