Round Trip Distance: 0.5 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 4563 - 4611 feet
Cellphone: 1-3 bars
Time: 30 mins.
Trailhead: Highway 313 MM 2.3
Fee: none
Attractions: Petroglyphs
View Highway 313 Petroglyphs in a larger map
The Highway 313 Petroglyph site is about 12 miles from Moab, Utah on Highway 313. The site has two large petroglyph panels and several smaller ones. There isn't much that can be found about this site on the internet and the name Highway 313 is what we are calling the site for lack of a better name. This site is about a half mile east of the better know Intestine Man site.
The best place to park to get off of the road and out of the way is at a pullout on the south side of the road about a quarter mile east of the petroglyphs. Measure 2.3 miles from the Canyonlands/Dead Horse Point turnoff on Highway 191 about 9 miles north of Moab. It would be best to not block the gate so if you park inside the fence be sure to close the gate behind you so any cows don't get out. This is the same parking area that we use for hiking the south fork of Seven Mile Canyon where there are more rock art sites comprised of both pictographs and petroglyphs.
The petroglyphs are on the north side of the highway about a quarter mile further west. The biggest panels are 30 or 40 feet above the elevation of the road.
To get up close enough to take photos without a good zoom lens requires a scramble up the talus slope and sandstone slickrock.
Some of the petroglyphs standout well and are easy to see.
This site also has a bighorn with a large rectangular body like the TV looking ones up the road at the Intestine Man site.
A huge Fremont style trapezoidal figure with all his little cohorts dominates one area of the cliff. Much of the image is very faded. It looks like the a new layer of patina is slowly building up over it. Images like this can be much easier to see once you load your pictures onto a computer than they are looking at them in person.
Before leaving the area there are a few other petroglyphs on the cliff about 40-50 yards further west.
This panel is closer to the ground at about head level. These are pretty faint also. There might be a few other objects here that we didn't highlight on the computer but this is the jist of it.
There are some very nice petroglyphs at this site along Highway 313. Anyone interested in rock art will probably want to investigate this location. To us this site looks like a mixture of Fremont and Archaic style petroglyphs. If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.