Round Trip Distance: 0.5 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 7450 - 7561 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 2 hrs.
Trailhead: 43.44306, -109.53980
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs
The Trail Lake Petroglyphs are located in the Torrey Creek Valley south of Dubois, Wyoming. The petroglyphs which are found on hillside boulders are part of the Dinwoody Tradition of fantastic looking human like figures with sometimes intricate designs.
For turn-by-turn directions enter 43.44306, -109.53980 into your driving app. From Dubois you will be directed south on US 26/287 for 3.8 miles where you will turn right onto the Trail Lake Road. There are several good places to park in the area. The place that the coordinates are for is at the 6.5 mile point of the Trail Lake Road.
Having arrived in the valley as it was getting dark we camped near the Glacier Trailhead at the upper end of the Trail Lake Road. They had room there for both tent and RV camping. We will be showing the petroglyphs as we discovered them while driving back down the valley. What we labeled as Trail Lake P5 is a boulder that can be seen from the road below.
The boulder presents good examples of the Dinwoody Tradition. When researching the area we saw the bottom image several times.
Trail Lake P6 is on around the side of the hill to the left. There are trails leading up from the road as well as ones that traverse around the shoulder of the hill.
Trail Lake P7 is a single image of a stylized bird in a cluster of boulders with a small rock shelter. The image is being slowly overgrown with lichen.
Trail Lake P4 is a lichen covered boulder with a half dozen images and a lighter colored boulder in front of it that has a deer like image. The lichen boulder also has 3 or 4 images of big game animals.
This is either Trail Lake P1 or a boulder for which we didn't set a waypoint.
The next boulder is a little higher up on the hillside. It has some really nice images including one that we were especially looking to find.
That image is one called the 'Sheep Eater'. One source that we came across mentioned that there were some local Shoshone that they called the Sheep Eaters. It's a pretty cool image whether that is the case or not.
These images are on the same boulder. Two of them are 6 or 7 foot tall anthros that sometimes look more like monsters.
This is one of the better images on Trail Lake P2. It looks like a big bug.
This image we labeled as the Owl Panel. If you look close at the eyes the one on the left is a very good representation of an owl's eye. The eye on the right is more difficult to discern.
There might be a dozen or more images on various other boulders in this same area that are either faint from wear or overgrown with lichens. We didn't create any waypoints for them but they are easy enough to find.
We moved our Tacoma 3 times in this small area not really knowing before hand what we would find. It turns out that there is a nice trail that connects all of these sites. Not having followed every single side trail we may have missed some of the petroglyphs. Somewhere we read that there are about 175 images in this area although it seems like there are more. The next bunch of boulders that we found are spread out over a greater distance. We are posting them as the Ring Lake Petroglyphs.
If you would like to see them for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
If you would like to see them for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
