Round Trip Distance: 1.8 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 4235 - 4315 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 1 hr. 30 mins.
Trailhead: Picture Canyon
Fee: none
Attractions: rock art, ruins
Picture Canyon is located near the Colorado/Oklahoma border in the Comanche National Grassland south of Springfield, Colorado. The site includes a developed picnic area from where a short hike leads to some interesting petroglyphs and pictographs that were created on the canyons cliffs and within a few shallow caves. Also in the canyon are some stonewall remains of several structures that were abandoned by early settlers.
The best way to get to the trailhead is by entering 'Picture Canyon-Commanche National Grassland' into your driving app. Depending on the route that you take it will require driving at least 18 miles of maintained gravel roads.
The trail begins near a sign-in register across from the picnic area. Near the register there are 3 kiosks that provide a good orientation before setting out on the short hike.
Less than a half mile from the trailhead the trail comes to a fork at the beginning of a loop. At this point we took the left fork.
The left fork leads over to the side of the canyon where there is a cave that shows some signs of habitation and a few petroglyphs.
The most interesting of these is a long fern leaf like image.
Continuing down the cliff there is an interesting male figure that is holding a spear in each hand.
Horses are among the most common images in Picture Canyon.
This horse that is in a heavily graffitied area has a long arrow laying across its back.
In the same area there are a couple of red pictographs.
This one looks like a javalina.
This might also be a javalina.
There is a slightly leaning anthropomorphic image in this photo that is a little hard to make out amongst all the graffiti. It has a halo like headdress. Its eyes seem to be looking upward.
This small image appears to be holding a shield in one hand and a knife in the other. There are a lot more interesting images that are painstakingly difficult to make out from all the graffiti.
Near the point of the cliffs there is a large pond and a walkway through the fence where you can head over to the west side of the canyon.
The first of several ruins are the remains of a stone house of the ubiquitous 12'x12' dimension required by the Homestead Acts.
Locked behind a cage nearby is what we understand to be a solstice site. We used our zoom lens to peer within the crevice but could only see part of a single petroglyph or grinding groove.
Above another set of ruins is a cave with more pictographs and grinding grooves. On the left is what looks more like a mastodon than anything else. On the right it looks like a large buffalo.
The following slideshow includes quite a few more images of both pictographs and petroglyphs. We arrived at Picture Canyon at the end of a long day. Not prepared to spend the night in the area we didn't have time to do anymore exploring. It would have been interesting to hike a little further and search around the area of the Oklahoma border and at some point to venture over to a canyon to the west and explore around Cave Spring. All that will have to wait for another trip.
As far as what we did find in Picture Canyon, if you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
