After Moab, we spent a couple of nights in an RV park near Helper, Utah, to revisit a well known Native American rock art area along Nine Mile Canyon Road. This area has been called "the longest art gallery in the world" as rock art panels are found scattered along about 20 miles of this road. Most of the rock art panels are petroglyphs, but pictographs are sometimes seen.
Most of the sites are not protected by barriers so it is up to visitors to respect these historical resources.
Remains of an old barn
Nine Mile Canyon has several locations with these unusual "long-necked sheep" petroglyphs.
An interesting array of symbols
We had forgotten just how spectacular and colorful the canyon's scenery is!
Interesting petroglyph of a man leading a horse with rider
A few strange figures mixed in with more common figures
Not only was this balanced rock neat, but it has a small tree growing on top!
Many panels contain lines of marks or arrays of dots.
We wonder if they record counts of something.
Like many other sites, images of bighorn sheep are predominant.
But these are clearly deer.
The most famous panel in Nine Mile Canyon is this one called "The Great Hunt".
More fantastic scenery
A posing lizard
Another interesting petroglyph panel
This pictograph used to be on private property. The owner asked some Boy Scouts to paint a "No Trespassing" sign and was surprised to see the spelling and that they painted the sign across the pictograph.
There are a few prehistoric Native American structures in the canyon.
This granary would have been hard to spot without a BLM erected sighting tube along the road.
Panels portraying owls are uncommon and this one has two!
A couple of "horned snake" petroglyphs
Colorful lichens growing in very circular colonies
A pretty little patch of cacti
We often saw Mule Deer along the road.
This was a very large herd we saw as we were leaving the canyon.
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