Round Trip Distance: 0.2 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 6035 - 6045 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 15 mins.
Trailhead: MM 32.4
Fee: none
Attractions: 6th Infantry inscription, petroglyphs
Multiple Ute and Fremont era petroglyphs can be found near mile marker 32.4 of the Nine Mile Canyon Road northeast of Wellington, Utah. Also notable at the site is a 6th Infantry inscription and a number of related images that are somewhat interesting.
For turn by turn directions you can enter 'The Great Hunt Panel' into your driving app and you will be guided both to the area and past all of the other sites along the way. A map, or Nine Mile Canyon brochure, will be helpful for what to watch out for and an GPS with our GPX file loaded will assist in pinpointing each site exactly. Even our file doesn't include everything there is to see but it is good to start with.
As you get near the site the road travels around a bend where there is a ranch on the right. A little further down the road there is a place to pull over on the left. A few petroglyphs can be spotted from the road all along the cliffs.
This might be a soldier but the hat makes him look more like a settler.
There is a faded outline of an image in front of the horse that is blotched out. The horse appears to have a saddle so it would belong to either a settler or the calvary.
We may assume that this inscription is dated February 9, 1886. The snow can get pretty deep up here at that time of year. There is actually quite a bit of information about the militaries history in the area. The road was built by the 9th Calvary, as the brochure states, to accommodate the settlers and freighters traveling between Price and the Uintah Basin. The buffalo soldiers probably traveled through here on an excursion to guard the Indian agents in 1898 that were carrying $30,000 that they were worried Butch Cassidy was going to try to steal. The buffalo soldiers met them in Price and escorted them up to Fort Duchesne. (Buffalo soldiers was a term given to a company of black troops by the Utes that may have started out as derogatory term but later became a badge of honor.) Those soldiers were part of the 9th Cavalry and this inscription is of the 6th Infantry who also had a lot of history in Utah.
Ute petroglyph.
When we first saw this we were thinking 'no way' because 1869 was when the Powell Expedition explored the area but on closer inspection it turns out to be 1889.
A few more petroglyphs in the same general area. None that seem to be of especial interest but we may have missed a few.
Somewhat of a 'lobed circle'.
