Tusher Canyon

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 0.25 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 4461 - 4580 feet
Cellphone: 0-2 bars
Time: 30 mins.
Trailhead: Tusher Wash MM 6.6
Fee: none
Attractions: Petroglyphs, BCS pictographs

Tusher Canyon is located north of Green River, Utah. This post covers several panels of petroglyphs that are found in the canyon as well as a panel of Barrier Canyon Style pictographs.

To get there head north from I-70B in Green River on Hastings Road for 7.5 miles and turn right onto the unmarked BLM 156, Tusher Canyon Road. For turn-by-turn directions you can enter the GPS coordinates of the trailhead '39.10016, -110.02998' into your driving app. During good conditions a careful driver in a highway vehicle can probably make it up Tusher Wash although we recommend something with the clearance of most SUVs. It's always nice to have 4WD although we didn't use it on this trip.

Once you turn onto the Tusher Canyon Road it is another 6 miles up the wash to the BCS pictographs and a half mile past that to the side wash in this photo where you will find petroglyphs on both sides of the wash. The main panels are on the right hand side of the wash where we drew the red circle.

Here there is one large panel in the center with others higher up on the cliff and one to the left on another facet of the rocks surface.

This large elk and 'speaking' bighorn are examples of the many images that invoke a hunting theme.

The anthropomorphic images appear to be of an archaic or Basketmaker style.

The blend of elk and bighorn, both of which can be found living in the area, is interesting. Some of the zoomorphs that you might notice in the slideshow at the end of this post have various grid patterns in their bodies.

This is one of the panels on the west side of the wash that seems to have a hunting and a growing or gathering theme.

Here's an image that's on the west side of the wash that might be BCS.

Not knowing its exact location beforehand we didn't find the BCS panel near the 6 mile point until the drive out due to the direction that it faces.

The faint images are visible from the road but just barely.

Notice the figure with the white face and white 'V' that is holding a red and white snake.

If you look close you can pick out many of the commonly intricate BCS patterns like the thin wavy lines trailing off of the arms of the thin red figure to the right of the tall spear point shaped image. To the left is an interesting figure that has what looks like a snake head and arm.
 

It's too bad that the BCS images are so faded because it must have been a spectacular looking panel when the paint was fresh. We've heard that there are more petroglyphs a little further up Tusher Canyon in either Left Hand Tusher or Right Hand Tusher but we didn't have time enough to search them out on this trip. What we did see was well worth finally getting around to after being on our list for the last 5 - 10 years. If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.