A visit to Southeast Montana features dinosaur bones, fishing and river cruises

Photo by Anne Braly / A cruise of the Bighorn River will take you past cliffs streaked with red from the oxidized iron minerals found in the sandstone. Photo by Anne Braly / A cruise of the Bighorn River will take you past cliffs streaked with red from the oxidized iron minerals found in the sandstone.

By Anne Braly August 6, 2022 5 min read

Jurassic Park has nothing on what lies beneath the earth in Montana’s Badlands. Dinosaur bones and near-complete skeletons have been found all around southeastern Montana. They’re found buried under the soil and exposed along cliffsides of sandstone worn away by millions of years of rain, snow and ice.

Torrents of water washing in from the Rocky Mountains 65 million years ago cut through the Badlands over several millennia, causing erosion and leaving fossils in their wake, explained Makoshika State Park paleo intern Anthony Gordon.

Makoshika, Montana’s largest state park at 11,000-plus acres, is one of 14 places along the Montana Dinosaur Trail (mtdinotrail.org) where dinosaur enthusiasts can see dinosaur bones and other fossils unearthed around the park in Glendive. The museum in the park’s visitor center has the head of a triceratops, found just outside the park boundary.

“Dinosaur tours are a big thing around here and bring in a large revenue for Eastern Montana,” said park manager Riley Bell. “It brings families out this way and is a great thing for children. We have a lot of hidden treasures out here.”