Rock Art....or...Petroglyphs

We took a side trip one day down the Colorado River south of Moab towards the Potash pits and came across a wall of Rock Art/Rock Panels/Petroglyphs so we stopped to take some photos. The have been carved into the varnished rock face. You can cross the road and look upwards at them...pretty amazing to think that someone carved these from the Formative Period, 2000 to 1300 years ago.

"paper doll" cutouts

Some of th rock gave way thus taking the art with it

This was above us as we viewed.....eeek

Happy tourist

Here's a description:
Potash Road Rock Art
(Utah Scenic Byway 279)

There is no hiking necessary, as the major rock art panels cans be viewed from your car. Caution: Watch for highway traffic. Looking 25 to 30 feet up the rock wall on the cliff side of the road you will see petroglyphs from the Formative Period. Look for the line of "paper doll cutouts" and homed anthropomorphs holding shields and abstract images, as well as a wide variety of other animal and abstract images. The panel extends along the road 125 feet.
Here's a website that explains more about the culture at that time...if you're interested.


http://www.desertusa.com/ind1/ind_new/ind4.html




afterwards, we took Katie for her first dip in a lake! She got SOOOOO muddy....that night was bath night !

Steve and Kim and Katie

Arches National Park 2016

We've been to Arches National Park twice before so this time we avoided the arches themselves (and the endless crowds) and just enjoyed some of the magnificent rock formations instead. This is the best time to visit this area as well as the Fall so there were a LOT of people...and buses full of tourists as well. One day, we turned around at the entrance because there were at least 30 cars in each of the two lanes to get into the park.

As usual...the rock formations are beyond description so I'm going to just put a number of photos in here and, at the end, you'll see a link to the photos we took last year.

See the Arch?

Katie likes the rocks too!

This Kayenta formation had three layers. This one at the bottom, called the Dewer,  is the softest, hence the horizontal erosion.

What odd formations 

One of many Arches in the park

Fiery Furnace area

Balanced rock to the left

Fiery Furnace area

Fiery Furnace area closeup. The white is where the iron has leached out of the rock

Fiery Furnace area

Wiped out after a hike

Resting

Katie's paw prints in the sand

And we saw Mater in the town !

I wanna see, I wanna see !

Nice visit to Arches once again.

Steve, Kim and Katie


Here's a link to the photos we took the last visit:

https://plus.google.com/photos/100376105788369441882/albums/5868396503778844209

...and last year's blog entry...

http://stricksretirement.blogspot.com/2013/04/arches-national-park.html

http://stricksretirement.blogspot.com/2013/04/arches-more-photos.html