May 18, 2008 5:12 pm US/Mountain
Layers Of History Are Visible In Picketwire Canyon
prepared for cbs4denver.com by Jesse Sarles, Web manager
LA JUNTA, Colo. (CBS4) ―
Many layers of Colorado history lie together in one special section of the Comanche National Grasslands called Picketwire Canyonlands.
This region of southeastern Colorado is home to the largest known dinosaur trackway in North America, where footprints were left 150 million years ago.
"There are over 1,300 individual dinosaur prints representing as many as 100 different dinosaurs," paleontologist Bruce Schumacher said. "But the real magic of this site is evidence of the social behavior of dinosaurs."
Paleontologists say Picketwire Canyonlands, which was originally known as Purgatoire Canyonlands, has the footprints Brontosaurs and Allosaurs left in a muddy edge of a lake. Those prints were eventually buried and turned to stone, and are now exposed.
Schumacher showed CBS4 a stretch of prints where two animals were walking side by side along the ancient lake shore.
"It tells us most likely that these animals traveled together," he said. "They actually had a social structure to their groups."
The canyon-filled area south of La Junta is also home to more recent historical objects, including Native American rock wall art and remnants of early Hispanic settlements. There's also a partially destroyed historic 20th century ranching operation.
"We have Santa Fe Trail history here ... there's homesteading history here, Mexican settlement history, (with) one right on top of the other," Comanche National Grasslands official Tim Peters said.
Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado is also active in southeastern Colorado. A CBS4 photographer was there recently filming a volunteer crew removing tamarisks, a non-native invasive species. In the Canyonlands, the species chokes off all the native growth along the Purgatory River.
"Today what we're hoping for from our volunteers is removing a lot of tamarisk, having fun and eventually becoming committed to VOC and its cause of increasing an environmental ethic and helping to increase and manage stewardship of public lands in Colorado," Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado spokesman Paul Suazo said.
Wildlife that call the Picketwire Canyonlands home include deer, antelope, coyote, snakes, lizards and birds. The prairie chicken is perhaps the animal that has the longest history in the region, though. They have staked out their territory out here for eons.
At this time of year, spring water run-off in the Purgatory River offers only temporary relief in this harsh, dry landscape. If you go, be prepared for hot and dry weather, and bring lots of water.
"To hike down here or mountain bike down here -- you get solitude; you get the place to yourself," Peters said.
(© MMVI CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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