Dinosaur Tracks,  Native American Art, and Rugged Scenery, at Picket Wire Canyon

By Tab Hauser
Senior Writer

Picket Wire Canyon, near La Junta Colorado, has America’s largest track of dinosaur footprints.

It is a place to view ancient Native American art, and ruins of an old Spanish settlement and surround yourself with beautiful remote, and rugged landscaping.

You can get to Picket Wire Canyon two ways. The difficult choice is to hike or bike 17 miles. Doing this requires enduring extreme heat with little shade cover on a rutted dirt road.

It is challenging for anyone but the fittest.  You will also be without expert guides to enhance your experience.

Comanche Grasslands Division

The easier way to Picket Wire Canyon requires a little planning with the National Parks Service, Comanche Grasslands division. They offer tours to ten lucky vehicles each Saturday in the Spring and Fall. The guest must bring a 4 X 4 vehicle with good tires and a sense of adventure.

Park rangers start the day with an 8 AM briefing and leave promptly.  Depending on road or trail conditions, they can ban your vehicle if they feel it will not make it. If this happens, visitors are welcome to join another 4×4 that has extra room if invited.

Think twice before driving here in the family SUV with regular road tires. The road and trail must be perfect and dry to join the tour. You can be 40 miles from the nearest tow truck not covered under AAA.

 Pickwick Canyon Ride

The 80-mile, seven-hour day starts with a ranger pickup truck leading the convoy. The convoy is followed by another ranger and EMT SUV.

After 13 paved miles, the group switches to gravel roads. Eventually, it gets to a locked gate leading to a road on army land that the rangers have permission to cross.

It is this rougher road that gets you down in the canyon and to the sites visited.  It also gets hot.

Getting to the destination spots is just part of the allure of this trip.  Dropping into Picket Wire Canyon is scenic and vast.  You have eroded canyon walls topped with rock cliffs on one side.

Below it are boulders bigger than vans strewn about. To the right of the road is the Purgatoire River, named by the earliest Spanish explorers.

Rocks and Ancient Native Art

Our first stop was at a large and unusually shaped triangle rock formation with a big eroded hole and a small alcove under it.

Here the rangers gave us a lesson on geology and the Spanish history of the area. Near it were other large boulders that offered the earliest indigenous people protection from the sun.

One boulder was used for grinding grain or corn as we saw the smooth indents used by grinding stones done by hand.

The other boulder had art scratched in underneath a protected area. Later that day we would climb a hill to see more art. It was said the images on the rock walls can be up to 2000 years old.

1900 Dinosaur Footprints

Pickwick Wire Canyon has the largest dinosaur tracks in North America. They can be found on an ancient lakebed next to the Purgatoire River.  It was during the Jurassic period,  that dinosaurs regularly crossed this muddy area.

They left 1900 footprints on 130 separate tracks set in the mud and hardened. The entire lake bed is about the size of a large pond.

Our park guide showed us easily recognized footprints. There were also footprints on top of footprints of the Apatosaurus and Allosaurus  (commonly referred to wrongly as a brontosaurus and a small T-rex).  The ranger also pointed out the smaller tracks of the theropod.

It is mindboggling that you can follow the steps of giants from 175 million years ago.

Our guide also explained some of the eating habits of these creatures and had us hold a 150 million-year-old “gut stone” that was used by these massive creatures to help digest their food.

For those hiking or biking in, there are several detailed signs at the sight. They explain the history, the dinosaurs that walked here, and the geology.

Settlements

The convoy stopped at the ruins of a late 1800s church and cemetery.

Behind it is a massive, eroded arch-like rock. It is said this acted as a natural church at one time.  A hike above a hill leads to some boulders with more ancient native art.

The last stop was the 160-acre Rourke Ranch. What started around 1900 as a family 160-acre homestead expanded to a 50,000-acre cattle ranch.

The house was built using adobe brick in a “territorial style” featuring a flat roof and whitewashed walls. It has three bedrooms and an outhouse.

The last family lived here in 1971. The property also has a barn, a stable, and an adobe dog house built in 1910. The crew bunkhouse is from 1920.

Touring Picket Wire Canyon

The National Park Guided Auto Tours is the only authorized motor vehicle access to Picket Wire Canyons. Tours fill up months in advance. For information call 877-444-6777 or search Picket Wire Canyon

The USDA Forest Service office is located at 1420 East 3rd St., La Junta, CO. 

 La Junta is three hours south of Denver.  When visiting Picket Wire Canyon, I recommend spending a night one hour east in the small city of Pueblo. Pueblo offers more choices of accommodations, restaurants, and fun things to do.