Vernal
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Vernal

Vernal

Uintah Basin town on Utah's dinosaur frontier, near fossil quarries, red-rock canyons, and Flaming Gorge.

Vernal is the main town in the Uintah Basin of northeastern Utah, sitting at the edge of some of the state's most spectacular dinosaur country. It is the gateway to Dinosaur National Monument, where a quarry wall exposes over 1,500 dinosaur bones in situ — one of the great fossil sites in North America.

The town itself is a small, practical place, notable for being one of the largest cities in the United States without a railway. The surrounding landscape is dramatic: red rock canyons, the Green River, and the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area to the north. The Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum in town has full-size dinosaur replicas and a good fossil collection. Beside it on Main Street stands Dinah the Pink Dinosaur, a 40-foot roadside statue from the 1950s that is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Beyond town, the McConkie Ranch petroglyphs preserve some of the finest Fremont rock art in Utah, and Fantasy Canyon — an hour's drive south through oil-field country — offers an eerily sculptural landscape of eroded sandstone formations. The Vernal Utah Temple on the west side of town is a notable piece of local architecture, converted from a 1907 tabernacle.

Guide

Day Trips

Vernal is ideally placed for day trips into the surrounding canyon country. Dinosaur National Monument, 20 miles to the east, is the obvious first stop — the Quarry Exhibit Hall lets you see over 1,500 dinosaur bones still embedded in the cliff face. The monument also has excellent hiking, whitewater rafting on the Green and Yampa rivers (with permits), and the scenic Harper's Corner drive.

Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, 40 miles to the north, offers boating, fishing, and dramatic red-rock scenery along a 91-mile reservoir. The Flaming Gorge Dam is worth seeing for the engineering alone.

Further afield but reachable in a day: the Uinta Mountains to the west offer high-altitude hiking and fishing in summer; Kings Peak, the highest point in Utah, is accessed from this region.

Guide

Getting There

Vernal is 175 miles east of Salt Lake City on US-40, about a 2.5-hour drive. There is no passenger rail service — Vernal is one of the largest cities in the United States without a railway connection.

Vernal Regional Airport (VEL) has scheduled flights to Salt Lake City via SkyWest/United. The airport is a mile southeast of town. Car hire is available at the airport and in town, and is essential for visiting most of the surrounding attractions.

Greyhound does not serve Vernal directly. Several shuttle services run between Salt Lake City and the Uintah Basin for those without cars.

Guide

Things to Do

Vernal is dinosaur country, and most visitors come for the bones. But the surroundings reward further exploration: canyon country, petroglyphs, and some genuinely odd corners of the American West.