Round Trip Distance: 1.4 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 5907 - 6018 feet
Cellphone: 0-2 bars
Time: 1 hr. 30 mins.
Trailhead: Molen Seep
Fee: none
Attractions: pictographs/petroglyphs
Molen Seep is located on the western edge of the San Rafael Swell near Ferron, Utah where a short hike into a wash leads to a half dozen or more panels of Barrier Canyon Style pictographs as well as some very nice petroglyph panels.
Molen Seep can be reached from either the old dump road, off of UT-10, or the Dutch Flat Road which is the route described here. Begin in Ferron by turning east onto 100 South ,aka the Molen Road, and following it for 3 miles before turning right at the Dutch Flat sign.
At the 2.5 mile point from the Molen Road turn right again onto the road that is on the north side of the fence.
Follow this road, which shows up on some maps as County Road 706, for 3.3 miles to a turnaround that serves as the trailhead. Passenger vehicles should be able to drive the entire distance during dry conditions. Much of the road is adobe clay and should be avoided by all types of vehicles after a soaking rain.
There is a 4wd road that can be followed all the way to the wash but for this post we hiked southwest along the rim. There is no established trail to follow but if you take along a copy of our map route finding should be pretty straight forward.
The rim slopes downhill to the point where the 4wd road reaches the wash which is now shallow enough to simply walk right in without scrambling over the bank.
As you hike up the wash the trail passes through a fence and after a short distance more travels around a bend where some of the pictographs can be spotted on the cliffs up ahead. All of the pictographs and petroglyphs are facing the hiker at this point except some petroglyphs that are located high up on the cliff around the next bend.
The first pictographs on the left are better preserved near the top where it is more shaded from the intense summer sunlight. The photo at the top of this post was taken from this panel so as you can see there is still a lot of detail if you look close enough.
With rainbows on either side and rainbows within rainbows a good name for this panel might be 'Rain Man'.
In this panel the image on the left is a little more unique when compared to other Barrier Canyon sites that we have visited.
Family portrait?
Further down the cliff toward the bend in the wash the rock art transitions to petroglyphs beginning with this very nice panel with quite a few sandals.
Two or three more small panels of petroglyphs can be found grouped together high up on the cliff around the corner. This panel might have an astronomical theme possibly tracking the sun's position or something.
We explored further up the wash until we were below the trailhead area before returning the way we came and following the 4wd road back to the trailhead. It's a safe guess to think if we would have hiked another mile or two through the wash that there would have been more rock art but what we found at Molen Seep are all that we know of that are well known. If you would like to see them for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
