Dinosaur Ridge and Seneca Creek State Park

I spent most of the weekend in Colorado with good friends.  On Saturday, we took a short walk at Dinosaur Ridge outside of Denver.  It was a little windy, but not very cold. Since their kids are aged four and two, they set the pace and the distance.  Their four-year-old was quite the little hiker, taking us nearly to the top of a ridge with a great view of the foothills to the west and east over the plains.

The real attraction of Dinosaur Ridge is, of course, the dinosaurs.  We saw an impressive slab of dinosaur tracks along with preserved ripple marks and animal burrows. 

Dinosaur Ridge pictures (click on the picture to see a larger version):

Dinosaur track.  All of the dark spots are dinosaur tracks.  The large one in the middle is about 2 feet across.

A tree on the trail up to the top of the ridge.

Looking southwest from the ridge towards the foothills of the Rockies.

Dried flowers.











Since today was President's Day, a friend and I decided to get another day of snowshoeing in.  Little of the snow that fell last week has melted.  With bad weather predicted, we needed to stay close to home in case driving conditions deteriorated.  Neither of us had been to Seneca State Park near Gaithersburg, Maryland, and being close to both of us, it fit the bill.

We snowshoed about five miles on the Great Seneca and Lake Shore Trails.  The entire morning, we saw just one other skiier.  In most places, we were following ski tracks or other snowshoers tracks, but in a few places, we were the first to break trail.  The snow was still fairly light where the sun hasn't warmed it a lot.  Areas that get more sun were crusted over.  It was a great way to see a park that is probably quite crowded when the conditions are better.

Pictures of Seneca Creek State Park:

Starting out on Great Seneca Trail in the sun.

Clopper Lake

Bridge on Lake Shore Trail.