Upper Eagle Canyon

May 1-3, 2026

I’ve been slowly and systematically exploring Eagle Canyon, with one trip last spring and another in the fall, both focused on the middle section of the canyon. This time I set my sights on the upper portion of the canyon and its many forks. I camped at the Head of Sinbad for two nights and spent two days hiking up and down several side canyons. After work on Friday I drove into the Swell and surprisingly I easily found a camp spot right where I wanted to begin my hike the following day. I passed the time throughout the evening reading a book and walking around near camp, where I found a couple of metates and a very small broken arrowhead. I set up a cot in the back of the new camper shell and the increased headroom made a huge difference. I’d only attempted to sleep in the old camper shell once (during a previous failed attempt at hiking into Eagle Canyon) and it was cramped and uncomfortable. I went to bed early, around 10:00 PM, and slept comfortably and soundly, almost as well as if I were at home.

Cot in the back of the truck

Broken metate

Tiny broken point

I started Saturday’s hike shortly after sunrise. My plan was to hike three main side canyons and several of their forks, which felt very ambitious given the rugged terrain, even though the total distance was only about 10 miles. I hiked from camp into the head of the fork in which the road descends from Swasey Cabin into Eagle Canyon, though I was on the opposite side of the watercourse from the road. Just before dropping into the canyon I saw a couple of incised shapes and sharpening grooves. I continued down the canyon and rounded a corner, entering the next fork to the north, where across the way I could see some overhangs that looked promising. Through binoculars I spotted a cairn in one of the overhangs that made me hopeful I’d find something good there. I did indeed find a light greenish pictograph that I’m pretty confident is prehistoric, and it matches another that I saw in 2024 a few miles away.

Short dead-end canyon

Etched shapes

Sharpening grooves

Rock pillar

Fork of upper Eagle Canyon

Some cliffs to explore

Big pillar separated from the wall

Overhang with a cairn

Recent rockfall

Greenish pictograph

I descended the rest of the way down into the main Eagle Canyon, eventually reaching the road and walking along it to Eagle Canyon Arch. I went up the fork just to the north of the arch which was full of springs, seeps, and pools of water but, unfortunately, not much else. One alcove held some promise but it was devoid of any signs of human use. I stopped for a while to have a snack and a drink, and ended up spending about 2.5 hours in that fork without finding anything of interest to me.

Sandstone pillars

Road into Eagle Canyon

Eagle Canyon Arch

Spring in another side canyon

Hint of an old road

More water

Dryfall bypassed on the left

Young aspen trees at another spring

Inside an alcove

View from the alcove

Tall cairn

Back in Eagle Canyon I returned south on the road and saw a group with two dirt bikes and two ATVs, the only people I would see the entire two days. I ascended the fork between the two I’d already been in that day, which would eventually lead me all the way back to camp. Based on the satellite imagery I wouldn’t have counted on being able to exit out the head of that fork but I had actually dropped a short distance down from the top on a previous trip so I knew it would go. In this fork was an alcove which looked to be the most promising yet. I climbed up inside and immediately saw a couple of names in charcoal from 1996 and a cartoonish red painting. I initially thought the pictograph was modern but the more I’ve thought about it, I think it may be legitimately old. It looks as though it was painted using the hand of a small child, probably guided by an adult. There were also a couple of faint white animal figures, one of which I didn’t even notice in person but it stood out later at home when running DStretch to try bringing out some red pigment in a photo. There may have been more of those white figures and I wish I’d known to look more closely for them at the time.

Alcove in yet another fork of Eagle Canyon

Inside the alcove

Writings in the alcove

Legit pictographs?

Made by a small child’s hand?

White figure

Very faint white figure (right)

View up-canyon from the alcove

The rest of the canyon between the alcove and the truck was unremarkable. I was really expecting to see some good, old inscriptions somewhere on the day’s route but there was nothing. I got back and finished the podcast I was listening to, then took a short nap. Through the rest of the afternoon and evening I finished the book I was reading and began a new one. I turned in early again, and again slept quite well in the back of the truck.

Steep canyon near its head

Signs of a trail

Final rocky scramble out the head

Fremont’s mahonia

On Sunday morning before dawn, just as the full moon was disappearing behind a ridge, I drove a couple of miles to the parking area near Swasey Cabin. There I began my hike at sunrise, heading south with a planned loop down one more fork of Eagle Canyon and then around some cliffs at the head of Rod’s Valley. I hiked across a flat and through some pinyons and junipers toward a low but steep pass that would save me about a mile of hiking. Descending the other side of the pass, I began searching the south-facing cliffs. I saw a cairn at the base of a cliff so I climbed up to investigate, but unlike the cairn the previous day, this one didn’t lead me to anything very interesting. I could see a couple of mostly illegible inscriptions and the only thing I could make out were the words “Keyhole Claims.”

Moon setting behind the cliffs

Big moon

Broken Cross towering above Swasey Cabin

Following a fenceline

Small arch

Cans at an old cowboy camp

Almost to the pass

Head of Sinbad viewed from the pass

Henry Mountains on the other side of the pass

Cliffs along the route

Cairn

Keyhole claims inscription

Balancing rock

Next I reached a long, steep, rocky climb that, if passable, would lead me over into Eagle Canyon and make my planned loop hike possible. It was risky to count on this part of the route being navigable but it was the only way to make this loop feasible in a single hike. Otherwise it would have required two separate hikes to hit all the areas I wanted to visit. And, long story short, it didn’t go. I laboriously and successfully climbed up, and had to drop down the other side a short distance until I could see whether the route would work. There were a couple of chutes that might have led to the bottom, but both had big drops below that I wasn’t comfortable descending. I returned back the way I’d come, feeling defeated. I’d wasted nearly two hours on the possible shortcut.

Rugged climb ahead (left of center)

Steep and rocky

Getting closer to the top

View into Eagle Canyon from the top

Too sketchy

Another no-go

View back down the steep route

I wanted to give up but I decided to salvage what I could of the hike. Instead I would just do an out-and-back on what would have been the last leg of the loop. I continued south into the head of Rod’s Valley and, when I got near an old mining track, I saw a few relatively recent signs of people, such as an old fire ring and some piles of petrified wood that somebody had gathered up. I found some shade to sit down in for an early lunch break and then checked out a couple of overhangs that didn’t pan out.

Continuing on

Petrified wood pile

Old dozer track

Fire ring

Big overhang

Rod’s Valley with the Henrys above

Nothin’ to see here

Old deer antler

Another possible overhang

Also a dud

It was close to noon and as I looked at my GPS I decided it would make more sense to access the rest of this leg of the route from another road, on another day. Otherwise it would take another four or five miles round-trip to complete this section and then it would still take a couple of hours to hike back to the truck. So I retraced my route back, bypassing, of course, the side trip up the rough and rocky “shortcut.” As I neared Swasey Cabin I stopped at an alcove that I’d already visited once in 2017, and nearby I found a couple of inscriptions by N.L.J. that I missed the first time. I got back at around 2 PM and started driving home, somewhat disappointed in the trip but glad to have at least satisfied my curiosity about this area. Still, I have those areas which I didn’t explore this time to look forward to on another trip.

Up-canyon back to the pass