Rock art specialists believe that the Butler Wash petroglyph panels were created by the Basketmaker II people living along the San Juan River. This would place the panels between 500 B.C. and 450 A.D. There may even have been an overlap with the Barrier Canyon culture. I personally believe that the Basketmaker II culture strongly influenced (joined?) the nascent Fremont culture and that the later ancestral Puebloan rock art reflects the vision of a different group of immigrants to the area. (Remember Richard Wetherill's astute deduction of a difference between Basketmakers and Anasazi?)
This panel is located at the mouth of Butler Wash, just above the San Juan River to the south. It is the largest and most important Basketmaker II series of petroglyphs, and other examples of this style are found in almost all the "washes" downstream along both sides of the San Juan River all the way to the Colorado River junction. This includes images and remains found in Grand Gulch that cuts through Cedar Mesa, our next destination.
The panel can usually only be viewed by boaters on the San Juan River, including kayakers and rafting expeditions.
I have a great aversion to small boats, especially those heading down white water. So Janet and I went overland. Technically, this is not hiking but trespassing. The trail runs across a 100-yard stretch of private land just before the main panel, but the land is unoccupied and we tiptoed very quietly and stepped on no plants.
We did pass an ancient Cottonwood that was fenced off in honor of its seniority.
After paying our respects, we continued on to a small Basketmaker panel that served as a sort of teaser.
Unfortunately, the BLM had let weeds grow up around it and most people probably miss it, although the graffiti is a give away. We found some large logs to level the weeds (they cannot be killed anyway) and took some close-ups. You can see the distinctive square shoulders and strange headdress.
The appendage coming off the neck puzzles even the specialists. The figure is clearly male. To the right was a more realistic figure throwing an atlatl (used by Basketmakers before the coming of the bow and arrow).
This suggests to me that the large figures are supernatural figures, not ordinary humans. The atlatl figure is surrounded by a serpent and maize plant.
The Basketmakers were the first culture north of the San Juan River to begin cultivating maize, although not as extensively as the Anasazi.
Once we arrived at the panel, we were greeted again by the BLM (who assumed we were coming by water, not land).
There, about 100 feet above the level ground, was a magnificent panel. Two young lads beat us there.
(Several young families had rafted down the river to this location.
Others were kayaking to the site.
One of the fathers told me that his friends had counseled him not to miss the opportunity to experience the power of the images. Others in the family were picnicking, waiting, I think, for us to stop taking photographs and studying the images.)
The main panel may have been about 150 feet long, but figures continued to appear along a quarter-mile stretch of cliff face.
I have seen many photos of the main panel, but was unprepared for the impact of the actual site. It rivaled the Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon.
The massive figures were more than lifesized.
The layers of symbolic power above their heads speak of greater-than-human control of human destiny.
Their featureless faces contrast with the prominence of hands and legs. Janet is the first person, I believe, to notice that most figures are holding their hands with the backs toward us
--very provocative. Again, there is a clear distinctive between males and females, who have skirts or sanitary coverings without male genitalia. Smaller figures overlay the large ones. We show the same sort of garments and shoulders in the later Vernal Fremont panels far to the north.
And, once again, the strange keyhole-shaped geometric ovals--that we show in the Comb Ridge canyons--turned up.
You may have noticed that some of the figures had animals either decorating their chests or somehow inside them. Notice that this figure has an anthropomorphic figure on or within his chest.
The figures with trapezoidal bodies and large hands look like figures we show months earlier in Shay Canyon and Moab.
And this little guy was almost unnoticed.
Could this be R2D2? Evidence of extraterrestrials? Or an earlier life of George Lucas? Either way, the force
must have been with the Basketmaker artists. It was certainly with us.
Our hike to River House Ruins and the Butler Wash Panel covered about 9 miles. Tired, we drove back the Comb Wash Road. At one point the Jeep bounced hard coming out of one of the water-covered crossings. But I kept my wheels spinning until the road we were on ended at the foot of Comb Ridge. Looking at the mountain a few feet in front of us, we were worried about being lost. Darkness was approaching. Then I realized we were stopped next to the sign for the Hole in the Rock Trail, where I had earlier conversed with the considerate fundamentalist missionary, who had stopped to give us directions. Now I know the direction back. The force was with us after all.
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