Hidden Valley and Indian Rock Art

Today, after breakfast and coffee, we headed south of Moab a few miles to the Hidden Valley Trail.  This trail headed out from the parking lot straight up the side of the mountain, with a lot of switchbacks and some bouldering (part of the trail is named "Barney Rubble").  At the top of the climb, there is truly a "hidden valley." We walked about a mile across a fairly flat, wide open valley with tall rock walls on each side of it.  It was really pretty and was full of small shrubs and short trees here and there.  At the far end of the valley, the trail went over a pass and headed down the other side.  We followed it until it hit the Moab Rim Trail (a 4x4 Jeep trail) and then turned around and returned to the parking lot.  It was a good 6-mile hike and we were ready for lunch!

We went back to our campsite, ate lunch, and went into the Moab Visitors' Center to see if there were any other trails or sights that we should check out.  On one of the maps in the lobby, we saw something about a canyon that sounded interesting.  When we asked the lady behind the counter about the canyon, she said that it had some good Indian rock art, but that it was about 38 miles from Moab.  We really didn't want to drive that far, so we asked if there were any rock art areas closer and she gave us a brochure that had a driving tour of Moab Rock Art in it.  

Off we went!  We stopped at several sites that are, literally, along the road.  I can't believe that they are just sitting there with no fences or anything around them!  (Of course, some of them have been badly vandalized because they are wide open, but it's pretty neat that you can just walk up and see them at eye level!)  There was one site, however, that was very high up on a cliff (actually inside the Arches National Park property), but along the highway at the edge of Moab.  We thought we would never find the panel of art....we took the wrong trail at first (had to backtrack out of that area), but we kept searching and finally found the right trail.  The trail is marked by cairns (little stacks of rocks) that you have to follow, but there just seemed to be rocks everywhere at first.  We pretty much climbed the wall up to the art panel by finding our own route up, but it was fascinating to see once we got up there.  We did find the cairns to follow coming down (quite a bit easier than our own route), but no harm done!

We spent the entire afternoon checking out the Rock Art sites and didn't get back to eat dinner until 7:30.  After eating, we sat down to work on the blog, pictures and videos.  I'm now caught up with the blog, but the photos/videos aren't on the map yet (as soon as possible, really!)   

Not sure where we are headed tomorrow, but I'll let you know.