After spending a day in Eagle Park I headed into the Book Cliffs and camped, spending the chilly night in my truck and waking up to frost covering the insides of the windows. I had coffee and breakfast while things thawed out and then drove toward a canyon I hadn’t been in before. I hiked to some rock art somebody had told me about years earlier, and although I had never seen photos of any of these panels online before, I posted some on Instagram and then heard from two acquaintances who had already been there (one recently enough that I realized I’d seen his footprints). And Randy went there a couple of weeks after I did. The first petroglyph panel was on a boulder with only a light patina, and some of the petroglyphs were weathering away.
Frosty sunrise
Petroglyph boulder
Chevrons up high
Weathered panel
Sheep and circles
Damaged human-like figure
The next panel was on the underside of an angled slab above a nearly horizontal boulder, and the best way to photograph it was to lie on my back with the camera facing up toward the petroglyphs. These figures were more crude but showed some footprints, bighorn sheep, a snake, and an elk or deer.
Sheep and an elk or deer
The third petroglyph site was just awesome. There were some grinding slicks, or metates, or whatever you wanna call ’em, with petroglyphs over the top of them. There were so many interesting and unique figures here: many human figures appearing to depict both adults and children, a very nice shield figure, and lots of fingers and toes.
Petroglyphs and grinding slicks
Big and little figures
Very small human figures
Shield figure
Tall figure
Right side up and upside down
Really interesting glyphs
Cool shield guy
Figures and many toes
The last site I saw was a small petroglyph panel up high. I didn’t really feel like climbing up to it and almost settled for some zoomed-in shots from below, but then I decided not to be lazy and just made the damn climb. I’m not sure it was worth it because it was still difficult to get photos from a good angle. I climbed down and went back to the truck and headed toward home. The canyon had made for a good ending to this trip, which itself was a good trip to end the year on.
High panel
Strange central figure
Photo Gallery: Book Cliffs Rock Art IV