IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

Sunday, March 14, 2011

On Sunday I had some stuff I wanted to get done around the house, so I decided to stay close to home and take a short hike to some petroglyphs I haven’t been to before on Palisade Point. The panoramic photo above was taken over the Grand Valley from Palisade Point near the petroglyphs.

Here’s a few photos of the petroglyphs I found. Most of them were of bighorn sheep and elk.

In Command

Palisade Hunting Scene

Palisade Elk 2

Glowing Elk

Palisade Point Sheep

The following two photos are the only petroglyphs I found that are not of an animal (bighorn or elk). The first one is just one concentric circle I found all by itself away from the rest of the panels. I’m not sure what the petroglyphs are in the second photo below, but they sure are different from the rest of them. They were hidden between two panels containing bighorn sheep. Any ideas?

Palisade Circles

Faded Design

Sunday, February 27, 2011

On Sunday the weather forecast called for 60% chance of snow in Moab. The same was true for Grand Junction and Moab on Saturday, so I figured they would be wrong again and I made my way over to Moab. It was a good decision because it turned out to be a perfect day for hiking……I’m glad I didn’t stay home… My destination for the day was to hike the Hidden Valley trail into the Behind the Rocks area to find some petroglyphs. This trail has been on my to-do list for a while, and now I regret not hiking it sooner. Besides being a nice hike, there were a bunch of petroglyphs to be found.

60% Chance of Snow

This is what a 60% chance of snow looks like in Hidden Valley…

Inside Out

One of the more interesting petroglyphs along the way…..a large shield-like figure with a smaller anthropomorph inside.

Line of Sheep Panel

This panel contains the longest and straightest line of sheep I have come across so far.

Moab Fighting Men

These two figures look like they might be fighting.

Breaking Sheep

As usual, there are plenty of bighorn sheep petroglyphs all around.

Cutouts Panel

This line of small anthropomorphs reminds me of paper cutouts.

Sheep Tracks

This bighorn has left some tracks behind.

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Presidents Day | Monday, February 21, 2011

Since I had Presidents Day off ffrom work and the weather was going to be nice, Jackson and I headed to the Moab area to search out some more rock art, plus to just do some general exploring and hiking. We couldn’t have asked for a better day in February and we managed to find quite a bit of rock art.

First up was the ‘Secret Grotto’ Hmm, what’s down in that crack?

Hey, look at that! Rock art hidden down here 🙂

Jackson in the ‘grotto’

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Saturday, February 19, 2011

Bright and early Saturday morning, Amanda and I got up and headed west to the San Rafael Swell. We knew it was probably going to snow on us, but we didn’t realize just how much it was going to snow and for how long. We were meeting our friend Dave at the Rochester Creek Panel at 8:30am, and I gave us what I thought was plenty of time to get there. Unfortunately, once we reached the San Rafael Reef, we hit the snow. The interstate was covered, so driving was slower than I had planned. We finally made it to the Rochester Panel shortly after 9am, and I was expecting to find Dave waiting for us…..however he arrived about 20 minutes later because he got stuck driving slow in the snow much longer than we had, since he was coming from the Salt Lake area.

After he arrived we hiked over to the Rochester Panel in the snow. I pulled my camera out to take some photos and after a few minutes it was completely soaked, so I put it back away and didn’t really get any good photos there on this trip. When we returned back to the Jeep I grabbed my S90 and used that for the remainder of the trip 🙂

Snow Grill

Our next stop was to visit the petroglyphs along the Moore Cutoff Road near the Molen Reef…

Our Jeeps

Snow Snake

Petroglyph Boulder in the Snow

Snow Snake / High Contrast

The Circle

This is an interesting petroglyph on a nearby boulder that we found.

Snake in a Snowstorm

The Molen Reef towers above the large snake petroglyph in the snowstorm.

After finishing up there we bashed through the snow up into Short Canyon and then hiked the rest of the way. The snow was about 5-6″ deep at this point and had not let up on us once. We got soaked, but it was still a lot of fun….especially scrambling up to the rock art 🙂

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Saturday, February 5, 2011

After finishing up in Indian Creek Canyon I continued on down the highway to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. Since all of the 4×4 roads in the park were closed, I figured that I would complete some of the easier and shorter hikes that I always drive by on my way elsewhere. I started out with the Roadside Ruin.

From there I headed over to the Cave Spring Loop. It was a short but fun loop…..and it’s where I found my last rock art of the day….

Cave Spring

Cave Spring Pictographs

Cave Spring Pictograph 1

Cave Spring Pictograph 2

Cave Spring Handprints

After finishing up the loop I headed over and checked out Pothole Point. The potholes were all dry, so there weren’t any good photo ops. My last hike of the day was around the Slickrock Foot Trail. This was another nice hike with some good views in all directions.

View from the Slickrock Trail

Before heading home for the day I ended up hopping on the Lockhart Basin Road and taking it to just under the Needles Overlook before turning around and heading home. Lockart Basin is one of those trails I always mean to complete, but still haven’t yet…..maybe 2011 will be the year I finally do?

By the time I made it home it was a long day, but I had a great time and it was worth it!