While visiting Little Wild Horse Canyon and Goblin Valley State Park I decided to take a quick side trip. I checked out the Temple Wash pictograph panel after hiking the slot canyons. The drive was a quick detour from the road to my Goblin Valley Adventure and the climb to the panel was loads of fun, but a bit tricky!
After following the dirt road for a couple of miles through yet one more majestic rock canyon I arrived at the small parking area. The panel was above the floor of the canyon and at first I wondered how the ancient Indians got up there to draw this ancient art work.
From below the panel looked very large and, unfortunately, I could see even from 30+ feet below that vandals had defaced the pictographs. Wanting a closer look, I decided to scramble up to a narrow rock ledge right below the panels. Getting there was not easy, but it was worth it!
Doing some web searches I found some interesting information about the Temple Wash area and about the pictograph panel. Temple Mountain in Utah’s San Rafael Swell is a historic uranium mining district, active primarily from the early 1900s through the 1950s. The heyday for mining was back in the late 1940s to 1960s. Like much of southeastern Utah, the area is very popular for camping, hiking, ATVs, and exploring, featuring old mining ruins and very scenic desert landscapes.
The seem to be various opinions about the age of the artwork. Some are attributed to the Fremont people who lived in Utah from 100-1300 AD. Others date back to the Archaic period, perhaps as far back as 8000 BC.
The Temple Mountain Wash pictographs, located in Utah’s San Rafael Swell, primarily feature the Barrier Canyon Style, estimated to be roughly 1,000 to 5,000+ years old (roughly 3000 BC–AD 1000). These ancient, dark red, anthropomorphic figures are sometimes accompanied by younger, stylized, Fremont-style petroglyphs (AD 100–1300) painted alongside them, highlighting two distinct periods of artistic creation
Some of the artwork was broken off the canyon wall through the years and what remains has been defaced by people who apparently think it is more important to leave their own mark than to preserve history. One of the features has obviously been struck by a number of bullets. Having said all of that, what remains is very interesting and it was awesome to have gotten so up close and personal.
I took photos from below and video from the rock ledge I managed to get across and think both show what remains of the pictographs pretty well. I got a few images while in the canyon just because the geology was so cool to study.
Crawling and walking along the ledge was quite a challenge, but this Old Hiking Dude managed to do it without getting into trouble!
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