hidden valley petroglyphs

Feeling the need to get to the desert, we drove down after work last Friday, while it was snowing in the higher elevations of the Wasatch mountains and hailing down in our neighborhood.  Things dried up by the time we got to Spanish Fork and traffic was not all that bad.  After rolling into town, we stopped at Woody's for a beer to decompress ... and ran into my aunt and uncle from Minnesota.  We'd known they were in Utah - my uncle had a fishing trip on the upper Green; my aunt had planned on visiting several of Utah's Mighty Five - we just didn't know when they were going to be in Moab.  It was great catching up with them for a couple of hours; we would see them again in SLC Monday afternoon.

Gorgeous morning 

 Milton on the saddle

Since the sun doesn't come up until after 7 a.m. this time of year, we didn't get a real early start Saturday morning.  Trail options are a little limited right now for us: this is high season for Moab so there are a lot more MTBers/jeepers/ATVs out on the trails so we need to   be selective if we want to go off-leash with Milton.  We decided to go back to Hidden Valley to check out the petroglyphs we had missed last time.

This one seems to have a squirrel

We got to the trailhead parking lot around 9:30 a.m.  There were five other vehicles already there but based on the number of hikers we saw, we figure at least two of the cars were MTBers for the Pipeline trail.  We actually timed it perfectly: we only saw two groups of hikers heading out as we were going in, plus one other group just as we got to the petroglyphs.

We have learned that most humanoid figures are not people, 

but representations of insects, plants or seasons

The morning was beautiful with cool, pleasant temperatures, a very light breeze and mostly clear skies.  We let Milton off the leash as soon as we  started going up the rocky ascent.  He stayed pretty close for most of the hike although he was keen on all lizards we saw.  He seems to be a sight hound: he'll chase anything that moves but once a lizard/ground squirrel goes to cover, he loses interest and moves on.

The lines of deer/sheep are my favorites,

possibly denoting the passage of time

Just as we got to the saddle, we stayed right where the trail split.  It climbed a little bit, bringing us to the base of the cliffs where, almost at once, we saw the rock art.  There were hundreds of petroglyphs along the cliff base, with a wide variety of shapes, figures, animals and plants.  We were really able to take out time with them since no one else was up there with us; Milton got a little bored with the pace and scouted out small scurrying things to terrorize.

Chonky boi

We followed the cliffs down, and then kept following the drainage down a little way further towards the Moab Rim trail.  As we looped back around to follow the lightly used jeep road back (we think it doesn't get much wheeled traffic up there because motorized vehicles aren't allowed all the way up to the saddle (thankfully), which preserves Hidden Valley), we saw three groups of hikers perusing the petroglyphs where we had been.

These are all estimated to be 7,000-12,000 years old

Still more people were coming in as we headed out, so our timing had been very good.  It was 12:40 p.m. when we got back to the car.  Milton hung out under a truck in the shade until more dogs and people showed up - then he worked the crowd.  Everyone likes Milton.

Love this one's split hooves!

We got back in time to put together some lunch, clean up, hang out a bit and then walk to Woody's for beers before returning home for dinner.  After dark, we attempted to sit out to star-gaze since it was so clear.  It was also so cold so we didn't last long.

Boys heading out

Hike stats:  5.7 miles; 2.0 m.p.h. moving / 1.7 m.p.h. overall; 3 hours 10 minutes