Laws Spring

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 0.5 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 6795 - 6831 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 45 mins.
Trailhead: 35.42682, -112.06548
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs

Laws Spring is located north of Williams, Arizona in the Kaibab National Forest. On the cliffs above the spring, and on the walls of the natural tank, there are quite a few petroglyphs. On this trip there was also a rather big, and rather old looking bear nosing about the spring.

There are quite a few forks in the roads leading to Laws Spring and fortunately most of them have a 'Laws Spring' sign to help keep you from taking a wrong turn. The easiest thing to do is to enter 'Laws Natural Tank' into your driving app and follow the turn-by-turn directions. It will probably offer you 2 or 3 routes from which to choose. We took one route to get there, and for a little variety, a different one to get back.

The trailhead is at the end of a short spur road where there is a loop which is nice if you happen to be pulling a trailer. After parking follow the trail next to the sign-in register. The short route is pretty obvious until it drops over the side of the hill where it splits into multiple routes that mostly lead either to the top, or to the bottom, of the natural tank.

As soon as the trail drops over the first band of the cliffs you can start exploring off to the right to look for petroglyphs. You should start seeing them as soon as you step off of the trail and you can keep finding them along the cliffs for at least 50 feet of so.

The images on this rock might be directions that are saying something like go down to the tank and then head up the canyon to something or other. We thought about trying to follow them but had no idea how far up the canyon to go. It might be fun though if a person had nothing else to do.

Here's an image of what might be a lizard.

So, we're here looking for petroglyphs and watching out for rattlesnakes and surprise, surprise, here comes a bear. And a big one at that. After taking a few pics of the bear I went back to getting photos of the petroglyphs, looking over my shoulder occasionally to see what the bear was up to. It's funny because the bear was also watching me to see what I was going to do. Eventually some other people came along and the bear ran away before they had a chance to see it.

There get to be quite a few images as you scramble along the short cliffs. The image on the right might be a bear standing upright on its hind legs.

This might be a birthing scene. (Or not?) The arrow on the right pointing up at what might be a vulva symbol is interesting.

This looks kind of like a guy with a snake in each hand dancing or something.

If you look close at the guys face you can see 2 eyes and a smiling mouth.

This is what it looks like further down the hill at the tank of Laws Spring. When we were there it was all dried out except in a muddy place on the right where the bear had been pawing around trying to get down to some water. We have seen photos where the tank was full to the top with water.

There is an inscription and a few more petroglyphs on the walls of the tank of Laws Spring. Beneath the row of X's, that is probably a pottery or blanket pattern, there is a long animal figure that is probably meant to represent a mountain lion.

It was a lot of fun looking along the cliffs for petroglyphs. We wanted to explore a little further up the canyon but that was the direction the bear went. I carry a large can of bear spray but that stuff is so wicked that I really hate to use it if it can be helped. At least on a bear that is pretty much minding its own business and isn't being aggressive. 

Laws Spring is fun to poke around if you don't mind driving 20 miles of dirt roads to get there. When we went the roads were in excellent shape so it didn't take long at all. If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.