Moab, misc–Part 2

Note – this is my third post of the day, so if you typically only read the last one – read all 3!

One day, I did a scenic drive down Utah 128 and saw several National Forest Campgrounds.  Then I headed west on I-70 and went to Sego Canyon.  This is a small canyon with many petroglyphs and pictographs.   They (whoever estimates the age of the rock art) believe this site was used over a period of 3,000 years. 

This panel was mostly pictographs (painted rather than etched/carved). 

The more recent ones are petroglyphs (etched and carved) -

I don’t always read the informational signs, but I am glad I did as I would have missed the pictographs on the above panel.  You can just make out the red characters above and under the top row of petroglyphs.  They are a little easier to see below. 

Then around the corner are much older pictographs.

Another informational sign mentioned that down the road on private property were many more pictographs.  I headed down the road and trespassed for a few minutes.  (it was obvious that many other people had been there before me!)

The ones above were beneath a ledge and had not faded as much as many of the others.

After seeing the rock art, I went dinosaur hunting.  My first stop was Copper Ridge were there are 2 different types of dino footprints.  Unfortunately I was there when the sun was directly overhead, so some of the footprints don’t look as good in pictures as in real life.  For the future, visit locations like this early the morning or late in the afternoon.  The shadows in the footprint make it show up in photos.

 

The footprints above were made by a sauropod, possibly a Camarasaurus, weighing close to 18 tons!!   His foot is just slightly larger than mine.  

The one above is the one that is hard to see, but you can make out 2 toenails or claws,  which are about half the size of my foot.  This was probably an Allosaurus, who was a hunter and could travel up to 30 MPH.   It was interesting looking around thinking about the dinosaurs that roamed around this area. 

Next I went to the Dinosaur Trail at Miller canyon.  Here there are many fossilized dino bones and some great views.

Another hike I did was to Corona Arch.  This was a great hike to probably my favorite arch so far.    There were a couple of very steep sections to the trail, including the section below where they had cut footholes in the rock.  These people were coming down and this is where I learned that it was easier to go down backwards. 

There are 2 arches above.  Corona Arch is the one on the right, Bowtie arch is just to the left of the center of the photo.   While I went under Corona Arch, like the people you can just make out in the above photo,  my favorite view was from around the canyon corner where I found a great rock to enjoy my lunch. 

Closer views of Corona -

and Bowtie - The trailhead sign had a warning that I wasn’t sure what they were talking about.  But it was basically saying that if something happened to you while you were there it was your responsibility.  I wish I had taken a picture of it, because it said something like accident or death.  I later learned that this arch is famous on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B36Lr0Unp4) for videos of people swinging from the arch.  (there are other You Tube videos about Corona, but the one above is the one that started it all – I think!) Just weeks before I was there, someone was killed swinging from a rope that was too long.  In one of the videos I looked at they first swung a weighted backpack to make sure everything was ok.  I don’t think I would swing, but I like the test swing idea!

From Moab, I took a short break from Utah and headed to Grand  Junction, CO.