Feeling vindicated after our second visit to Water Canyon and the White Domes, it was time to see some pictographs!
When visiting rock art and ruin sites, be respectful.
This is most easily done by following the Leave No Trace principles; leaving the place exactly as you found it and taking with you only photographs and memories. In case that is not clear enough for some reason, here are examples of respectful behaviors:
They weren’t far away - in fact, we’d already passed the trail system that would lead us to them a couple times - in our attempt to re-order elements of the trip due to weather- over the last 24 hours. Still, with only 90 minutes of daylight left - and no sense of the road conditions - there was a good chance we’d be finding camp and making t…
Feeling vindicated after our second visit to Water Canyon and the White Domes, it was time to see some pictographs!
When visiting rock art and ruin sites, be respectful.
This is most easily done by following the Leave No Trace principles; leaving the place exactly as you found it and taking with you only photographs and memories. In case that is not clear enough for some reason, here are examples of respectful behaviors:
They weren’t far away - in fact, we’d already passed the trail system that would lead us to them a couple times - in our attempt to re-order elements of the trip due to weather- over the last 24 hours. Still, with only 90 minutes of daylight left - and no sense of the road conditions - there was a good chance we’d be finding camp and making the short trek to the rock art in the morning.
Hell Dive Canyon
Our first stop was to be at Hell Dive Canyon. I’d mapped two routes to this spot based on the research I’d done, but given that the ATV maps listed the shorter route as "EXTREME ROCK CRAWLING - NOT RECOMMENDED," I figured we’d be taking the significantly longer trail as we aired down for the first time on our adventure.
The thing is, with the sun going down, the only way we stood a chance of making it before darkness was to try the 1.75-mile shortcut, saving ourselves from the 9-mile long way ’round.
After a quick conversation with my copilot, we decided to give it a go. After all, what many consider "NOT RECOMMENDED" - even in an ATV - we’ve come to regard as "a little more technical" in the ever-more-capable-than-its-driver Tacoma.
Steeper than it looks, but no problem for the sticky Kenda Klever RTs.
Halfway through the shortcut, I was starting to think we might make it, and @mrs.turbodb was surprised we’d made it as far as we had. "If you’d told me we had to turn around at that first rocky section, I’d have believed you," she said. "And if you’d told me that last one was impassable, I wouldn’t have questioned it," she added.
A little more technical, but we certainly didn’t need the ATV bypass.
Three-quarters of the way through, we’d made it past the point that several trip reports recommended parking in order to continue on foot. It was looking like we’d made a great decision and I may have - stupidly - begun counting our chickens.
And then, we came to a 4-foot slickrock drop into a wash. Bigger than anything we’d run into so far, I was still confident that we could get the Tacoma down, but I figured that getting back out might be a different story. Cursing my unhatched chickens, I hopped out of the cab to survey the remaining quarter mile of the shortcut trail, which climbed steeply out the other side of the wash, before ascending 200 feet to meet up with the main route.
A bypass on the first bit of that climb looked doable, but then, a 5-foot ledge with sand on both the top and bottom stood between us and our escape. There was no way that our nearly 5800lbs beast would have enough traction in the sandy terrain. It was time to backtrack and take the long way ’round.
It was dark when we made camp on the ridge over Hell Dive Canyon.
After a quick dinner of chicken pesto pasta and some tasty lemon cake, we wasted no time in brushing our teeth and climbing up into the tent. It’d been a long couple of days, and knowing we had two more long days ahead of us, we quickly fell asleep to the dim glow of our Kindle readers.
The Following Morning...
I’d planned for us to hike a slot canyon on our third morning of the trip, so we were up well before sunrise in order to make a quick jaunt down to the pictographs before the main hike of the day.
This would be a good place to - once again - acknowledge my over-ambitious trip planning, which I’d appreciate everyone calling "optimism."
As we dropped over the rim of Hell Dive Canyon, the sun was only just beginning to illuminate the horizon.
Following a faint footpath, we worked our way down and along the canyon rim for a bit before reaching an alcove that boasted some of the most colorful pictographs we’ve seen. There were of course the usual white and red figures, but there were also many brilliant green and yellow anthropomorphs that were a real treat to see!
