How to see hundreds of dinosaur footprints within the Jura Mountains—the true Jurassic park

We spot the primary cliff early within the morning. The summer season solar rises slowly, its deep indigo progressively fading right into a mushy peach. The world stays asleep, and we break the silence with heavy respiration and the sound of our tires crunching on the gravel highway beneath us.

In the space, the Alps glow—however we’re touring via the Jura, a lesser-known mountain vary that separates northwest Switzerland from France. The Jura are decrease and gentler than the Alps and principally lined in forests. Their rocks are additionally older than these within the Alps, holding historic secrets and techniques buried deep inside their limestone formations.

Fritjof Hilgenfeldt (a photographer and a pal) and I start our journey from Grenchen in whole darkness. At 6 a.m., solely our bike dynamos lead us via the Bettlachstock-Hasenmatt forest reserve, an historic and intensive beech woodland named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021.

Finding dinosaur tracks

Scattered close to the small village of Lommiswil are a collection of enormous holes within the rock face. At first, they appear to be the results of excavation instruments or erosion. However, specialists have uncovered a special story. The depressions within the cliff are footprints left behind greater than 150 million years in the past by 100-foot-long giants that roamed the Earth. These are Lommiswil’s dinosaur traces.

The traces had been found in 1987 throughout an excavation on the native quarry. Approximately 450 footprints had been discovered, some as giant as one-and-a-half meters in diameter. Due to their measurement and patterns, specialists imagine they had been left on the bottom by a sauropod, a long-necked herbivore that was roughly 80-100 ft lengthy, weighing the equal of six elephants.

“We cannot be totally sure which species made a footprint. But we can make very informed judgments,” says Stephen Brusatte, paleontologist on the University of Edinburgh and scientific advisor to the Jurassic World franchise. “We act like the prince in Cinderella: instead of a glass slipper, we try to match the footprints to the feet of dinosaur skeletons. Sometimes this is straightforward. If you find a bunch of bathtub-sized impressions, you know it’s going to be a sauropod.”

(How to deliver a 75-foot-long dinosaur again to life)

It’s laborious to think about now, however the Jura forests we trip via at present was once shallow coastal lagoons, tidal flats, and muddy areas—the right floor for the magic of fossilization to happen.

“An animal walks on sand or mud and makes some footprints,” explains Brusatte. “If those are baked in the sun and hardened, and then covered and sealed, then those footprints could petrify into solid rock and turn into fossils. I can’t fathom the odds of a single footprint becoming a fossil, but it must be millions to one.”

Over tens of millions of years (the dinosaurs dominated Earth for 150 million years), and billions of animals strolling round and leaving footprints, the miracle typically occurs. But it then takes much more time, tectonic forces, erosion, and luck to elevate what was as soon as a seashore into the rock face we see at present.

Lommiswil proved to be a groundbreaking discovery for the area. Subsequent finds revealed a connection between the tracks as a part of a larger megatracksite referred to as the “dinosaur freeway.” Since many websites should not close to a highway, we got down to go to as many as attainable on a gravel bike and join them as if the identical large had left them. 

The second set of footprints

From Lommiswil, we begin climbing the Hasenmatt. The highway steadily ascends from 1,575 ft to 4,741 ft. It’s an extended and exquisite climb, fully on gravel, all the time shaded by a deep forest of beeches, firs, and spruce. After greater than an hour, we attain the highest of the cross and enter the Canton Jura. We take in the nice and cozy solar on the Bergrestaurant Althüsli earlier than heading down via the darkish and chilly north face of the mountain.

In Moutier, we spot the second set of footprints. Just over a mile outdoors the middle, carved out of one other mountain slope, are Moutier’s dinosaur tracks—found in 2017 whereas excavating one other native quarry.

Around 25 footprints have been discovered right here, and analysis confirms, as soon as once more, that they belonged to a sauropod that lived about 150 million years in the past.

Dinosaur museums and websites

From Moutiers, we climb one other three miles earlier than descending into an exquisite, distant space towards the village of Courfaivre. After 4 hours within the saddle, it’s time for a break on the Jubin Confiseur bakery, the place we uncover the petits pains en banderilles, a collection of mini bread rolls held collectively by an extended skewer that we nickname “bread kebab.” We additionally refuel with double espressos and cappuccinos at Bar 19 L’Hôtâ, the place the various images of cyclists hanging on the bar partitions shine as a very good omen.

The midpoint of our trip is Porrentruy. Here, we reencounter our sauropod. Just outdoors the town heart, we cease on the Jurassica Dinotec, the place over 100 tracks had been uncovered in 2007 through the renovation of the training heart. Today, the footprints of sauropods and theropod (seemingly Allosaurus) are on show within the courtyard of the ability and guarded by giant glass panels.

The Dinotec is a satellite tv for pc department of the Jurassica Museum in Porrentruy, the city’s pure historical past museum. Unfortunately, the museum is presently closed for renovations till 2027. However, the museum’s botanical garden stays open and is value a go to.

Before persevering with our journey, we gas up with a sous-chef—a Swiss steak stuffed with cheese and ham, then breaded and fried—on the Restaurant de la Croix Fédérale.

Soon after we go away Porrentruy, we discover ourselves on very steep single tracks, the place we should push our bikes uphill for half an hour. On the best way house, we see indicators for the Prehisto Parc in Réclère, a forest path that includes 45 life-size dinosaur replicas hidden among the many timber. I made a decision to postpone this go to for one more day; my 4-year-old could be upset if I went with out her.

The highway house

The closing tracks of the day are the dinosaur tracks in La Heutte, found between 1992 and 1996. The footprints are situated proper beside the path and had been attributed to sauropods and theropods that lived through the late Jurassic interval. In whole, roughly 14,000 footprints are estimated to be current throughout the broader Jura carbonate platform. This space contains extra websites than those we visited at present, and never solely from the Jurassic interval.

At round 8 p.m., 14 hours after we began, we flip our bike lights again on. There’s just one climb left, however it’s eight miles lengthy, and we cycle the final two within the pitch darkish—so darkish that Fritjof is hit by a bat. When we cease, we’re each exhausted however nonetheless buzzing from the thrill of seeing historic dinosaur fossils.