Dinosaur Trackways at Clayton Lake State Park

The footprints date to the Cretaceous period, more than a hundred million years ago, when this part of New Mexico lay along the muddy edge of a vast inland sea that once split North America down the middle. Dinosaurs crossed the soft shoreline mud, leaving prints that were then buried under fresh sediment and gradually turned to stone.

The trackway records more than a single moment. There are prints from several different dinosaurs, including three-toed tracks of both plant-eating and meat-eating species, along with marks left by other creatures and even ripples and mud cracks from the ancient shore. Read together, the surface is like a page torn from a prehistoric field notebook, showing a whole community of animals moving across the land.

For millions of years the footprints lay buried and unseen. In the twentieth century, engineers built a dam across Seneca Creek to create Clayton Lake, and the spillway excavation cut down into the ancient rock, exposing the track-bearing layer. What began as a construction project ended up revealing an extraordinary scientific site.

Paleontologists studied the surface and recognized its importance, and the park built a boardwalk so visitors could see the tracks without damaging them. Because the prints are shallow, they show best in the raking light of early morning or late afternoon, when low sun throws each footprint into relief. In the flat light of midday they can be surprisingly easy to miss.

Clayton Lake itself is a small reservoir set in rolling grassland, a welcome patch of water on the dry high plains. It draws anglers after trout and warm-water fish, and its quiet shoreline and campground make it a peaceful stop far from the interstate. Waterfowl and shorebirds gather here, a green oasis in a wide, open landscape.

The surrounding country is classic short-grass high plains, once the range of enormous bison herds and the Comanche, Kiowa, and other Plains peoples who followed them. Ranching came in the 1800s, and the town of Clayton grew up as a cattle-shipping point. The land remains open, working ranch country, big and quiet under a huge sky.

Far from city lights, Clayton Lake has been recognized for the quality of its night skies, and the park has hosted stargazing programs with a small observatory. On a clear, moonless night the stars crowd the sky from horizon to horizon, and the dark is deep and complete.

Spring and fall bring the most comfortable weather, with mild days, though the plains wind is nearly constant. Summer is hot with dramatic afternoon thunderstorms rolling across the grasslands. Winter is cold and clear, quiet and stark. In every season the light matters here, both for seeing the tracks and for the enormous skies overhead.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.