Jurassic National Monument, the Allosaurus quarry 22 miles east of Huntington

The visitor center runs Thursday to Sunday from 10:00 to 5:00 in season, opens daily through high summer, and closes entirely from late October to mid March. It is a small federal site at the end of a gravel road that adjusts its schedule around staffing, so ring the Bureau of Land Management Price Field Office on 435-636-3600 before you drive out and confirm the day.

The fee is 5 dollars a visitor aged 16 and over, and America the Beautiful federal recreation passes are honoured; bring the physical pass and the identification that goes with it. Payment policy at a small site like this changes, so confirm on the day. There is nothing else to buy out there: no food, no drink and no fuel at the monument or anywhere on the road to it.

The dig site enclosure has been closed for construction, while the visitor center, the picnic area and bypass trails stay open. That changes what a visit is rather than cancelling it, and it is exactly the sort of detail to confirm with the Price Field Office on 435-636-3600 before you plan a visit around the bone bed itself.

About 22 miles east, and roughly 45 minutes rather than the 25 the mileage suggests, because the last eleven to thirteen miles are graded gravel. The route runs northeast out of Huntington on SR-155 through Cleveland and Elmo, then south and east on the signed quarry road. In dry conditions it is an ordinary drive in an ordinary car at an unhurried speed.

Over 12,000 fossils have been recovered from the site, representing at least 74 individual animals, of which more than 46 are individual Allosaurus fragilis. That makes it one of the densest concentrations of Jurassic dinosaur bone anyone has found, and the largest known concentration of that one predator anywhere on earth. Excavation at the site has been running on and off since the 1920s.

Nobody knows, and that is the honest answer rather than a dodge. Predators are normally the scarce part of a fossil assemblage because a landscape supports far fewer of them than of their prey. Explanations offered over the decades include a predator trap, a drought pool where dying animals gathered at the last water, and a flood deposit that sorted and concentrated bone. Each fits some of the evidence and leaves the rest unexplained, and none has carried the field.

On 12 March 2019, under the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, which is the same law that created the 216,995 acre San Rafael Swell Recreation Area west of here and designated a long list of Emery County wilderness areas. Before that the site had been a quarry, a research site and a modest visitor attraction under a series of arrangements for the best part of a century. It is administered by the BLM Price Field Office.

No. Collecting vertebrate fossils on public land is not permitted, and that applies to the ground around the monument as much as to the quarry face itself. If you come across something on a walk out here, photograph it, note where it is and tell the staff rather than picking it up. A fossil removed from its context loses most of what makes it scientifically useful, which is the reason the rule exists.

It is a small site rather than a large museum, so set expectations before the drive: more than 2,000 square feet of exhibits, a mounted Allosaurus, bone bed maps, a short sculpture trail and a picnic area, on open shadeless ground with no food for sale. Pack a lunch, take hats and water, and plan the day around the picnic shelter. The visitor center runs a four day week outside high summer and the dig enclosure has been closed for construction, so confirm what is open before you set out.