Vernal, UT --- Part 2

I spent several hours at the McConkie Ranch in Vernal, admiring the hundreds of petroglyphs.  This Ranch is privately owned, but they allow visitors to hike the trails and view the Indian Etchings.  The Freemont Indians lived in this area from about 1 – 1200 A.D.  Some of the petroglyphs in this area have been called the best in the world.  Many of them are more elaborate than any I have ever seen. 

They do ask for a $2.00 donation to park.  Everything is on the honor system, including drinks they have in the refrigerator.  After visiting, many people have left comments and they tack these up in the welcome shed.

Most of the pictures are petroglyphs (etchings), but a few have paint on them so they may be considered petroglyphs and pictographs (paintings).

While I was there I only saw 3 other groups of people, below is a kid looking at some of the petroglyphs --

Many of these petroglyphs are life-size.

  A couple of web sites called the one above Hula Hoop Men.

The trail was a bit rough in a few very rocky areas, but considering it was the owners of the land who did all the work the trail was nice and the landscape was great.

In several web sites, it mentioned that there is some violence in the petroglyphs at this site.  I didn’t see much, other than some of the men seem to be holding heads, such as Big Foot above and some of them may be holding weapons.  Nobody knows for sure, but a few things I read suggested they might have been head hunters, while other people said that was not the case. 

There were many more petroglyphs on the first trail, but I had to limit the ones I posted.  I headed to the next trail, called the 3 Kings.  In 1980, the 3 Kings panel was on the cover of National Geographic.  There are many petroglyphs on the trail before the 3 Kings.

The trail along the cliff, along with the great scenery --

This looked like a lot of gears on the cliff -

The 3 Kings panel is very high up on a cliff and has some very detailed petroglyphs and/or petroglyphs --

A close-up of the above panel --

This was a great place to visit and I would go again if in the area.   If you are interested in looking at the detail of any of the above, don’t forget you can click on any of the photos to bring up a larger photo.