August 9, 2023 – Thermopolis, WY


Wednesday morning, we woke to sunshine, so we packed a picnic lunch and drove to Gooseberry Badlands and Legend Rock northwest of Thermopolis. Gooseberry Badlands is a rugged terrain known as the Willwood Formation composed of sandstone and mudstone. 





We hiked down on the 1-mile-long interpretative trail.  Tack is waiting for Nancy to follow.








This is known as Camel Rock, if you look closely, you can see a camel’s head and hump.







The Willwood Formation with alternating layers of sandstone and mudstone is spectacular.







The scenery continues to amaze us as we go farther down the trail.








Nancy and Tacky standing in front of Camel Rock.









This formation is known as Dry Falls.  The large holes in the mudstone are often used by coyotes and foxes for shelter while the smaller holes are used by birds and small mammals.






More of the beautiful formations.  This is a very beautiful area, and we enjoyed the short hike, but it is warmer today and we are sorry we didn’t wear cooler clothes.





We next drove to Legend Rock State Archaeological Site, one of the oldest and best examples of the Dinwoody rock art in the world.  Dinwoody petroglyphs are only found in the Big Horn and Wind River Basins.  We saw Dinwoody style petroglyphs by Dinwoody Lake when we were in Dubois.



We saw at least 100 Pronghorn Antelope in a field on the road to Legend Rock.






Hundreds of yards of sandstone cliffs are adorned with petroglyphs, from recognizable thunderbirds, rabbits and elk to mysterious figures wearing horned headdresses.







The host at the visitor’s center gave us a tour of the site.

The petroglyphs were not made at any one time, but over a period of thousands of years.







There are around 300 individual petroglyphs, and it was hard to decide which ones to show here.  Here is a large figure with a horned headdress.







This one shows a large figure with another figure inside it and another one or two figures attached to its outer body.








An elk along with many other figures.







The concentric circle figure is another example of the Dinwoody style and has the traditional horned headdress.

After viewing the petroglyphs, we had our picnic lunch by the visitor’s center while chatting with the host.  We learned a lot from her and appreciated her knowledge – this is an amazing site.

We are really regretting not wearing cooler clothing as the temperature reached the high 80s and there is no shade at the site.  We all enjoyed an air-conditioned ride back to Thermopolis.


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