Fingers and toes (left). | Red man running (right).
Perfect feet.
Colorful family.
Green and yellow.
Brilliant boy.
Bat-man. (Perhaps a newer addition?)
As we were ogling the rock art, each of us - at nearly the same time - brought up the idea of metates. With so much color painted onto the walls, grinding of pigments had to have taken place nearby, but we hadn’t seen any indication of pigment preparation as we’d walked nearly the length of the alcove.
Turns out, we’d been so focused on looking for plate-sized rocks with slicks that we’d failed to notice what was right behind us! Here, rabbitbrush would have been ground into yellow pigment, red ochre or mountain mahogany roots to make red, and sumac, yellow ochre, and pinon gum mixed to make black.
Metate mania!
Nearby, a few old corn cobs were nestled on a small ledge.
I have to say, this alcove turned out to be much cooler than I was expecting, and as we headed back to the Tacoma - for a quick breakfast before getting on our way - I was glad we’d persisted in our efforts to find it.
South Indian Canyon
Even as we departed our campsite overlooking Hell Dive Canyon at 9:00am, I still hadn’t internalized the fact that we’d never have time for the main hike I’d planned for the day. And so, as we raced back - the long way ’round - we stopped only a few times for photos.
Up some slickrock in the morning sun.
Getting a little flexy with Chevy 63s and 12" ADS shocks. It’s amazing how this combo can keep the rear tires on the ground.
Working our way down.
Not quite satisfied with the shot I was able to get of the Tacoma "Working our way down" an outcropping of slickrock, I pulled out our flying buddy so I could get a little elevation and background compression in order to pull in the amazing White and Grey Cliffs to the north.
At first, everything was totally normal as it gobbled up GPS signals and lifted into the sky, but as I piloted it backwards away from the truck, all manner of proximity warnings began to sound. This would have been a good thing had there been any obstacles nearby, but with no tree closer than 30 feet - and nothing in the flight path - my little buddy seemed to be going crazy.
This has happened a couple times before in similar situations, which seem to be when the drone is flying directly towards the sun. Best I can tell, this "blinds" the rear sensors, and the best way to solve it is to turn the drone around 180°, shifting avoidance duty to the forward-facing sensors, which seem less prone to blindness. So, that’s what I did. Except this time, as I pushed the drone forward, the alarms continued to sound, it took evasive action, and flew itself into a tree.
Hitting the tree was no problem, but the slow motion tumble through the branches and down to the ground, was a disaster.
Still a bad pilot.
The real bummer was that my 2-year DJI Care warranty - which allows for $99 replacements - expired just two weeks earlier, meaning I might be stuck with a very expensive paperweight. Dejected, I folded everything up the best I could and stowed the drone for the remainder of the trip. It was a problem for another time.
Unsurprisingly, we made much better time over the remainder of the trail to South Indian Canyon; perhaps I should crash the drone any time I’m slowing us down.
Out of the Tacoma and on our way past this sandstone teepee on the trail.
The alcove.
Between the founding of Florence and Venice (ca. 62 B.C. to A.D. 452), a people painted on the cliffs below. The people, a tradition archaeologists call Basketmaker, developed a lifestyle in keeping with this place - a land of rare streams, scant rainfall and marginal farming. They lived above the canyons in mesa-top pit houses, they farmed, hunted, gathered, and painted their narrative on redrock-canvas walls.
These prehistoric people would later become a cultural tradition archaeologists call Virgin Anasazi. Modern puebloans including the Hopi believe they are descendants of these ancient people.
The paintings still speak. Listen.information sign
Square man.
Yellow twins.
Three faces.
Anthropomorphs.
Hidden.
Odd man out.
Though we had places to be - or thought we did - it was impossible for us, by which I mean "me," to ignore the fact that the trail we’d followed to the alcove continued further into the canyon. Mumbling my near-constant excuse that "we’re already here," we pushed another quarter mile or so, past two more spectacular alcoves. Neither of them contained rock art, but they were well worth it in their own ways.
Mossy bottom.
Tiger stripes.
And with that, we concluded our second short hike of the day, climbing back to the Tacoma and passing several groups of UTVers on their way down. This is a popular place, it seems, and one we were lucky to have to ourselves.