Navajo Moenave Dinosaur Tracks

AMAZING place, very big and a lot to cover but the main visible tracks are at the very beginning. This place is very unique and a must for the kids. Its free to enter but if you like you can tip the locals and they will give you a personal little tour and information about the place and the types of dinosaurs (extremely hard to tell by tracks alone just fyi). Theres venders everywhere selling locally made souvenirs and genuine Navajo artifacts made by the locals as well.

HISTORY ALERT!!! The Navajo Moenave Dinosaur Tracks near Tuba City, Arizona, offer one of the most vivid windows into the early Jurassic world—an ancient landscape preserved on the open desert floor of the Navajo Nation. Around 200 million years ago, this region was a marshy riverbed where dinosaurs walked across soft mud and sand. Over time, sediment buried their footprints, and millions of years of erosion later revealed them again. Paleontologists have verified the site’s authenticity, identifying the impressions as trace fossils—evidence of behavior rather than bones. Because footprints rarely identify a species with certainty, scientists rely on size, shape, and rock layers to make educated guesses. The tracks at Moenave likely belonged to early theropods such as Eubrontes, Grallator, Coelophysis, or Dilophosaurus, the latter known from fossils found nearby and dating to the same period. Some prints show clear three‑toed impressions, while others reveal tail drags or signs of movement through shallow water. The site remains unprotected and undeveloped—no fences, no exhibits—just raw history under open sky. Local Navajo families often offer informal tours, sharing stories and helping visitors locate the best‑preserved prints. Standing among these tracks, you feel time collapse. The desert quiet, the wind, and the ancient footprints together create a rare, humbling connection to life that walked here long before humans ever imagined the Grand Canyon. PLEASE!!!!give a tip to the guide if you see him, he volunteers his time and does it for his people. He gave me and my son a piece of Jasper. This may have been the best memory on the whole trip.

Great little roadside stop. We stopped on a Tuesday afternoon. So the place was empty With no guide or anybody to show us around. But after wandering around with a good eye we did find some tracks Look for the marked trails. Probably best to stop on the weekend when there's a guide to show you all the best stuff.

This place is amazing. Our guide, Helen, was knowledgeable and knew exactly where to look. The area used to be an ocean and evidence of marine animalia and fauna was visible. She didn't ask for money, but I tipped her $20 for her excellent service.

So glad we stopped!! We saw many dinosaur tracks. We got some great family photos next to the tracks. It only took a few minutes to see them all. Some of them are right by the road and then others are further from the road.

There are an abundance of tracks, and they look really cool with the red dirt water in them. Our guide was Jennifer. She told us where to park and greeted us when we got out. Her guiding style was show and identify a track, then walk to the next one and wait for us to take our pics and catch up to her. One track she said was a brontosaurus, and knowing better, I can say that it was not. But didn’t comment to her about the error. About 200’ into the tour, she declared that she was too hot, and returned to the jewelry stands. It wasn’t very hot that day, and she had a sweatshirt on that she could have taken off. So the tracks were really neat, but the interaction with our guide was sorely lacking. We gave her a good tip anyway, just because.

Well worth the stop! Orlando Whitestone was my guide when I was there and was incredibly knowledgeable! I highly recommend accepting a tour from a guide; they’ll point out the best tracks, fossilized eggs, fossilized dung piles, and point out the ancient river beds. The guides work off donations, $10-20 is a good range to tip for their service.

The site itself is very interesting and worth stopping to see — there are real dinosaur track fossils here. In particular, the large three-toed tracks found in this area are consistent with Dilophosaurus, a real early Jurassic theropod that lived in this region around 190 million years ago. That part is accurate and scientifically supported. However, just a note about the guided explanations: the guides here are local individuals, not trained paleontologists, and some of the information offered can be incorrect. For example, we were told that there were T. rex and Velociraptor footprints here, but that is not possible — those dinosaurs lived over 100 million years later, in much younger rock layers than the ones at this site. So those particular claims were not accurate. My recommendation: Enjoy the site for what it truly is — a rare chance to see authentic Dilophosaurus-era tracks in the open desert. Just take the spoken explanations with caution and look up the scientific details afterward if you’re curious. Overall: Great stop, real footprints, but verify the dino facts independently.