UT - McConkie Ranch Petroglyph Trail

McConkie Ranch, privately owned, permits hikers to explore two trails that climb out of Dry Fork Canyon onto the benches of a banded sandstone bluff. Just a twenty minute drive from our basecamp in Vernal, Utah, as soon as I heard about this place I knew I had to go. Koda, who had planned to walk down to the Utah Field House Natural History Museum in town later that morning, was still asleep when I crept out of the hotel room just as the sun was coming up. I said I would come pick them up for lunch around noon, so I had the whole morning to spend at this fabulous site hiking and exploring while also beating the heat.

McConkie Ranch Trail

I climbed up the steep, dry, dusty trail with some huffing and puffing and when I wasn't distracted by the beauty of the view up the canyon, with its green hay fields, small ranches, and horses grazing in their pastures, I was captivated by the very old Utah Juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) forest that twisted and spread out along the trail. Actually a pine, these conifers grow low and out, pressing close to the rocky terrain while massively deep root systems penetrate the bedrock for water. A fifteen foot high tree with a not-so-big-around trunk can be hundreds of years old as they grow very slowly. Utah Juniper offer islands of shade to animals in the heat of the day and lots of forage for browsers and birds.

Utah Juniper forest

Suddenly I looked up, face to face with the yellow-gray sandstone wall. The upward climbing trail stopped and took a hard turn to follow the base of the main ledgestone cliff. For a deliciously cool, shady mile I hiked along the cliff wall gobsmacked by what I saw. I'd read about the petroglyphs at McConkie Ranch while studying our own wonderful Susquehanna River rock art sites in Pennsylvania,  but to actually stand below the ten foot tall carvings in person was breathtaking - and no, it wasn't the altitude!

There were amazing figures, animals, and symbols pecked and incised into the sandstone patina at every turn as well as pictographs in red and faded black paint. Though we can never know what these figures represented, it was clear that they held shamanistic meaning. Figures in animal-type head dress, ceremonial regalia, and displaying body parts that were part beast, part human were stacked up and across broad sandstone panels. 

Some panels seemed to tell stories or map the area. Other panels seemed like fun collections of graffiti from a few thousand years ago whose artists experimented with forms and techniques. The Fremont culture was represented throughout large region that stretched into Colorado, Wyoming, and Nevada but here in Utah their rock art is at its most beautiful - and accessible - near the broad valleys where they grew farmed, hunted, and gathered.  As I hiked along the ledge trail I couldn't help but imagine the valley spread out below me as it might have been farmed two thousand years ago in the same space that is still farmed today. 

I was happy I'd brought my small binoculars along so I could study the cliff walls above me. There I saw more petroglyphs and faded paint patches and it seemed to go on high and higher. My favorite scene was of a hunter and a bear thirty to forty feet above. Spirals, checkerboard designs, celestial images, fanned out across the deep brown desert patina over my head. Standing on a section of steep trail I had to hold on to a nearby juniper to keep my balance as I craned my neck to look up and across. I found elk, bears, birds of prey, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, even songbirds. 

After a mile out, the trail abruptly ended but I lingered there looking up the broad canyon across green fields and cottonwood groves as the sun topped the cliff. I love ancient rock art and this experience at the McConkie Ranch just filled me with so much awe. As I turned to go back I literally ran into a gentleman and his friendly dog on the narrow ledge trail. He invited me to look into URARA (Utah Rock Art Research Association) as he was a member. He told me how the canyon came to be protected, about the McConkie family, and about all the cool field trips he'd been on. "We love to camp and hike together!" (When I returned to the hotel room later that morning, I looked URARA up right away!) 

Cliff Swallow nest and pictograph (paint)

On the way back I paid attention to all the other cool stuff happening along the ledgestone environment - packrat dens, ripple stone from oceans past,  a white streaked wall leading my eyes upward to a high sheltered nest site of some bird of prey. I admired the Utah Juniper, Mormon tea (a type of horsetail rush), Greasewood, and Prickly Pear Cactus. Magpies swooped through the trees below me while Chipping Sparrows foraged beneath the Mountain Mahogany shrubs. 

Ripple stone from a past marine environment 

As I climbed down from the ledge at a corner of stone I observed a single handprint "spray-painted" in silhouette with red paint through a straw. Careful not to touch the pictograph - oils from our own hands can damage the image - I raised my hand to compare a near perfect match. Somehow that little gesture made me feel connected in a deep way to the artist who left his or her mark in this place. The sun was arching now over the cliff formation and I could feel the heat begin to settle in. I stopped for a quick snack and a long drink next to a pretty big Western Fence Lizard that was as curious about me as I was about him. 

Mormon Tea ( Ephedra nevadensis)

As I sat admiring my snack break pal on his shady rock, I looked up again at the vast panels of rock art now above me and sitting still I could see "behind" the obvious and probably younger petroglyphs to layers of older carvings that had re-patinated over time, revealing with close study older and older figures of animals and human forms. More bears, more goats, more swirling birds. I noticed Cliff Swallow nests of this year's nesting pairs situated near very old, almost lost to time rock images of swallows diving and swooping beneath the same overhang. A rayed sun was barely visible beneath the veil of swallows under the dark brown veneer. I had to check myself - was I hallucinating or was there actually multiple layers of petroglyphs that emerged from the walls the harder I stared?

 Prickly Pear Cactus

Back at the parking area (please leave a donation to the McConkie family in the box inside the shed) I took the second trail and spent another hour a mile further into a box canyon where I stood in awe before 'The Three Kings" panel. Of course these were not "kings," no doubt named later by Euro-settlers for whom kings and queens were known titles for important people. My phone conveniently died on the second hike of the morning so I've included a YouTube slideshow someone put together of the box canyon petroglyphs below. 

Dry Fork Canyon valley

Desert Firedot Lichen

Now the sun was beating down on the trail and I knew I had to return to Vernal to track down Koda.  Turning back around I met, again, the URARA guy and his friendly dog. We chatted some more about rock art and he was very interested to learn about the Susquehanna River and its petroglyphs. We exchanged email addresses and I promised to send him information about how to get out to the rock islands by boat. Back to the truck, charge the phone, and meet up with Koda at the field station for lunch was the plan for the rest of the day. Then, off to Colorado for the a afternoon/early evening exploration of the east side of Dinosaur National Monument! 

Western Fence Lizard

Utah Juniper - an old soul

Notes:

Utah Rock Art Research Association (URARA) https://urara.wildapricot.org/

YouTube slideshow below of the Three Kings area box canyon at McConkie Ranch (Rex Nye) as posted to rock art enthusiast gkhikes blog (https://www.gjhikes.com)