IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

May 14-15, 2011

The continuation from Set 1, Set 2 and Set 3 of my Nine Mile Canyon rock art photos…

Four Legs Panel

The figure in the upper right hand corner appears to have 4 legs!

Fading Snake

Amanda spotted this fading white snake along the way.

Wavy Line

A small panel with a wavy line through it.

Spirals & Snakes

Spiral Horned-Snake

One of my favorite horned snakes that we came across this weekend.

Family Panel

The Family Panel, another well known site in Nine Mile.

Devils Playground Sheep

A high panel up in Devils Canyon near the remains of a granary. The large big horn sheep and elk on the left are pretty cool.

Triangle Men

A number of anthropomorphic figures with triangle-shaped torsos.

Basketmaker Panel

Some experts consider the large figure in this panel to be a ‘Basketmaker’ figure.

Franks Circles

The last site we visited near the mouth of North Franks Canyon on Saturday before turning around and heading back to camp for a late dinner….it was starting to get pretty dark out at the last few panels we visited…

Stay tuned for one more set of photos taken on Sunday before we headed home.

May 14-15, 2011

The continuation from Set 1 and Set 2 of my Nine Mile Canyon rock art photos…

Daddy Canyon Petroglyphs

A small panel found a little ways up Daddy Canyon consisting of an anthropomorph and a few bighorn sheep.

Rainbow Elk

After exploring Daddy Canyon we hiked back towards Rasmussen Cave. We found this petroglyph panel along the way with a very detailed elk figure under a rainbow.

No Tresspassing

Of course, no Nine Mile Canyon photo collection is complete without a photo of this vandalized, complete with misspelling, pictograph in Rasmussen Cave….

The Wizard

This small petroglyph panel has a figure in the middle that appears to be wearing a horned headdress and a long flowing cloak.

A Great Hunting Scene

Here’s a closeup of The Great Hunt Panel, probably one of the most famous petroglyph panels found in the Nine Mile Canyon area.

Cottonwood Hunt

A wider view of The Great Hunt Panel.

Spiral Sheep Slab

A couple of petroglyphs next to the Big Buffalo.

Big Buffalo

The Big Buffalo Panel at the confluence of Nine Mile Canyon and Cottonwood Canyon. The panel was glowing in the late afternoon sunlight when I was there for this photo.

Spiral Tail Panel

This panel, near The Great Hunt, features a bighorn sheep that has a large spiral tail.

Centipede Panel

A busy panel across from the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon.

White Snake Alcove

This large alcove, located high above the road, contains a few painted white snakes.

Even more photos from Nine Mile Canyon to come…

May 14-15, 2011

Here’s the continuation from Set 1 of my Nine Mile Canyon rock art photos.

Parallel Snake

A good sized snake petroglyph off all by itself.

Sandhill Crane Site

The famous Sand Hill Crane petroglyph panel.

Horned Shield Site

Another site consisting of a dot matrix, snake and some shield-like figures with horns.

Petroglyph Wall

A canyon wall just covered in petroglyphs.

Outlines

The outlines of two figures, one much larger than the other.

The anthropomorph in the middle of this petroglyph panel found in Daddy Canyon looks like he’s juggling to me.

Daddy Canyon Eagle Man

This figure in Daddy Canyon appears to be wearing a large headdress.

Long Line

A long line of sheep and elk.

Elk on Dots

Mickey Mouse

The petroglyph on the left reminds me of a head with Mickey Mouse ears on…

Still more photos from Nine Mile Canyon to come…

May 14-15, 2011

I’ve wanted to get back to Nine Mile Canyon for quite a while. The last time I was there was in 2007 and I kind of rushed through the canyon on my way elsewhere, so I missed a lot. I had wanted to go to Nine Mile Canyon back in November or December, but the weather prevented me from doing so. Then I planned on going in March, but that never worked out either. Finally, this weekend Amanda and I were able to spend the weekend there searching out many panels of rock art!

