Dinosaur Roundup Rodeo

One of the premier rodeo events in the US will be held in Vernal, Utah, July 12-15. Called the Dinosaur Roundup Rodeo, it offers classic Western entertainment with bull riding, saddle and bareback bronc riding, team roping, calf roping, steer wrestling, barrel racing and much more.

The Vernal event has been named one of the top five rodeos in the world by PRCA cowboys and contract personnel. It will attract professional cowboys and cowgirls from around the country. The rodeo website has a schedule of events and other details.

Vernal is a small city in eastern Utah, near Dinosaur National Monument. The quarry at the monument features a large rock slab where it is easy to see hundreds of fossilized dinosaur bones. The Utah Field House of Natural History also offers fossils, life-sized replicas and other dinosaur displays. Because of these and other nearby attractions, the Vernal area is know as Dinosaurland.

Vernal is a hub for outdoor recreation. Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, located just to the north, offers excellent fishing for trophy-sized lake trout, rainbows, brown trout and kokanee salmon. The huge reservoir also offers great boating and camping, plus excellent mountain bike trails on the canyon rim overlooking the reservoir.

The Green River below Flaming Gorge dam is a blue-ribbon trout stream attracting fly fishermen from around the world.

The Uinta Mountains tower over this area to the west. They are the highest mountains in Utah and offer great opportunity for hiking, camping, backpacking, horsepacking and fishing. The High Uinta Wilderness provides the opportunity for long backpacking or horsepacking trips in spectacular wild country - one of the few places in the US where you can still find solitude.

Whitewater rafting is popular on the Green River where it cuts through Lodore Canyon in the heart of Dinosaur National Monument. John Wesley Powell was one of the first modern explorers in the area and many of the names he coined have stuck and become famous among river runners. Significant rapids here include Disaster Falls, Triplet Falls and Hell's Half Mile.

Dinosaurland encompasses a wide variety of landforms, from desert flatlands to deep, sheer-walled canyons and rugged mountains. The Flaming Gorge-Uintas Scenic Byway (US-191) cuts through much of it and provides an enjoyable drive with educational signposts placed at key spots along the way.

The Uinta Basin contains large deposits of a unique material called oil shale, which is generating considerable interest because it can be processed to create gasoline and other petroleum products. Recovery of this oil was considered too costly in the past, but that attitude changed with the current high price of crude oil on world markets. Today Vernal and other nearby communities are booming, as energy companies work to process and harvest the oil.

With lush alpine forests, cool waterways, dinosaurs and cowboy rodeos, the Vernal area is an attractive travel destination.

Let us help you plan a trip to this area.

- Dave Webb

See our comprehensive events listing for upcoming activities.

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