Garden Park Fossil Area

Southern Front Range


The second-largest Jurassic graveyards in Colorado, and still one of the largest in North America, these are one of the quarries that spawned the Bone Wars and produced such dinosaur stars as stegosaurus, diplodocus and allosaurus back in the late 1800s. They’re still standing in the Smithsonian today. The world's most complete Stegosaurus skeleton was excavated here in 1992.

It's pretty unlikely that you'll spot a giant femur sticking up out of the ground, but it's still an easy quarter-mile hike out to the Marsh-Felch Quarry from the turnoff, and you can combine a visit with a drive along Shelf Rd. To get here, turn north onto Field Ave from Hwy 50 at the east end of town.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Southern Front Range attractions

1. Royal Gorge Dinosaur Experience

6.27 MILES

More than three years in gestation, this dinosaur of an experience hatched in 2016 and comes highly recommended for fans of the Jurassic period and anyone…

2. Royal Gorge Museum & History Center

6.51 MILES

Good for that rare rainy day is this municipal museum, which introduces the region's early history. In 2013 it incorporated the local dinosaur museum…

3. Museum of Colorado Prisons

6.7 MILES

Set in the original women's prison, right outside the stone walls of the territorial prison, each of the 30 cells is decked out with a different exhibit…

4. Centennial Park

6.91 MILES

Connected by footbridge to the Whitewater Kayak & Recreation Park, this place is called 'duck park' by locals, thanks to the numerous web-footed residents…

5. Royal Gorge Bridge & Park

7.56 MILES

In 1929 this 1260ft-long suspension bridge was built across the 950ft-deep Royal Gorge, which stretches for 10 miles west of Cañon City. The bridge and…

6. Prospect Heights

8.18 MILES

When United Artists were making John Wayne Westerns in Cañon City, this is where they lived and worked. A turn-of-the-20th-century Colorado Fuel & Iron…

7. Outlaws & Lawmen Jail Museum

14.81 MILES

This museum is set in the old Teller County Jail, which rather remarkably operated from 1901 all the way until 1992 when the ACLU filed the lawsuit that…

8. Cripple Creek District Museum

14.9 MILES

Set in an old midland train station terminal is the city's official museum. Between 1896 and 1949 the train came up from the divide four times daily. The…