Round Trip Distance: 0.2 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 5738 - 5814 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 1 hr.
Trailhead: UT-211 mm 3
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs
The Circle Twins panels of petroglyphs are located northwest of Monticello, Utah in the Indian Creek Recreation Area of the Bears Ears National Monument. The site includes multiple large and small panels of images, most of which still show up very well.
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The images are scattered along the cliff across from the 3 mile marker of UT-211 at an elevation that is less than 100 feet higher than the highway. There isn't a good pull off at this point so it might be necessary to walk along the road before climbing up to the petroglyphs.
For this post we are starting with the images on the right. Some of these are higher up on the cliff but noticeable from a distance.
Here you have a bighorn sheep looking across a crack at a figure that is surrounded by small white dots. The dots bring a field of stars to mind that somehow must relate to the figure in their midst.
Two parallel saws on the right with a line of footprints to their left and a couple of opposing rakes to the left of that.
Continuing down the cliff there are petroglyphs on most of the smooth surfaces. Some of the images are old and faint and easy to miss but others show up very well. Most images tend to be small in size.
This looks a little like a 'fight' scene. The figure on the right appears to be wielding a knife and running towards the others.
Several of the panels are on long thin slabs making it hard to get the entire panel in a single photo and still be close enough to show any detail. This appears to be a basketmaker style hunting panel.
We got a little chuckle out of this panel.
Like some of the other panels this one is high enough up that it is apparent that a ladder would have been needed to make them. Here you have 2 figures standing on either side of a ladder where another figure is shown to have climbed up the ladder to make the images. It's almost like a basketmaker styled selfie.
Two figures dancing. Other dancing figures with swept legs can be seen up the road at Shay Canyon where there are a large number of kokopelli style flute players.
These two figures are a little different. They are in a pocket higher up on a section of cliff and easy to miss.
Both images look very similar but whether they are the twins for which the site is named we can't say.
It is very easy to miss even some of the larger panels. Viewed from certain angles the sun might make them practically invisible. There are a lot of nice smaller images that are worth seeing. Many of them are in the slideshow below. If you would like to see them for yourself all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
