Friday, February 17, 2023 was our final weekday in Moab, and unfortunately, Sean got pulled into work, so I spent the day bumming around town and then driving out to Sego Canyon to experience some of the most astonishing Rock Art I’ve ever seen, a gallery of Archaic Barrier Canyon style Pictographs some 4,000 years old.

I woke up at six and then dozed until eight. When I got up and went into our room’s kitchen, poor Sean was already at the dining room table working. He was actually already on a call.

I showered, and when I was done, he was finished with his call, but had a lot to do. We decided that he should focus on work because he had a big presentation to give in Atlanta the following week. I would amuse myself for most of the day. Then later in the afternoon, we’d head up into Arches National Park one last time to check out the few major arches we still hadn’t seen.

First, I went and got us take out lattes and breakfast from Moab Coffee Roasters. Back at the hotel room, I sent a few emails, wrote postcards, and caught up on notes.

Then I headed out to Back of Beyond Books and picked up a book about Bears Ears that I’d been eyeing earlier in the week.

Afterward I went to the Moab Information Center to check out their exhibits.

At the Information Center, I bought a Mountain Bluebird, the souvenir stuffed animal for Canyonlands National Park.

I lunched on leftover pizza with Sean, and then set out on my early afternoon Rock Art adventure.

I cranked the volume up on some Orville Peck in the Jeep and headed north on Highway 191 out of town for the fifty-minute drive north to Sego Canyon.

I passed Arches National Park and kept going toward I-70. In the distance the huge Tavaputs Plateau rose above the Colorado Plateau, creating a massive barrier. My destination was a canyon at the southern edge of the plateau.

I headed east on I-70 for about four miles before exiting the interstate and heading north through the tiny town of Thompson Springs.

Outside of town, the road turned to well-groomed dirt and gravel as I crossed onto Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land and arrived at the small parking area.

There are three panels of Rock Art on the cliff faces on the western side of the canyon. Generally, approached walking north on a muddy little path from the parking area, they move farther back in time, although each panel has some layering of cultures’ adding Rock Art through time.

The first panel is primarily comprised of post-Spanish-contact Ute Petroglyphs and Pictographs. The tipoff is the presence of depictions of horses, reintroduced to North America by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century.

These images are layered over some earlier images. This is also the most heavily vandalized and graffitied panel at Sego Canyon.

The next panel is higher up and faces south/southeast.

Here Hisatsinom (Fremont) Petroglyphs dominate, along with a smattering of Anglo inscriptions from the nineteenth century. The Hisatsinom images date to around 700-1200 CE.

They are joined, mostly above and in shadow, by ghostly images many, many centuries older. These red Pictographs were made by Archaic peoples. They are but a hint of what awaits the visitor around the corner.

I continued around the bend and got my first glimpse of what was next.

This panel, facing east, contains some two-dozen figures, dating back 4,000 years. It is easily the most thrilling panel of Rock Art I’ve seen so far. And I mean “thrilling” literally. The figures are spooky, intriguing, haunting, slightly disturbing. They are literally hair-raising.

Unforgettable.

The human-scale figures stare out from the cliff face just above a natural ledge wide enough for multiple people to stand on. Archeologists think it is possible that this site is some sort of shrine or place of important ceremony.

Unfortunately, here too there has been vandalism.

“Barrier Canyon style” refers to Archaic Rock Art first identified at Horseshoe Canyon (once known as Barrier Canyon). Rock Art of this style is found in what is now eastern Utah and western Colorado. Most Barrier Canyon style Archaic Pictographs are thought to be 1,500-4,000 years old, but there are figurines dating to 7,000 years ago that were created in a similar style.

Turning around, there are additional figures on the eastern cliff face. Life sized near the ground and smaller above. They are gazing across the canyon at the main grouping of figures. These, however, are on private property rather than BLM land.

The figures in the main grouping are also gazing east at a small horizontal arch partway up the opposite wall of the canyon.

While being respectful of the private property boundary, I got a bit closer to the figures on the eastern wall

Some of these had been used for target practice.

After one more good long look at the main grouping, it was time to leave this astonishing place.

I started my drive back to Moab just before 2pm.

When I got back to Sean at the Radcliffe, Juan had sent a new photo of his cat-sitting time with Elsa back in Chicago.

Sean had wrapped up what he needed to do for work, so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon’s daylight stretching our legs up in Arches National Park.