Arizona Strip & Southern Utah Wanderings | Day 6
Thursday, October 11, 2012
After sleeping in a little later on Thursday morning, we had a little breakfast and hiked down the old road past the washout in search of rock art. After looking at the washout closely, I’m pretty sure I could have driven my Jeep across if I really wanted to, but we were more interested in hiking today, so that’s what we did. We managed to find plenty of petroglyphs on the scattered boulders along the way, some were better that others, but they were all fun to discover as we hiked.
This large boulder had a few footprints pecked into the top of it like tracks.
Footprints by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
This was one of the better petroglyph panels we found.
Hands by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
Two atlatls and another duckheaded man.
Atlatl Boulder by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
A large panel on the side of a boulder. There’s certainly no shortage of duckheaded figures around here.
Tracks & Family by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
A closer look at the right side of the panel above.
Family by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
Hiking along the old road on the large bench high above the San Juan River.
Old Road Hiking by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
Two small petroglyphs on a small boulder scattered along the road.
Scattered by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
An interesting anthropomorph pecked into the lighter stripe on this boulder.
The Man in the Stripe by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
Another large panel found near the end of Johns Canyon.
Squiggly Lines by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
I like the different sized sheep in this panel.
Three Sheep by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
Hiking back to our starting point in Johns Canyon as some storm clouds began to blow in.
Hiking Back by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
Can you spot my Jeep in this photo? It sure gives some scale to this impressive canyon.
Spot the Jeep by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
As we were driving back out of Johns Canyon we stopped by this broken petroglyph along the road.
Broken Piece by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
After driving back out from Johns Canyon we headed back to Mexican Hat for some dinner before driving up the Moki Dugway onto Cedar Mesa.
The view over the Valley of the Gods from the top of the Moki Dugway.
Valley of the Gods by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
Before calling it an evening, there was one more destination I wanted to visit. Back in June I managed to find a special ruin that I had been looking for for quite a while. While I was able to get some nice closeup photos of the granary, the light was pretty bad for wider shots, so I knew I would need to return. It looked like this evening would be the perfect opportunity.
A close look at the textures in the tafoni of the ceiling above this small granary. It’s even better when there is reflected light bouncing off the ceiling, like during my previous visit.
Small Granary by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
Here’s the wider shot that I was after. When we first arrived there were no clouds in the direction this photo was taken, however, after patiently waiting for a little bit these nice clouds finally moved into the sky shortly before the sunset. Things couldn’t have worked out much better!
Caprock Ruin by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
When the sun was down, we hiked back to the Jeep and then drove to our desired campsite for the evening. We got our tents setup in the dark and went to bed shortly after. We could tell that it was probably going to storm this evening…and storm it did!
“Small Granary” is gorgeous…the contrasting patterns of the rocks in the perfectly formed granary against the fluted coves and circles of the ceiling rock…oofda! Perfect exposure, outstanding light, dead-on focus, red rock, blue sky, puffy cumulus…what’s not to like? “Cap Rock” is equally outstanding.