Entry No. 21 — the Pueblo file — filed under: outdoor
Skyline Drive Dinosaur Tracks
“For 94 years, drivers inched past without noticing the wall was stamped with dinosaur footprints.”
For 94 years, drivers inched along this one-lane 1905 prisoner-built ridge road without noticing the wall beside them was stamped with dinosaur footprints. A geology student finally spotted them in 1999: roughly fifty ankylosaur tracks, 100 million years old, that bulge out of the rock instead of in. The Rockies tilted the old mudflat nearly vertical, so you are looking at the underside of the trackway — natural casts of armored dinosaurs slogging through coastal mud, now hanging at car-window height.
The move: Ride the knife-edge slow, park at the overlook just past the dinosaur-track marker, and walk back along the ridge to find the three-toed bulges together before coasting the dips down into downtown.
📍 Before you go Traffic runs one-way eastbound only: once you pass under the stone arch off US-50 you are committed for all 2.6 miles until the road drops you onto 5th Street downtown, so leave trailers, RVs, and anything wide behind. Do not stop in the lane at the tracks — use the marked pull-off with the interpretive sign and walk back along the crest. The footprints sit above eye level on the east-facing rock wall; bring binoculars if you want toe detail. Skip it in ice or high wind, and pair it with the Museum of Colorado Prisons at the bottom of the hill or the Royal Gorge nine miles west.
- 📍 Cañon City
- 💸 Free
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Outdoors
Where: Skyline Drive, Cañon City, CO 81212 — enter under the stone arch off US-50 about 3 miles west of downtown; tracks at a marked pull-off roughly half a mile in
Hours: Added 2026-06-11 — confirm current hours before you go.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Proof: source 1 · source 2 · source 3 · source 4
last checked: 2026-06-11