For Chris’s 31st, we did another day trip, this time to Dinosaur National Monument. A 3.5 hour drive from Salt Lake City proper, it was a great day trip and escape from the city.

The park spans from Utah to Colorado across 210,000 acres, but to get from one side to the other, you have to leave the park, and drive two hours out and back into the park on the Colorado side. Suffice it to say that for a day trip, we didn’t make it to the Colorado side, but we’ll definitely be back.

Sound of Silence & Desert Voices Trail

These trails connect to form a large loop, which ended up being a nice morning hike before lunch. There wasn’t much elevation gain, so it was an easier hike than in other parks, but it provided some truly spectacular views.

We parked at the Sound of Silence trailhead – there’s no parking lot, but rather a small pull off. If you want to do the full loop and this area is full, you can also start at the Split Mountain Campground off of River Road.

At the fork leading into the loop on Sounds of Silence Trail, we went left, which ended up being nice because it meant that we did most of the trail up front and had less to do at the tail end of the overall hike.

Leading into the Desert Voices trail, we went to the right, going uphill first. The views were beautiful – colorful hills, a large white rock formation in the distance, and lot of juniper trees lining the path.

Box Canyon Trail & Hog Canyon Trail

.5 & 1.5, mile trails, respectively, plenty of shade.

Spinning off of Josie Morris Cabin (a bad ass lady who lived on her own for 40 years in the middle of the woods), Box and Hog Canyon Trails lead off through fields and up into the rock formations. They were easy hikes with barely any elevation gain to end our day of hiking.

Driving back out, we stopped at the petroglyphs – the best we’ve seen since moving to Utah, and you can get right up next to it.

The Quarry – Fossil Discovery Trail

1.2 miles, one way, no shade

The Quarry is a building abutting the side of a mountain holding over 1,500 dinosaur bones – we weren’t sure if it was going to be anything to really see, but we were wrong. It was pretty cool.

You can either take a shuttle from the Quarry Visitor Center (with COVID, the open-air shuttle is cleaned after each ride) or hike 30 minutes up to the Quarry. I’d suggest taking the shuttle up and hiking back down, which has a few off shoots to see a number of fossils in surrounding rocks.