So Scottie and I took a hike into this place on Saturday. It was a great autumn day with blue sky and perfect temps. Calf Creek Falls in the Grand Staircase Escalate National Monument was one of the places where we went on our epic "5 day first date" 17 short months ago. I have been there a couple of times and it is one of my favorite places in Utah. One of the things I like about this canyon is the evidence of pre-puebloan people's in the canyon. About a mile or two into the hike, there is a small grainery so high up on the canyon wall it makes you wonder how anyone could reach it. What conditions would make people go to such extremes to protect their food supply in such a fashion? It's a cool thing to think about for sure.
Just up canyon from the grainery, there is a set of 3 pictographs on the far side of the canyon. The interpretative guide to the canyon points them out for the visitors to this place. I have seen them, and photographed them before. From the trail, they are quite far away, and even with my longest telephoto, lots of copping is needed the isolate the figures. If you look closely, you can see the three figures holding "hands". The figure on the right is also painted over another anthropomorph. There is a smaller figure on the lower right and what looks to be the start of a 5th figure above and to the right of this set. These were most likely the work of the Fremont about 800 years ago. Just before we reached this spot, I saw, on the same side of the wall three very faint images which I mistook for the other the main set of pictographs. I couldn't really tell, and they were in the wrong spot which confused me. I clicked a few frames and didn't think much of it. I wasn't until we sat down to eat dinner that night did I realize what I had really captured.
Modern DSLR's are awesome. They allow us to review our work instantaneously. Under the bright desert sun, I had done this, but missed what I consider the real gem of the artwork in this canyon. As I scrolled around the image, there were in fact, at least two more anthropomorphs in this "new" panel. To their right, two more. So I continued to review the frame zoomed in and found my new favorite set of native american pictographs, a family of very faint bighorn sheep. I had walked by them how many times and have never seen them. One half observation and one half accident. I only found them by keeping my eyes open and using the tools I had at my disposal.
Here are some crops of the above frame. I can't wait to get back and bushwack to that side of the canyon and explore.
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| Two anthropomorphs and a cross |
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| Can you find all 5 big horn sheep? |
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| More anthropomorphs. |
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