Nine Mile Canyon

I've gotten terribly behind on this blog and have been trying to get this post finished for a couple of days now, but here it is.  We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Moab and we took a side trip on our way down on Wednesday.  Nine Mile Canyon, east of Wellington, UT is known for it's pictographs (pictures drawn on rock with pigment), petroglyphs (images carved or pecked into rock) and ruins left by the Fremont Indians who inhabited the area from roughly 300 A.D. to 1300 A.D.  I was under the impression that this would be a short jaunt of 9 miles each way off of the route we usually take to Moab.  I was wrong. 

Justin decided the best way to get there would be to drive to Duchesne and then drive down a dirt road for 37 miles before reaching Nine Mile Canyon.  So we were once again off-roading in our van.  I think our van has probably been driven off road more than most SUVs.   (And Justin wonders why our struts wore out "prematurely.")  Nine Mile Canyon is a misnomer, as the canyon is actually 40 miles long.  When the area was originally surveyed in 1869, the topographer did a 9 mile triangulation drawing, which he named Nine Mile Creek.  So our "short" detour turned into 3 hours, but we did see some cool stuff which I documented.  You can just check out my photos and save yourself the trip, unless they excite you enough to inspire a trip of your own. We skipped out on the hike to see the remains of a Fremont village, because it was cold and we were quickly losing sunlight, so Justin is insisting that we'll be back before too long.  Well enough with the history lesson here are the pictures.

Brynne standing by a panel of petroglyphs.

More petroglyphs of deer or mountain goats.

Another petroglyph.  It looks to me like it's a warrior.

Right in the middle of nowhere is this power plant.  Justin actually thinks it's a natural gas collection facility.We saw a lot of natural gas well heads on our way through Gate canyon, as well as a lot of large tanker trucks.  We were the only non-truck we saw on that dirt road.  It was a very windy canyon with a lot of blind corners, as well as being narrow and as we were approaching about the second or third blind corner I asked Justin whether he thought he ought to sound the horn in case there was truck coming and just as I said it one of the huge tankers rounded the corner right in front of us.  So Justin slowed down and moved over and honked before every other blind corner.  He never would have honked though if that truck hadn't come just then.  I give full credit to my woman's intuition.  

The cliffs are very impressive.  The Fremont

indians apparently built dwellings on some of the

larger ledges.  If you have good eyes you can spot 

stacks of rock where some of their homes or

watch towers used to be. 

"The Great Hunt."

Indian pictographs.

Blythe is studying Utah history this year and recently learned 

about the Fremont Indians.  She is pointing to a pictograph 

that she says means "evening."

Barrett looking very proud of himself for climbing up 

on a large rock.  He is wearing his Cars hat with the fake

headset that he has been wearing non-stop since October.

Some more petroglyphs.  Sadly these have been defaced. 

Barrett employing his usual mode of transportation.