Elio Della Ferrera set out into the Italian Alps with a camera and simple goals. A wildlife photographer, he hoped to spot deer or perhaps a bearded vulture gliding above the peaks. Instead, while scanning a distant slope through his long lens, he noticed something unexpected: a line of small dents etched into the rock, forming what looked like a faint trail. There was no marked route to the spot, but curiosity pushed him forward.
Della Ferrera spent about two hours climbing toward the marks, pushing through brush and carefully navigating loose stone. When he reached the site, the discovery proved far larger than he’d ever imagined. A near-vertical rock face was covered with thousands of dinosaur footprints preserved for roughly 210 million years. Many impressions clearly show toes and claw tips. Scientists have stated that the tracks were likely left by prosauropods, early plant-eating dinosaurs known for their long necks, small heads, and sharp claws.
Several sets of footprints run side by side and point in the same direction, suggesting groups of animals crossed the area together. What has captured the public’s attention most, however, is not the number of tracks but their orientation. In photographs, the footprints appear to climb straight up the mountainside.
Researchers say the rock surface was once a flat, muddy shoreline along a warm lagoon, an ideal environment for dinosaurs to wander and leave tracks near the water. Over millions of years, tectonic forces lifted and tilted the land as the Alps formed, turning soft mud into solid stone and rotating it into its present position.
A research team plans to return with drones to photograph the area, map the tracks, and take precise measurements from safer angles. The discovery was made within Stelvio National Park, near Bormio, a venue for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, which certainly added excitement to the already busy area.