Round Trip Distance: 100 feet
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 5091 - 5102 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 15 mins.
Trailhead: CR-3502 mm 3.4
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs
The Lava Ridge Petroglyphs are located west of Kanosh, Utah, about 4 tenths of a mile past the Paxton Corral Site. A couple dozen petroglyphs on basalt boulder can be found at the site within 50 feet of the road.
This overhead map shows the relation between this site and Paxtons Corral. Follow the directions to that site and then continue south through the 4-way intersection for an hundred yards or so and the Lava Ridge site will be on the right at the spot where the road first comes closest to the ridge.
When we took the photos for this post there were a lot of dead tumbleweeds to wade through to get to the petroglyphs. It would have been easy enough to walk around the tumbleweeds but we crunched through them instead.
There are 3 or 4 panels of images on the face of the cliff and 1 large boulder slab just in front with petroglyphs.
Depending on the light most of the images show up well enough.
Several of the geometric designs look like hunting maps or places where there is water which are naturally one and the same. We got the idea from a Paiute once that a circle full of dots represented water so we put that thought together with all the images of bighorn.
The images are old enough that some of them have lichen growing over them.
The boulder has a dozen or so images that all show up pretty well.
There is another geometric design that may or may not be a map. Off to the left is a 3-legged circle with a dot in the middle that we have seen elsewhere.
Other than that the images are mostly various zoomorphs.
There isn't a lot at the Lava Ridge Site in comparison to the other sites in the area but it isn't really out of the way and it is interesting enough to take 10 or 15 minutes to visit. If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
