Rock Art | Udink.org

December 28, 2025

Although I’m always hoping to find new-to-me rock art on my hikes in Arches National Park, I haven’t seen any on my last few trips. I figured I’d greatly increase the chances of finding some on this trip by exploring the edge of the Devil’s Garden. I’ve already visited some petroglyphs in both Devil’s Garden and Eagle Park and I knew the area was likely to hold much more. I wasn’t disappointed, either! Although I did find a few petroglyph panels, there was less rock art than I was expecting, and surprisingly there were zero inscriptions. It was cold and breezy as I began my hike just after sunrise. I had four layers on top, including a windbreaker as the outer layer, and I was still cold for much of the day–particularly my hands. It was tedious work, following the outer edge of the fins, peeking into dead-end cracks, and climbing up and down sandy or rocky slopes to stay at the base of the cliffs. I didn’t want to miss anything so I was pretty meticulous about checking every surface I reasonably could for rock art. It was well over an hour before I found anything interesting: a couple of metates, a mano, a broken point, and a lot of lithic scatter.

Early morning light on the fins

Following the base of cliffs above Salt Valley

Deer trail across a sand dune

Nice looking cliffs above a dune

Boulder overhang with a metate inside

Metate under a boulder

Broken point

Mano

Old broken metate

Boulder span

At first I was confused when I started hearing voices, but then I realized it was some hikers who had strayed a short distance off the Devil’s Garden Trail. I’m honestly pretty ignorant about any of the park’s “official” trails or routes and I hadn’t checked beforehand whether my planned route would get very close to the park trail. I went a little farther and found several places where people have leaned dead trees against the cliffs to be able to climb up or down between the Devil’s Garden Trail and the outside of the fins, but none of those spots appeared to be within my ability to climb.

Hikers on the Devil’s Garden Trail

Tree propped against a cliff

A little farther on I found the first petroglyphs of the day. They were all very high up on the wall, with a gap between the wall and some boulders I was standing on, and I suspect either those boulders have subsided farther from the wall or the sand and soil in between has eroded away since the rock art was made. One small panel consisted of a few figures that had been completely repatinated, and that combined with the style suggested to me that they were archaic. The other panel was a bit larger and had less patina over the petroglyphs, and the style appeared sort of Fremont.

Petroglyphs up high (above the broken horizontal line)

Repatinated petroglyphs

Newer petroglyphs

Main panel

Sheep and human figure

Separate sheep(?) figure

I saw a ramp that looked like it might get me up into the fins, but I wasn’t certain until I was standing right below it. It looked like it would go! I hadn’t planned on setting foot on any part of the Devil’s Garden Trail but on a whim I decided to see if I could get there. At the top of the ramp I took a couple of 90-degree turns to the right and climbed the edge of the next small fin, which put me on a flat area that eventually led to Navajo Arch. It was a strange transition, going from feeling almost complete solitude in some rough terrain, to hiking alongside couples (one of which asked me to take photos of them with their phone camera) and families on a wide and flat trail. After seeing Navajo Arch I explored and scrambled around between the nearby fins but didn’t see anything noteworthy.

Easy ramp to Navajo Arch

Boulders below the ramp

Navajo Arch

I returned back to my objective on the outside of the fins and saw a couple of promising patina surfaces that I climbed up to. The first one had a pair of faintly pecked figures and some light scratches. The other had some mostly crude figures and lines.

Nice patina surfaces above

Faintly pecked petroglyphs

Faint scratches

More good patina

Long, snaky figure

Line following a natural sandstone layer

Indistinct figures

Animal figure

As I continued walking along the cliffs I encountered two big rockfalls. The first was the top portion of an overhang that had collapsed, and the second was an entire fin that had fallen over. In Google Earth these had both looked like promising locations to find rock art or relics–the fin was covered in smooth, dark patina–and I hope nothing was lost when the rocks tumbled down. Both rockfalls occurred between March 2020 and October 2022, according to the historical imagery available in Google Earth.

Exploring more cliffs

Collapsed overhang

Exposed juniper roots

Large worked blade

Following the patinated cliffs

Big rockfall

Collapsed fin

View toward the La Sals

I pressed on toward my planned turnaround point at Double O Arch and didn’t see any more rock art. By the time I got there I’d used up much more than half of the available daylight. The terrain had been rougher than I expected and there were so many surfaces and crevices to check along the way. On the return trip I planned to drop down toward Salt Valley to explore the cliff bands well below the Devil’s Garden and I was worried I wouldn’t have time to hit all the spots I wanted to before sundown. I considered just skipping all that and taking the most direct route back to the car but I eventually decided to stick to the plan and explore what I could, and if it did begin to get dark then at least anything I did skip would be closer to the parking area for a future trip.

Pillar

Sand pipe

More fins across a valley

Promising but featureless wall

Double O Arch

I picked up the pace a bit, which was rough on my already-sore legs. I’d gone jogging two days earlier and overdid it a bit and was still feeling the burn in my thighs on this hike. Finally by 2:30 PM it was warm enough that I could shed my windbreaker, but it was still cold enough for the other three layers of clothing I had on. There was one cliff band that my pre-planned return route would have had me go above, but it looked so promising that I stayed low and the risk paid off–there were some petroglyphs down there, and I was able to continue along that level to regain my original route without backtracking. The rest of the hike back was uneventful and I didn’t see much of interest, but I was able to check out all the points of interest that I wanted. One slight overhang had a wooden stake nearby with an aluminum tag attached, which I’ve seen previously in the park, but it didn’t appear to mark anything specific that I could determine. Usually I’d expect to find an archaeological site or something else important nearby but that didn’t seem to be the case. I made it back to the car with daylight to spare, having hiked nearly nine miles, which is more than double the straight-line distance between my starting point and turnaround point and back. This trip had a pretty good payoff, and it was enough to keep me interested in Arches National Park and wanting to go back for more.

Small arch