Rock Art from Moab to Green River

It was moving day again, now from the Moab and Canyonlands / Island in the Sky area to the other side of the canyon to visit Horeshoe Canyon and Goblin Valley. We turned a 90 minute drive into a 9 hour drive on purpose by visiting a series of rock art sites along the way, using the excellent Canyon Hiking Guide to the Colorado Plateau by Kelsey as our guide. We have the 7th edition of the book.

Our first stop was to Moab Grotto, a small canyon cut in the middle of the wilderness above Arches N.P. and Moab. It was an easy hike to a beautiful setting with two different pictograph sites. In addition to the paintings there’s no end to the worked rock tooling you can scan for in the midden area around the non-grotto site.

Next we worked our way north to Sego Canyon which has one of the more impressive panels we’ve ever seen. You can see from looking at this one why some folks believe this is extraterrestrial art.

On the way from Sego Canyon back towards Green River we traveled up a dirt road to a site you would never image would hold fascinating rock art. This is “split rock” ruin, and you can understand the name from the photo above. This rock was one of a few boulders at the bottom of a dusty, sandy peak; not in a canyon or in a place that looked attractive to reside. Looks like that split rock has been in position for at least 700-800 years or so.

We loved the “Batman” or butterfly motif that we saw a few times in this area.

After checking into our hotel in Green River (laundry and showers), we headed up the Green River for a long off-road expedition to our final site of the day. At the Nefertiti rapids and boat launch we found an amazing panel. Lots of great scenery along the way as well. Looks like a fun river to float.

On this panel was a deer and/or elk procession etched into the varnish. We also found a few pointillist style drawings in the same varnish.