Colorado River Near Moab

Panel along the Banks of the Colorado downstream from Moab

Last June I had a visitor in town and took him down to Dead Horse State Park and Canyonlands National Park.  We drove back down the Shaffer Trail, past the potash ponds and along the Colorado River.

Rock Art Tour of the Swell

DStretch enhanced photo from Buckhorn Draw August 2014

I took a quick rock art tour of the San Rafael Swell last Saturday with a couple of friends.  We didn't hit any new sites, but revisited Rochester Creek, Moore Cutoff, Short Canyon, Black Dragon Canyon and Buckhorn Draw.

Provo Canyon Petroglyphs Revisited

This week on Tuesday I hiked back up to the boulder field near Johnson's Hollow in Provo Canyon and revisited some of the petroglyphs there.  I first visited this site in January 2011 and reported on it last August.  I was accompanied by my son, Alan, and my dog, Stretch, the dauchshund.  We saw several petroglyphs I have have seen there before.  And we found a new boulder I had not seen before.

The "new" boulder

This new boulder is further east and uphill of where I have looked before.  I suspect there are a great many more in this area one could find with a little time and patience.

Cave Spring Pictographs

Hnadprints from the Handprint Panel

Cave Spring is located in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.  This location is one of the few sources of fresh water in the area and was used both by the native Americans and later by cowboys.  There are two panels here.  The first having a half dozen or so pictographs and some "negative" hand imprints where paint was sprayed on the wall with a hand blocking it.  The seconds has many positive handprints like those shown in the photo above.

Newspaper Rock Petroglyphs

Newspaper Rock is a Utah State Monument located on State Route 211 in San Juan County, Utah.  It is in the upper part of Indian Creek Canyon and very close to the road.  The site is similar to that at Rochester Creek in Emery County in that it contains a wide variety of rock art styles that span a vast amount of time.

Moab Golf Course Petroglyphs

DStretch YBK Filter

The petroglyph panel near the golf course in Moab, Utah is quite easily accessible and is literally located right along a paved road in a nice residential area.  The figures here are rather iconic of Moab and their reproductions, especially "Moab Man" (on the far left above) can be found on signs and merchandise in the area.  The figures are classified as "Formative Era" which generally means Fremont, but Moab was a sort of borderland between the Fremont and Ancestral Puebloans (aka Anasazi) during this time and the figures here show influences from both cultures.

Lone Warrior Pictograph

The Lone Warrior

The Lone Warrior pictograph is well-named in that this is the only easily visible piece of rock art at this site.  The style of the figure is unusual and is not easily classifiable as BSC, Fremont, Ute or Ancestral Puebloan.

Courthouse Wash Rock Art

The pictographs at Courthouse Wash are primarily Barrier Canyon Style.  There are also some smaller Fremont and Ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs here.

Sego Canyon Rock Art

Barrier Canyon Pictographs from Site 2

The rock art panels in Sego Canyon (aka Thompson Canyon) are some of the best Barrier Canyon Style art in Utah.  The ratio of impressiveness to difficulty of access is quite high.  There are also some very high quality Fremont figures here too

These rock art panels are easily accessible by car along a paved road.  Exit I-70 at the town of Thompson, exit 187, and drive north through the town and up the canyon for about 4.4 miles.  There is a parking lot on the left-hand side of the road.