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Dinosaur National Monument

On River Time: Three Days In Dinosaur National Monument

My wife and I are staring at a lizard that must be four feet long, holding our breath in astonishment. Light tan in color, this creature is vividly outlined against an overhanging wall of sandstone. Painstakingly chipped out of the rock by some nameless Native American artisan, it has been on display here for at least seven hundred years, or longer than the Giotto frescos in Florence’s Santa Croce church.

More Openings Across The National Park System Provide Visitors Room To Roam

Though some states are seeing spikes in Covid-19 cases, more parks are reopening access to the public. Death Valley National Park has reopened more campgrounds, Zion National Park plans to resume its shuttles this week, and Canyon Mouth Park at Little River Canyon National Preserve is back in business.

The River’s The Thread: Floating The Green Corridor In Utah’s Desolation Canyon

Late one evening last summer, about the time that bats take to the air, I was stretched out on a patch of warm sand next to the Green River in Utah’s Desolation Canyon, waiting for stars to appear. Next to me were a couple my age from Baltimore and their two young grandsons, part of a group enjoying a six-day float trip with a Utah adventure outfitter. As darkness fell, the glittering band of the Milky Way spread above us from cliff to cliff. This was one of the reasons we had come to this place, for the “star river,” as the ancient Chinese poets called it, is no longer visible from our homes in the city.

National Parks Traveler Episode 50: "AJ," The New Allosaurus From Dinosaur National Monument, And Saratoga National Historical Park

National Parks Traveler podcast, Allosaurus, Saratoga National Historical Park
This week’s show is our 50th, a number that looked so distant a year ago. Today we talk with Dr. Mark Loewen, a paleontological research associate at the Natural History Museum of Utah, and associate professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah, about a Jurassic Period carnivore dubbed "AJ," a new species of allosaurus, found in Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. Lisa Dittman, chief of interpretation at Saratoga National Historical Park in New York, provides us with a short Revolutionary War history tour of the park. It was on that landscape in 1777 that the British army suffered its very first defeat on the battlefield.

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