Walk in Real Dinosaur Tracks at Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose

There are not many places in Texas where you can stand in the same spot a dinosaur did. Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose is one of them.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department sums up the draw simply: put your feet in actual dinosaur footprints in the Paluxy riverbed. The park lists March through November as its busy season, so plan ahead.

How the tracks got there

According to the park's nature page, around 113 million years ago the area sat at the edge of a sea that advanced and retreated. Shells from creatures living in that sea left a limey mud with just the right consistency to hold a footprint. Plant-eating dinosaurs came to browse the palms and conifers inland, meat-eaters came after them, and some crossed the tidal flats and left tracks behind.

The state says a boy named George Adams found strange three-toed tracks in the riverbed in 1909, and that a big flood in 1908 may have uncovered them. In 1937, R.T. Bird, collecting fossils for the American Museum of Natural History, came to Glen Rose to see them. He found a large sauropod track and then a near-perfect trail of steps from several animals.

Those were the first distinct sauropod tracks ever found, the park says. They showed scientists that the giant plant-eaters walked on all four legs instead of needing water to hold up their weight.

A bend in the Paluxy River seen from the Limestone Ledge Trail at Dinosaur Valley State Park, February 2023. Photo: Larry D. Moore / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

Who left them

The three-toed tracks were most likely made by Acrocanthosaurus, a meat-eater the state describes as a smaller relative of Tyrannosaurus rex, about 20 feet tall, 30 feet long and 3 to 5 tons.

The big round prints are now credited to Sauroposeidon proteles. The park says it was about 70 feet long and 13 feet high at the hip, weighed 40 to 44 tons, and left hind footprints more than a yard long.

Plan your visit

The park is at 1629 Park Road 59 in Glen Rose. Adult day use is $8, and children 12 and under get in free. The office is open daily from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and the gate is open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. The park often fills up, so the state strongly recommends reservations for camping and day use, online or at (512) 389-8900.

The tracks are in the riverbed and are not always visible. Whether you can see them depends on river levels, which rise after rain and can cover the prints for days, so there is no guarantee on any given visit. The park asks visitors to check its alerts page for trail and track updates. That page also lists closures for permitted hunts, from 10 p.m. Dec. 6 to noon Dec. 10 and from 10 p.m. Jan. 10 to noon Jan. 14. Call the park at (254) 897-4588 before you go.

There is more to do than look down. The park lists 20 miles of trails, camping, picnicking, mountain biking, swimming, fishing and paddling in the river, geocaching and an interpretive center. Riders can bring their own horses to the 100-acre South Primitive Area. Families can borrow a Junior Ranger Explorer Pack or a birding kit, and anglers without gear can ask at the park store about the tackle loaner program.

Keep your eyes up, too. The park says birders can see wild turkeys, golden-cheeked warblers and black-capped vireos, and that the Paluxy holds catfish, bass, alligator gar and bluegill. In summer the river often stops flowing and leaves only pools.

The state calls Glen Rose the "Dinosaur Capital of Texas" and suggests touring the square, Barnard's Mill and Art Museum and the Somervell County Museum while you are in town.

Our view

A walk along the Paluxy is a good reminder of how old and how wonderfully made this world is. Children who put their feet in those prints do not forget it.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and so does a riverbed in Glen Rose. Pack a lunch, call ahead about the tracks, take the kids and leave the place as clean as you found it.

Hero photo: The main track site at Dinosaur Valley State Park, photographed in February 2023. Photo: Larry D. Moore / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.