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Bookin’ It to the Book Cliffs & Uinta Basin

Rock Art of the Book Cliffs XI | Friday – Sunday, May 23-25, 2025

After floating through Desolation Canyon last week I’ve become very interested in spending more time within the canyons of the Tavaputs Plateau from the crest of the Book Cliffs to the depression of the Uinta Basin, and I thought this would be the perfect place to spend this busy holiday weekend away from the more popular areas of southern Utah, just like I had done four years ago. I met up with a friend late on Friday afternoon so we could spend the remainder of the weekend camping, hiking and searching the canyons for rock art. Throughout the weekend we found quite a few petroglyphs and pictographs left by a number of different cultures and time periods from Barrier Canyon Style to Fremont and Historic Ute. We ended up driving a lot of dusty miles on rough roads, saw a lot of wildlife including wild horses and elk, plus we saw a lot of dead cows for some reason. These are some photos of what else we saw along the way…

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Rock Art of Nine Mile Canyon 2025

Saturday & Sunday, February 8-9, 2025

Although we were hoping to make it back into Nine Mile Canyon late last year, that never ended up happening so I figured it would be nice to get back into the canyon early this year and made plans for a weekend visit just a couple of days before my birthday. At least we didn’t wait another five years to return like the last time! Even though the week leading up to this trip had been unseasonably warm across the Colorado Plateau, a cold front had finally passed through the region on Friday night and dropped temperatures back to normal for this time of the year, and we saw early morning temperatures get down into the teens and single digits, but daytime temperatures were comfortable in the 40’s. Diane and I left home early on Saturday morning and then we spent most of the weekend searching for new petroglyphs in Nine Mile Canyon while also stopping to revisit sites we’ve been to before along the way. Here are some photos from our weekend exploring the world’s longest art gallery.

Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country III

Saturday & Sunday, January 25-26, 2025

Even though Diane had just returned home on Wednesday after spending a week-and-a-half in Hawaii at a conference for work and hadn’t even finished unpacking from the trip, she was ready to join me in the much colder temperatures of southern Utah this weekend so we could explore the canyons found around the edges of the Bears Ears National Monument together. We left home early on Saturday morning and then spent the rest of the weekend wandering through some canyons along the Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country in search of ruins and rock art. These are just some photos of what we saw.

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Rock Art of the Book Cliffs X

Saturday & Sunday, January 4-5, 2025

I wanted to start the year off right on the first weekend of 2025, so I met up with a friend on Saturday morning and we spent the rest of the weekend together hiking in canyons that carved through the Book Cliffs in search of petroglyphs and pictographs. We found a lot of new rock art along the way and even stopped to revisit a couple sites that I hadn’t been back to in almost fifteen years which were nice to see again. While Saturday was mostly overcast all day with a couple of short-lived snow showers in the late morning and Sunday was completely clear and sunny, the cool temperatures throughout the weekend were great for hiking in. Here are some photos of the rock art we saw this weekend.

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Rock Art Along the Old Trappers’ Trail

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.

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Bookin’ It to the Book Cliffs & Uinta Basin

Rock Art of Nine Mile Canyon 2025

Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country III

Rock Art of the Book Cliffs X

Rock Art Along the Old Trappers’ Trail