Book Cliffs Rock Art VIII | Friday, August 30, 2024
After spending most of Monday hiking with a friend in the San Rafael Swell, we met up again on Friday morning in the Book Cliffs so we could spend a few hours visiting rock art sites along the Old Trappers’ Trail, which was a historic route in eastern Utah that travelled through the Book Cliffs to the Uinta Basin. While much of this rock art is located on private property and some of it is visible from the public road, my friend had secured us permission from the ranch to access their property so we could get a closer look at these images. After viewing and photographing the rock art in this area for most of the monrning, I returned to the Interstate and continued west to Green River where I grabbed lunch at Ray’s and then headed out to spend the rest of the weekend exploring the High Plateaus of Utah. Here are some photos from my morning along the Old Trappers’ Trail.
Three Faded Shields
There are a lot of pictographs found in this colorful alcove.
Baseball Shield
These ‘horned shield’ figures that are found scattered throughout the Book Cliffs are very fascinating to me.
I’ve heard that some think this may depict a birthing scene.
Petroglyph Boulders
Barrier Canyon Style Pictographs
It was nice to finally get a closer look at these pictographs that are located high above the road. There are a lot of faint and faded details that are hard to see from below.
Waving Guy
This panel has another faint ‘horned shield’ figure and this one also has walking legs.
High Pictographs
I liked this section marker we stumbled across since it looks like they had some leftovers from the 1910’s that they ended up using well into the 1920’s.
The historic Robidoux Inscription from 1837 is a good reminder that we were along the historic route of the Old Trappers’ Trail.
