Earth’s Longest Dinosaur Trackway is Hiding in This Sky-High Colorado Ski Town

134 Footprints Tell a 150-Million-Year-Old Story

High in the San Juan Mountains, a single dinosaur walk from the Jurassic period left behind something no other site on Earth can match.

The footprints sit at 9,300 feet elevation near the small town of Ouray, Colorado, pressed into sandstone that has outlasted ice ages and erosion. For decades, nobody knew what they were.

Now scientists are still uncovering what that ancient walk can teach us, and the story of how it came to light involves a 10-year-old boy, a gold-hunting family, and a set of tracks that hid in plain sight for 70 years.

A Sauropod Turns Sharply 150 Million Years Ago

During the Late Jurassic period, a long-necked sauropod dinosaur walked through wet sand in what is now southwestern Colorado.

The dinosaur headed north, made a tight counter-clockwise loop, crossed its own path, and continued east. That single journey left 134 consecutive footprints stretching 316 feet.

The tracks are preserved in sandstone that probably dates to the Oxfordian age, between 162 and 155 million years ago.

The dinosaur was relatively small for a sauropod, leaving prints about 12 inches long and 10 inches wide.

The Longest Continuous Trackway on Earth

The West Gold Hill trackway consists of 134 individual tracks in a continuous sequence without any missing in between.

That makes it the highest count of consecutively preserved footprints known from any sauropod trackway globally.

The trackway measures 96.3 meters in length when measured along its path. Other sites may cover more ground, but none capture this many unbroken steps from a single animal.

Every footprint connects to the next, giving scientists a complete record of one dinosaur’s movement.

One of Six Known Turning Trackways

What makes this site exceptional is the turn. The trackway describes a 325-degree loop, and only one other sauropod trackway is known to show a similar shape.

That comparable site in Sichuan, China was destroyed by quarrying.

Scientists have currently found six examples documenting sauropods that changed direction significantly, with four in China, one near Moab, Utah, and this one near Ouray.

The Colorado trackway is the only intact example of a turn greater than 180 degrees still available for study.

Glaciers Scraped Everything But the Prints

Glaciers scoured the landscape around the trackway, yet the dinosaur tracks persisted. The footprints survived because they hardened into an extremely resistant sandstone layer.

Wave-formed ripple marks can be seen on the surface beside the tracks, indicating the sediment was saturated or possibly underwater when the dinosaur walked through.

The tracks themselves are 4 to 6 inches deep, evidence that the animal was sinking into soft, wet ground with each step. That same softness allowed the prints to capture fine detail before the sand turned to stone.

A 10-Year-Old Spots Tracks in 1958

Rick Trujillo first noticed the dirt-filled holes in the 1950s, when he was a 10-year-old roaming the mountainsides above Ouray. Even then, he suspected they were dinosaur tracks.

But he assumed they were on public land, even when he later became a geologist.

Trujillo grew up to become a legendary mountain runner, winning the Pikes Peak Marathon five consecutive years and the Hardrock 100 in 1996. He helped design the Hardrock course and founded the Imogene Pass Run.

But the tracks stayed in the back of his mind.

A Family Camps Over Fossils for Decades

In 1945, the Charles family purchased the land with the dream of prospecting for gold.

Jack Charles and his five children spent summers hauling supplies up the Silvershield Trail to camp at their mining claim.

The family kids grew up thinking the strange blob-shaped impressions in the rock were just convenient dents holding water. Their dogs drank from the rain-filled potholes during camping trips.

Nobody in the family realized they were walking over a world-class fossil site.

The Geologist Returns 55 Years Later

In 2013, Trujillo was passing by the site on a trail run and realized he might be the only person alive who knew about the tracks. He decided to document them properly.

Trujillo ultimately informed the Charles family of the tracks’ significance once he learned they owned the property. The family gave permission for researchers to study the site.

In 2021, Trujillo took two of the Charles sisters up to the site, where they spread some of their father’s ashes and visited the old mining camp.

Paleontologists Confirm a World-Class Discovery

An international team of researchers studied the tracks and declared them one of the most continuous and tightly turning sauropod trackways ever documented.

Fort Lewis College students measured the size and distance between prints.

The trackway is relatively wide-gauged, meaning the tracks do not overlap the midline, possibly because the dinosaur widened its stance to walk on soft sediment.

The prints show only hind feet, likely because the smaller front feet were overprinted by the back feet as the animal walked.

Forest Service Buys the Land for $135,000

On April 10, 2024, the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forest purchased 27 acres from the Charles family.

The Forest Service used $135,000 in federal Land and Water Conservation Fund money to buy the parcels. The purchase included the trackway and a trail giving public access.

The family said they were happy to offer the unique trackway to the Forest Service, ensuring the land would be protected and enjoyed by future generations.

New 3D Scan Shows Uneven Gait

In November 2025, University of Queensland researchers published new analysis using drone imagery to create a millimeter-accurate 3D model of the trackway.

They detected a small but persistent difference of about 10 centimeters between left and right step lengths. Whether that reflects a limp or simply a natural preference for one side is unclear.

The researchers also found the dinosaur shifted from narrow to wide foot placement during the turn, showing that step width can change naturally as a dinosaur moves.

A Walk Preserved for 150 Million Years

The reason for the sharp turn remains unknown. Maybe the dinosaur spotted something, avoided an obstacle, or simply changed its mind.

The individual tracks are large enough to be visible on satellite imagery.

What started as a routine walk through Jurassic wetlands became the most complete record of sauropod movement ever preserved.

A boy noticed it in 1958, a family camped over it for decades, and now anyone willing to make the hike can stand where a dinosaur once turned around and kept walking.

Visiting West Gold Hill Dinosaur Tracksite, Colorado

The trackway that captured 134 steps from a Jurassic sauropod sits along the Silvershield Trail in the Uncompahgre National Forest.

From Main Street in Ouray, take 7th Avenue west across the Uncompahgre River, turn right on River Road, and drive 1.2 miles north to the trailhead near the Silvershield Mill.

The trail covers 4.3 miles out-and-back with 1,696 feet of elevation gain and takes about 3 hours to complete.

The site is free to visit and open year-round, though the best months are April through October. Parking is limited in the residential neighborhood near the trailhead.

Wear sturdy hiking boots and bring water.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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