We left bright and early on Saturday morning and made a quick stop in Wellington to top off my fuel tank before making our way into the canyon. Our first stop was at the Nine Mile Ranch so that we could setup camp before starting our search. After leaving the ranch we spent the rest of Saturday and much of Sunday searching the canyon for rock art and taking many photos. Unfortunately, many of the rock art panels are located on private property and you can only take photos from the road. Luckily I had my 100-400mm lens with me, so I was able to get decent photos of most of the panels we found. We managed to find well over 50 different rock art sites, many which contained multiple panels….and I’m sure there are a ton more that we missed. I’m looking forward to getting back and finding many more in the future!

Since I took so many photos on this trip, I’m going to break this report up into a few sections with plenty of pictures…so enjoy! I’ll try to keep them in the order I took them.

Long-Necked Sheep Panel

An overview of the Long-Necked Sheep Panel.

Long-Necked Sheep

A close-up look at the Long-Necked Sheep….a very interesting petroglyph.

Ladder Man

An interesting anthromorph that is part of the Long-Necked Sheep Panel.

Another Long-Necked Sheep

The right side of the panel with another long-necked sheep.

Cheer Leaders

These figures remind me of cheer leaders….though they are probably holding shields.

Leading A Horse to Water

A man leading a horse with a rider.

Colorful Faded Figure

Located alone on a boulder near the balanced rock, this anthropomorph is fading away but on a colorful section of the rock.

Another Hunting Scene

Hunting scenes are common in petroglyphs, this one has a figure with a bow and arrow in the middle.

Decorated Torsos

A line of decorated pictographs.

Staring Sheep

More photos to come…

May 6 – 8, 2011

After work on Friday I stopped home to finish loading the Jeep and then made my way to Arches National Park. I would be spending the weekend with a group of photographers from the Rocky Mountain forum on the Nature Photographer’s Network. Bret Edge was nice enough to setup the Spring Fling event for the group in Moab.

After setting up camp just outside of Arches I headed into the park and over to the Windows Section. There were a lot of people wandering around over there, so I decided to keep going and stop at Double Arch, where there was almost no one. There were some clouds in the sky, so I was hoping that as the sun set they might get some color to add to the background behind the arch. That never happened, but just after the sun set, the sky cleared up and I took this photo of the arch in the twilight.

Twilight at Double Arch

When I finished up at Double Arch, I went over to Balanced Rock to meet the rest of the group for a little night photography led by Scott Bacon. While standing around in the parking lot talking and waiting for it to get dark enough out, some more clouds rolled in and it appeared that we wouldn’t be taking any night shots after all. Half of the group decided to leave since the conditions weren’t looking good, but those of us who decided to stay got lucky and the clouds did end up clearing out. I took a few photos of Balanced Rock, but unfortunately I wasn’t getting the focus right. So instead I turned my camera to the right and illuminated the sidewalk with my headlamp. The lights from Moab highlighted the horizon behind the butte in the distance.

Sidewalk to the Stars

If I remember correctly, I think I made it back to camp around midnight. I quickly went to bed, but didn’t sleep very well that night. My alarm went off at 4:30am so I could meet up with the group at Dead Horse Point State Park to shoot the sunrise.

Colorado Bend

Once the sun had come up, a few of us headed over to Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park to catch the last of the good light.

Mesa Arch

Washer Woman

After the light at Mesa Arch was gone, I had a little free time before we would be meeting up at the Moab Library for a little workshop, so I stopped to revisit a few rock art panels.

Supplication Panel

FishMan

After our little workshop we headed over to the park and hung out for a while until it started getting closer to sunset. That’s when we headed back over to Arches and hiked out past the Marching Men and then to Tower Arch. I didn’t get any good photos here, so I have nothing to post…..but once the sun was down I made my way to the Moab Maiden so that I could take a photo of it with some star trails. Here’s my attempt, which I think turned out pretty well (especially the lighting on the petroglyph), but I think I can do better…..I just need to head back any try it again when I have a chance.

Maiden Under the Stars

Then it was back to camp again……it was a long day on less than four hours of sleep. I ended up sleeping in on Sunday instead of trying to catch the sunrise again……but before heading home I went searching for some new rock art. I looked for three different panels, but only managed to find one of them…..

Book Cliffs BCS

I had a great weekend, met some cool new people and learned a lot from some really great photographers 🙂