August 18: Getting Behind the Rocks

Back in Moab temporarily on Wednesday, we hiked some of the local canyons, especially the one with the unfortunate name of "Negro Bill Canyon."  It is a beautiful canyon and required us to cross the good-sized creek a dozen times or so.  It ends in a very large natural bridge formed by a waterfall.  The people of Moab are a little embarrassed by the name, but it has stuck because "Bill" was an early settler who lived in the canyon and created the trail.  Oh well, at least there is a "Bluejohn" canyon in the Maze District of Canyonlands.

Thursday we revisited the Hidden Valley trail to the area called "Behind the Rocks."

We were sure there were Anasazi petroglyphs up there that we missed the first time we hiked up there.  We were right.  We discovered that the entire face of the standing rock we first explored is covered by petroglyphs from its western end to its eastern end.

 
You may recall that the climb up the Moab Rim is 600-700 feet and requires a two-mile hike through an alpine meadows to the rock wilderness.  This time we started our hike at 9:00 a.m. in order to avoid the heat of the day.  Unfortunately, we did not quite succeed since we stayed there recording our observations until 1:00 p.m.  And then it took another 90 minutes to climb back down to our car, at which point the temperature in Moab was 101º.  There was no shade the entire time; the rocks and the sand heat up even more; but Janet kept smiling, drinking water, and eating Slim Jims.

Of the hundreds of petroglyphs, many were Anasazi-style anthropomorphs typical of the Moab area.

Some wore a headress, others had a feather.

Many of the figures displayed an active rather than a static pose, which was typical of Barrier Canyon and Fremont rock art.  We liked the two figures that seemed to be dueling.

The dancing figure was animated.

Again, there was a line of anthropomorphs holding hands around America.

And some crazy figures with bird or dinosaur appendages.

There were some unique petroglyphs that we found especially noteworthy.  One was a very old figure, judging by the amount of desert varnish on it.

It was lifesize and reminded us of the "Moab Maiden" we saw earlier.  Perhaps this was a mythological figure for the early Anasazi who inhabited this area.  Another odd glyph was a small "popsicle-like" geometric form with what looked like turtle or similar animal in it.

Puzzling, but well done.

The best petroglyph was this one.

It was large.  The circle may be a "warrior's shield," but why it has a non-anthropomorphic head is puzzling.

I do know that farther south we will encounter human bodies with "duck" heads.  I hope you will offer your own explanations for why there is a human-like figure in the middle of the shield.

I do not think this is a pregnancy image.  It may have scarier implications.

Finally, there were, of course, the numerous images of mountain sheep and other similar fauna.

Body shapes vary, as do antler horns.

Some of the sheep come in "family" groups.

Others seem to be called by shamanic figures,

rather than by Kokopelli.  But our favorite sheep image was a tiny one.  There were five little sheep no more than 2 inches long next to much larger figures.

The whimsical quality of the rock artists was again evident.  Imagine the pleasure of carefully chipping tiny sheep.  It must have been much harder to execute than larger images.