Forest Service acquisition northwest of Ouray ensures public access and protects world’s longest dinosaur trackway for generations

The Charles family kids grew up thinking the strange blob-shaped impressions in the rock at their mining property above Ouray were just convenient dents holding water.

The convenient part came from not having to haul water for their dogs, who trekked up the mountain with them each summer. They hauled everything else up the Silvershield Trail for their week of roughing it up at the mining claims. One less thing to carry was a relief, when it rained and the small craters filled with moisture.

These serendipitous bowls for the family dogs turned out to be clues to a priceless treasure. Anita Charles McDonald’s father, Jack, spent decades hoping he would strike it rich from the gold he just knew had to be sitting in a vein in these mountains, not knowing his property instead held a rare Jurassic prize.

These hollowed-out blobs in the rocks turned out to be part of a 106-yard-long set of dinosaur tracks, with 134 consecutive footprints. The longnecked dinosaur who walked here roughly 150 million years earlier also did something that’s rare to find in paleontological finds – it completed a 270-degree turn. The tracks became known as the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Tracksite, which sits at 9,300 feet in elevation. They’ve since become renowned in scientific circles for being the longest documented set of continuous dinosaur tracks in the world.

The 270-degree turn made by a sauropod, or long-necked dinosaur, roughly 150 million years ago is shown here in the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Tracksite along the Silvershield Trail above Ouray in 2020. The evidence of the dinosaur turning makes this site unusual, as well as the number of consecutive tracks made by one animal. The 134 consecutive footprints make this the longest documented dinosaur track site in the world.  Photo by Mike Boruta — ouraybyflight.com

On Tuesday, the Charles family sold the 27-acre property to the U.S. Forest Service, to preserve the public resource. The Forest Service paid $135,000 using money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

McDonald and her sister, Joni Charles, arranged the sale as trustees of the family estate, which they’ve handled since their father died in 1988. McDonald said she thinks their dad would have been pleased with the decision, which came about after discussions with paleontologists about the research and scientific value of the tracks.

“Dad would be real pleased that it’s going to be protected,” McDonald said.

Charles family

Jack Charles, who grew up near Ridgway on Cow Creek and came from a long line of hard-rock miners who homesteaded the area, told the kids he thought the rock indentations were attributed to erosion. His father, Kenneth, had purchased the mining claims before he did, and they prospected for treasure at the Syracuse, Big Galena and Pango Pango mines, the oldest of which dated back to 1884, as well as the Sister Lode, which they leased.

For years, the family went up each summer to make improvements on the leased mine, which were required to maintain the lease, and camped on the property. They watched Fourth of July fireworks explode at eye level.

They hauled up construction materials, sheet metal, wire and tools, blasted rock and cleared an area to build what they termed the “Tiltin’ Hilton,” a shack with two sets of bunk beds to sleep on. They tried getting a horse to haul up a steel-fabricated stove for the shack, to no avail, and had to deconstruct it and carry it up themselves.

The three sisters and a brother fought over who slept in which bunks, Anita remembers.

“The first night was always the worst,” she said, adding the tin roof of the shack wasn’t enclosed and the structure backed up to the bare rock. “We never wanted the top bunk because that’s the one the pack rats would jump on.”

It wasn’t really a vacation – they worked too hard for that, but it was an adventure.

“We ate more Dinty Moore stew with sand in it and Spam than we care to remember,” she said. “But we knew it was special up there.”

The family didn’t discover how special the property was to the rest of the world until 2021, when they found out the dog bowls in the rock up at the mining property were, in fact, part of the longest continuous trackway of dinosaur footprints in the world. They had only partially been exposed by glacial ice, leaving behind the fossilized footprints preserved in quartzite.

Paleontologists and students from Fort Lewis College in Durango wanted permission to study the tracks. They had learned about them from a Ouray native, who is credited for discovering the dinosaur tracks in 1958 when he was only 10 years old.

Students with Fort Lewis College measure the size and distance between tracks at the West Fold Hill Dinosaur Tracksite in 2020, documenting the longest known consecutive set of tracks in the world.
Photo by Bruce Schumacher – U.S. Forest Service

Anita and her family gave permission for the research on the tracks. In 2022, they raised the idea of selling the property to the U.S. Forest Service, after asking if a university wanted to purchase the property.

They had dinner with two paleontologists – Martin Lockley, a world-renowned track expert, and Bruce Schumacher, the U.S. Forest Service’s paleontology program coordinator, and asked how it could be done, which started the ball rolling.

“I said, I want to protect it,” Anita said.

Discovery

Ouray native Rick Trujillo grew up with the San Juan Mountains as his playground. On one scouting trip, he and his buddies climbed up the Silvershield Trail and examined an old mining trench. The boys noticed the indentations in the rocks and immediately thought they looked like dinosaur tracks.

Trujillo continued visiting the site over the years after he became a geologist. In 2013, he was passing by the site again on a trail run, and realized he might be the only person alive who knew about them. The buddies who discovered the tracks with him years earlier were either deceased or he’d lost touch with them. He decided to document the tracks with photos and start digging them out, curious how many were in the series.

Over the course of about four years, Trujillo carefully excavated the tracks, removing soil and moss. He assumed they were on federal property, just as many others had. He told a friend who taught at Fort Lewis College about the tracks and one of his students, Zane Goodell, wrote a senior thesis on them. It wasn’t until after the thesis was completed that Trujillo discovered the tracks were, in fact, on private land.

In 2019, Trujillo was excavating tracks when a woman who was hiking on the trail confronted him and said she was reporting him to the Forest Service. That’s when he contacted the Forest Service himself and found out the property didn’t belong to the federal government.

He knew someone had been coming and going from the place over the years – in the 1970s, he noticed the shack built next to the rock but didn’t know it belonged to the Charles family.

Later on, he had the chance to meet them and give them a tour of the uncovered track site, which he helped name.

In 2021, Trujillo took two of the Charles sisters – Anita and Joni – up to the site, where they spread some of their dad’s ashes, and visited the old mining camp where they made so many memories.

Sisters Anita McDonald and Joni Charles visit their family’s mining property above Ouray in 2021, which the family sold this week to the U.S. Forest Service. The 27 acres included the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Tracksite, which the family had no idea existed there when they visited over decades.
Photo courtesy Rick Trujillo

Protection and plans

The Forest Service doesn’t plan much development for the site currently, aside from some interpretive signs. Ouray District Ranger Dana Gardunio said there may be challenges with trailhead parking, down in Ouray, if the trail becomes more popular.

“We’ll just have to watch that and address any increase in visitation,” she said.

To access the site, visitors face a steep, rugged hike with about 1,600 feet in elevation gain over 2 miles.

More than anything, officials hope the acquisition provides protection and access for the public and further research on the tracksite.

“It brings it into the public trust,” said Schumacher, adding the public ownership means it’s more readily available for the scientific community. “Access is the magic, I think.”

The purchase also means the tracks won’t ever have the risk of being commercially available to the highest bidder. Paleontological resources on private property can be bought or sold, raising ethical questions.

“That debate is over,” Schumacher said.

Now, the site is even more available for international researchers to visit, document and study.

Schumacher and others wonder if there may be more to the prehistoric story. What caused the dinosaur to turn sharply? Is there evidence of other animals in the rock, past the turn?

Only time and more research may tell.

For the Charles family, they’re happy for closure on Jack’s last property, knowing it will be appreciated and cared for.

“It’s real special to us,” McDonald said. “There’s a lot of good memories on that mountain.”