A horned serpent and an anthropomorph from the Transformation Panel in the Ochre Alcove. I have a hard time picking my favorite rock art site (there are just so many cool ones!), but this one would definitely be up near the top of my list!
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Climbing Hands
A pair of white hands reach for the sky within the Canyon Pintado National Historic District in Western Colorado. These are located at the White Hands Site (good name, eh?) which is the first site you will come across when traveling from the south. There are some other pictographs scattered around this site as well.
Carrot Men Panel
Is it Barrier Canyon Style? Is it Fremont? Is is some transitional period in between? I’m not quite sure, but the Carrot Men Panel is very unique! The heads on some of these figures remind me of the pictographs found in Black Dragon Canyon and even Temple Mountain Wash. This is a great site to visit, except when the biting gnats are out in full force like they were today!
A Thousand Year Old Record, Gone in A Day!
Rock art is thought to represent the spiritual expression of people who lived here long ago. The fremont people who lived here from about AD 500 to AD 1100 left symbols on the rock which had tremendous meaning to them. The Shield site remains an example of what vandalism can do to a once beautiful and interesting archaeological site.
Parties, camping, tree cutting and outright deliberate destruction of the rock art have destroyed this site. No scientific knowlege will ever be gained here. No quiet enjoyment is possible. And, no one can feel anything but sorrow while viewing the remains of symbols left by people over a thousand years ago.
It belongs to you.
Time Takes it’s Toll
I received word from my friend Philippe this last weekend that the Robidoux Panel in the Book Cliffs was broken when he visited it at the beginning of his Southwest trip this year, so I just had to go see it for myself. On my way home from Moab on the solstice, I made the short detour and found that part of the panel had indeed broken off and fallen to the ground. I had last visited this panel on December 18, 2010 and it was all in one piece then.
