Rock art created by ancient Native American cultures consists mostly of petroglyphs (carvings and etchings) and pictographs (paintings).
You can find sites with ancient rock art all over the country, but the greatest concentration of it is in the Southwest, where the arid climate has helped protect this artwork from harsh conditions.
Let’s look at some of the best sites in the American Southwest in hopes of helping you plan a trip of two.
Please help protect and preserve these sites by not touching, vandalizing, or stealing the artwork!
Red Rock Canyon, Nevada
Image Credit:Pinkcandy/Shutterstock.
This spectacular national conservation area just west of Las Vegas is best known for sightseeing, hiking, and rock climbing. However, there is a roadside petroglyph panel in the Willow Springs area, and there are other lesser-known sites that locals mostly keep to themselves.
Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada
Image Credit: Filip Fuxa/Shutterstock.
About an hour’s drive from Las Vegas is this wonderland of fiery red sandstone. An easy, sandy trail takes you past several petroglyph panels and ends at a high pouroff that in wet weather becomes a waterfall.
San Rafael Swell, Utah
Image Credit: Zack Frank/Shutterstock.
Bring a sense of adventure for this sandstone wilderness west of Green River and split by Interstate 70. In many cases, you need high clearance and four-wheel drive to reach rock art panels, but some are accessible by short hikes or easy dirt roads. The best-known sites are Buckhorn Wash, the Head of Sinbad, and Black Dragon Wash.
Sego Canyon, Utah
Image Credit: Abbie Warnock-Matthews/Shutterstock.
About halfway between Green River and the Colorado border, a short drive from I-70 gets you to some roadside art panels. Conspiracy-minded people won’t fail to note that some of the figures look remarkably like movie depictions of aliens.
Nine Mile Canyon, Utah
Image Credit: Kim Lindvall/Shutterstock.
This canyon in north-central Utah seems far from anywhere. Over its 75-mile length, there are more than 60 locations with rock art. In all, there are tens of thousands of images, making this one of the best sites for viewing ancient rock art in the world.
Newspaper Rock, Utah
Image Credit:nikidel/Shutterstock.
This is one of the best-known and most accessible petroglyph sites in the states. It’s literally right beside the road off the spur leading from U.S. 191 to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.
Capitol Reef National Park, Utah
Image Credit: Kasbah/Shutterstock.
In the Fruita area in the heart of the park, a short boardwalk leads to a panel with ancient rock art as well as etchings left behind by early Mormon pioneers who settled here. This area also has a lot of shade from cottonwood trees growing alongside the Fremont River, making it a great place for a picnic and to escape the summer heat.
Horseshoe Canyon, Utah
Image Credit:Abbie Warnock-Matthews/Shutterstock.
It’s a long drive on dirt roads to this unit of Canyonlands National Park, and then you have to do a moderately strenuous hike down into and back out of a canyon, but it’s worth it. There are several sites with rock art, and the last and most famous is the Great Gallery, which many people consider to be the best pictograph site in the country. Bonus: near the start of the trail, there are two fossilized dinosaur tracks.
Dinosaur National Monument, Utah/Colorado
Image Credit: Zack Frank/Shutterstock.
As the name suggests, this area along the Yampa River is mostly about dinosaur fossils. However, just past the main visitation area are some tall cliffs that have spectacular rock art, including a huge petroglyph of a lizard. Or is it a dinosaur?
McDonald Creek Canyon, Colorado
Image Credit: Jim Ekstrand/Shutterstock.
This canyon not far from Grand Junction near the Utah state line isn’t known to many non-locals. Four-wheel drive gets you to a trailhead (if you don’t have that, the hike from the interstate exit to the trailhead isn’t that long) that provides access to beautiful scenery and four panels of petroglyphs and pictographs.
Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona
Image Credit: Andrea Chiozzi/Shutterstock.
Many visitors come here to see the ancient petrified wood and pass through without knowing there are also some nice petroglyph panels in the park. They aren’t hard to find and are definitely worth a stop.
Petroglyph National Monument, New Mexico
Image Credit: EWY Media/Shutterstock.
As you can guess from the name, this is an outstanding place to see petroglyphs. It’s located on the outskirts of Albuquerque and is very easy to get to. There are more than 24,000 petroglyphs here, and there are also hundreds of archeological sites.
Hueco Tanks State Park, Texas
Image Credit: Cavan-Images/Shutterstock.
East of El Paso, this desert park is easy to get to but not exactly easy to visit. To protect rock art, other artifacts, and the fragile ecology, visitation numbers are strictly limited. Getting a day permit usually requires a reservation made months in advance, though you do have the option of paying to go on a guided tour led by local outfitters.
The Two Best Scenic Wonders in Each of the Mountain States
Image Credit: Galyna Andrushko/Shutterstock.
The Mountain States– Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico– have some of the wildest and most rugged landscapes in the United States. Because they’re so big, it can take a lot of time to visit them, so it helps to be able to plan for some specific destinations.
Following are our choices for the top two must-see outdoor locations in each of these seven states.
The Two Best Scenic Wonders in Each of the Mountain States
15 Must-Dos on Your Next Trip to Lake Tahoe
Image Credit: Igor Lushchay/Shutterstock.
Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border makes a lot of lists of the most beautiful places in America. There’s also a lot to do there, with a wide range of outdoor recreation, great dining, resorts, nightlife, and more. If it’s your first time going or if you’re going back, consider adding some of the following places to your itinerary.
Leave a Reply