Over a year ago I figured out the location of some relatively unknown pictographs and I just recently went to see them. There was unusually warm weather in the forecast, with a high of around 90 degrees, so that had me a little nervous. I have better heat tolerance now compared to just a couple of years ago, but this would be my first time testing it out in these temps. Everything turned out fine though, and I was able to handle hiking during the hottest part of the day. I started my hike in the morning and, while I had several other places I wanted to explore in this area, I aimed straight for the pictograph alcove first. However, along the way I spotted a high overhang with some faint white pictographs. I tried scrambling up to get a closer look but I couldn’t find a way up to the ledge. I had to settle for some zoomed-in photos from below.
Deer tracks?
Field of cactus
Faint white pictograph
Faint white pictograph
The few cottonwoods I saw were beginning to green up. I spotted a huge claret cup mound but there were no blooms on it yet. I reached the pictograph alcove and was briefly and mildly alarmed to find the alcove bathed in direct sunlight! It was so bright that standing right in front of the rock art I could barely see it was there, let alone make out any details. I knew which way the alcove faced before going there but I simply didn’t consider the morning sun direction when I planned the trip. I decided to take photos and poke around the alcove anyway, and would simply return later in the afternoon for better lighting. Besides the pictographs there were a few human-modified items lying around, mostly various rocks with abrasions or grooves, including one with some pigment on it, and a stick that had apparently been used as a tool.
Cottonwoods greening up
Large claret cup cactus mound
Alcove in full sunlight
Stick with apparent wear on the end
Grinding marks on a boulder
Pictographs in full sun
Grooves
Grinding stone
Pigment on the underside of a rock
Sandstone scratches
Moving along, I checked out a couple more overhangs. The first had looked promising in the satellite imagery but it appeared to have a relatively recent rockfall inside. It made me think about how much might be lost under that or similar rock piles. The next overhang had a few rough stone structures and a nice metate.
Alcove with relatively recent rockfall
Barefoot human print
Slight overhang with structures
Crude rock structure
Grooves
Metate
Parallel lines
Next I hiked to another alcove that had seemed very promising. It was quite a climb, with a bit of scrambling, and one place where the only way up a cliff band was to walk across a narrow ledge. There wasn’t much exposure though and it was a fun route. Unfortunately this alcove that I’d been so hopeful for turned out to be very sterile. There wasn’t a single structure, modified rock, piece of charcoal, or anything else indicating that humans had ever been there.
Narrow ledge
Claret cup blooms
Sterile alcove
Interesting little rock formation
I’d spent enough time at the other sites that I was sure now that I could return to get photos of the pictographs. The shaded alcove was a nice respite from the heat. I’d already seen photos of the rock art so I knew pretty much what to expect, but still, seeing some of the figures was just mind-boggling. I don’t like to theorize (out loud or in writing) the meaning or interpretations of rock art, ’cause nobody really knows except the original authors, but I do at least try to make sense of it internally sometimes. Some of these just defy any explanation that makes sense to me, though. One thing I wasn’t expecting were some faint white figures among the more visible reds. The large bighorn sheep in particular has a white counterpart mirrored on the other side of the human-like figure in front of it, which I hadn’t noticed before in the photos I’ve seen.
Back in the alcove with better lighting
Rock structure
Legless figure with vertical line body
Main panel
Alcove lighting
Large figure with many attendants
Maybe a flute player?
Rabbit ears
Attendant figures
Turnip
Weird stuff and tiny birds
Hey guys!
Radiating circle and tiny birds
Tiny bird
Large sheep and other figures
Snake guy?
White and red bighorns flanking snake guy
Skinny and fat figures
Growing seed
Freaky figures
What is going on here?
Small figure with a possible weapon
Rock structures
After I’d taken in everything I could at the alcove I was feeling rested up for the hike back to the truck in the afternoon heat. Just below the alcove I noticed a small spring that I hadn’t seen earlier, which must explain why this alcove was inhabited but others nearby weren’t. On the way back to the truck I crossed a drainage that had both human and cougar tracks in it–I certainly wasn’t expecting to see either! I survived the hot sun and enjoyed running the A/C in the truck all the way home, getting back before dark.
Spring near the alcove
Human and small cougar tracks
Indian paintbrush
As I’m sure most people reading this will notice, I’ve left out a lot of details and photos from this hike. It’s never really bothered me that somebody could glean enough details from one of my trip reports so that they could visit a place themselves, but I have a real dislike of the trashy outdoor beta websites that just take that info and publicly disseminate driving directions and GPS coordinates for a special place. I do see a big distinction between saying “Here’s a place I went” versus “Here’s a place you should go and here’s how to get there.” Some people may not see that difference, but I don’t want to contribute to the latter so I’m being relatively secretive for now. I will write another trip report now with full details, while everything is fresh in my memory, and someday I’ll post it here after the inevitable online exposure of this site. There are a lot of interesting details to this story that I hope to someday share.
Photo Gallery: Pokin’ Around