Round Trip Distance: 2.8 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 5567 - 5657 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 2 hrs.
Trailhead: 39.96381, -108.76733
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs, pictographs
This post is for several panels of petroglyphs and a panel of pictographs that can be found in the Canyon Pintada area along West Douglas Creek near Rangely, Colorado. Unlike the other Canyon Pintada sites that you can drive right up to these require almost 3 round trip miles of hiking to visit.
To get there drive south from Highway 64, just outside of Rangely, for 9.6 miles and turn left, or east, onto the signed Bench Road. The turnoff is about 8 tenths of a mile past the Canyon Pintada Hoodoo Site.
After passing through the gate on the Bench Road turn left onto a 4WD road that heads back to the north paralleling the highway. If the ground is dry this 4WD road is probably accessible by most highway vehicles. It is only 4 tenths of a mile to the end of the road if you decide to park and begin hiking from the Bench Road.
After parking you will want to find your way across the wash with the goal being to hike along the base of the cliffs that face west toward the highway on the opposite side of the wash. Finding one of the old cattle trails makes crossing the wash pretty easy.
About a quarter mile from where you parked on the other side of the wash you will come to some dry, scattered, sun bleached bones of a dead cow.
Looking up at the cliff above the boneyard you should be able to spot the pictographs. In this photo they are the top circle. The two lower circles are a couple of panels of petroglyphs.
The tall white figure, in that it has both arms and legs, is quite unique, for what we are considering to be a type of Barrier Canyon Style images, as compared to the 2 other more traditional looking carrot men shaped limbless images.
Below and to the left of the pictographs is a petroglyph figure with the same single horn projecting upward from its head as the tall white image. He is holding some sort of crook or staff across his body while a sheep looks on from the right.
The panel on the right shows some sheep and other images. Below a stack of circles there appears to be a man spearing a sheep.
The next panel of petroglyphs is across an even bigger wash to the north. Here once again all you have to do is follow one of the cattle trails down into the wash, then follow the wash down stream through a neat little narrow canyon, and then back out of the wash on the other side so you can once again begin hiking along the base of the cliffs that face west toward the highway. Getting across this larger wash is probably much easier than it appears while you are actually there in person and contemplating the situation.
Near the 3/4 mile point from the first panel there are some petroglyphs that you should be able to easily spot on the cliff above the trail. Getting up to them for a closer look requires scrambling up through the boulders.
Here you will find 3 anthropomorphic figures, a few sheep, and several other images.
