Round Trip Distance: 0.03 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 4902 - 4906 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 15 mins.
Trailhead: County Road G mm 0.6
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs
Traveling west from Cortez, Colorado along McElmo Creek on Country Road G there is a large boulder on the shoulder of the road about a half mile before the Utah border. The boulder causes a blind spot on the road but was probably left there because it is actually an archeological site. The boulder, and the rest of its neighbors form a natural rock shelter that was used by the ancients who adorned many of the surfaces with their petroglyphic images.
There is a pullout right before the boulder if you are heading west where you can park out of the way of traffic. This pullout is only 600 feet past the one that serves as the trailhead for the Cannonball Mesa Ruins. If you come to the now closed Ismay Trading Post or the Utah border then you went about a half mile too far.
A lot of the petroglyphs are visible without climbing up into the rock shelter but those are probably only about half of what is there.
From the stacked stones it appears that at one time there was a little wall here and the entrance to the shelter may have been from the north or east sides.
A smaller boulder up within the shelter is covered with a lot of images including a number of concentric circles.
A few more are found on a rock that the boulder that forms the shelters roof is leaning against.
The right side of the main panel is heavily graffitied. This might have been done by some of the local Indian youth that have been using the shelter as a party place judging by the broken liquor bottles. The BLM has mentioned that it was partying youth that vandalized the Rough Canyon panels in Grand Junction, the Courthouse Wash panel in Moab, and the rock art in the Fish Creek Cave in Cedar Mesa.
The left side of the panel is still clear of graffiti and the images show up pretty well.
This disc with spiral rays looks interesting.
A few more images can be found on the top or overhang of the shelter as well as on some of the other surfaces.
On the north, or back, side of the boulder at the base there is a large amount of graffiti that might have a few authentic images mixed in.
