3/20/10 San Rafael Swell

Okay now, this is getting creepy, 3 blog updates in a single month!!??

We took a day trip to the San Rafael Swell on Saturday with Stan, Rae, and their dog Jackie to go hiking, look at Native American rock art, and general sightseeing. The weather was perfect! Enjoy the pix first; whimsical comments and blah are at the bottom of the page...

By the way, if you are viewing this on FaceBook or an email, you must actually visit the blog at http://rllrtolman.blogspot.com to view the image slideshows. For those of you that don't want to click through each slideshow, the "cover" picture is the best of each group.

Black Dragon Canyon:


Hike to Arch Canyon and Petroglyph Canyon:


Lunch at Swinging Bridge:


The day's highlight! The 130 foot long Buckhorn Wash Pictograph Panel:


Outlaw graphitti, dinosaur footprint, and other pix:


3/20/10 San Rafael Swell Statistics:

adventure days=1
vacation days off of work=0
highway miles=332
off-highway miles=51
hiking miles=1.5

We took advantage of a perfect weekend to take a bit of an introductory trip to the Northern San Rafael Swell, having never penetrated it's boundaries before despite driving right past every time we migrate to Moab. The pictures are very self-explanatory so little narration is needed, but that won't stop us from droning on.

We met Stan, Rae, and Jackie at 8:30ish on I-70 at the Hanksville exit and headed West 2 miles to our "exit:" a dirt pull off with a gate on the side of the freeway. We headed up the wash and enjoyed the Black Dragon Pictographs. Stan and Rae parked at the entrance to the wash and walked the last 1/4 mile due to rough road conditions (yes, we offered them a ride). The canyon itself was incredibly beautiful, worthy of a visit even sans the rock art. Though we've seen this panel in pictures before, it's size was startling. I always thought the individual pictures were a lot smaller. To avoid biasing her opinion, we asked Lacey to identify "the praying dog" figure for us without telling her what it is popularly called, she decided it was a goat. She also liked the figure she named "the TV man." So much for Philo T. Farnsworth and his alleged "invention" of TV in the early 20th century, these paintings probably pre-date him by millenia!

We then moved on to a nearby hike to Arch Canyon and Petroglyph Canyon. Again, without the arch (actually a triple arch called Spirit Arch) or the petroglyphs, the canyon was well worth the visit. Their namesakes were an added bonus. Riley found plenty of rocks to throw and plenty of puddles to throw them into, including the ice-cold puddle that he tripped face first into after losing his balance throwing a particularly large rock (unfortunately, the pictures of that episode are on Stan's camera, we will add them to a later post). Lacey found plenty of boulders and small cliffs to climb and scare her mommy to death on. And a snack break left the adults wishing to spend the rest of the day napping on the rocks in the sun, in a body warming, lizard-like fashion. Oh, and Lori found a dead cow! Sorry, no picture of the cow:(

Next we headed into the heart of the swell for a late lunch (3:00ish) at the historic Swinging Bridge (a fairly interesting one-lane wooden suspension bridge built in 1937) over the San Rafael River. We picnicked at a campsite that pretty much obliged us to return with our tent for a night or two at a later date.

We then made our way to the absolutely awe-inspiring Buckhorn Wash Pictograph panel. At 130 feet long, with dozens of intricate figures and scenes (some as big as 6 feet tall), it was a sight to behold. The BLM has done an excellent job at this site with interpretive displays and vandalism removal (apparently it was pretty well graphitti covered at one point). These rock paintings are considered to be between 2000 to 5000 years old (can't scientists agree on anything) and are considered examples of the Barrier Canyon Style of rock art. Lacey really loved the "princess rain angels." Ron enjoyed the one with the dog/snake thingy biting the hand that feeds it. Lori loved them all and filled her dad's camera with images (apparently our cheap camera wasn't good enough for her artistic desires). Riley found some gravel to sit in and throw.

Next was the Mat(t) Warner inscription. Matt (his bandit name, not his real name, which may be part of the reason he didn't know how to spell it right) started his outlaw career at age 14 and did some of his bank and train robbing with Butch Cassidy. After several years of outlawing, he ended up in prison after killing two men. He went clean after prison at the wish of his dying wife and ended up becoming a justice of the peace in Price, UT until he died naturally at age 74. This inscription was also much larger than we had anticipated based on photographs we had previously seen.

The last stop was at a large dinosaur footprint just off the side of the road. It required a bit of a scramble up the rocks to get to it. So Lacey and Ron went "dinosaur hunting" as an advance party. Lacey stayed with the footprint and guarded it while Ron went back to lead the rest of the group to the sighting.

By all accounts, a very long and very fun day! We can't wait to go back with more time. The list of sights we skipped due to time constraints is much longer than the list of sights we actually visited.