Qualla: Prehistoric Trackways National Monument

Prehistoric Trackways National Monument: Introduction

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bureau of Land Management, Public domain. Jerry Paul MacDonald strapped another stone slab to his back and began the long hike out of the Robledo Mountains. It was 1987, and he had just discovered what scientists would call one of the most significant Paleozoic fossil sites on Earth. Over years of solitary work, MacDonald would carry more than 2,500 slabs down from these dusty slopes, each one bearing the fossilized footprints of creatures that walked this ancient seacoast 280 million years ago. Before dinosaurs, before mammals, before flowering plants, something left its tracks in the mud here, and the desert kept its secrets until a determined fossil hunter came looking.

Image: Bureau of Land Management | Public domain

Prehistoric Trackways National Monument: Ghosts in the Stone

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bureau of Land Management, Public domain. The footprints preserved in these rocks predate the dinosaurs by nearly 50 million years. During the Permian Period, this corner of New Mexico lay at the edge of a tropical sea, its tidal flats teeming with creatures that left their marks in soft sediment before the mud hardened ...

Image: Bureau of Land Management | Public domain

Prehistoric Trackways National Monument: A One-Man Mission

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bureau of Land Management, Public domain. For decades, scattered footprints had turned up in the Robledos, but no one had followed the trail to its source. Jerry MacDonald spent years interviewing local hikers, quarrymen, and fossil hunters, piecing together clues that led him to what he named the Discovery Site on June ...

Image: Bureau of Land Management | Public domain

Prehistoric Trackways National Monument: The 100th Monument

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Medtrails, CC BY-SA 3.0. On March 30, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, and with that stroke of a pen, Prehistoric Trackways became the 100th active national monument in the United States. Not the 100th ever designated, as some monuments have come and gone over t...

Image: Medtrails | CC BY-SA 3.0

Prehistoric Trackways National Monument: Life at the Desert's Edge

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bureau of Land Management, Public domain. The monument sits at the northern tip of the Chihuahuan Desert, where modern life continues among the ancient stones. Ocotillo and creosote bush dot the landscape alongside prickly-pear cactus and Torrey yucca. Mule deer browse through the brush while rattlesnakes sun themselves ...

Image: Bureau of Land Management | Public domain

Prehistoric Trackways National Monument: A Monument Still Becoming

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Medtrails, CC BY-SA 3.0. Unlike many national monuments with paved trails and visitor centers, Prehistoric Trackways remains largely wild. No maintained hiking trails guide visitors to the fossil sites. No facilities ease the journey. A single interpretive sign marks the Discovery Site, the best spot for...

Image: Medtrails | CC BY-SA 3.0