Round Trip Distance: 0.1 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 6099 - 6130 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 15 mins.
Trailhead: 38.94711, -109.07895
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs
Just across the Colorado border into Utah, in an area known as Triangle Mesa, and in the vicinity of the Picture Gallery Ranch, there is a heavily graffitied panel of petroglyphs that are within an hundred feet or so of the Triangle Mesa Road.
The petroglyphs are on public land and can be accessed without trespassing if you begin by parking right after crossing a cattle guard.
For turn-by-turn directions to the unmarked trailhead enter 38.94711, -109.07895 into your driving app. If coming from the direction of Grand Junction, Colorado you will be directed up onto the Colorado National Monument to Glade Park. From there you will continue past Glade Park on DS Road for 21 miles to the Colorado/Utah border where the pavement comes to an end. At this point go to the right on BLM 107, the Triangle Road.
Follow the Triangle Road for 1.3 miles and park after crossing a cattle guard. The petroglyphs are on the point of a cliff on the right. If you continue driving past this point in a short distance you will see a No Trespassing sign where the private property begins again.
From the cattle guard you can angle up the slope to the petroglyphs without ever stepping onto the private property.
The main panel has a lot of graffiti but there are several dozen images that are worth seeing.
The top part of the panel, which is visible from the road below, has 2 large, arm less, anthropomorphic figures. One of them is also missing a head.
A lot of the graffiti misses the images but not all of it.
Much of the main panel seems to have a hunting theme.
This might be a warrior holding a shield.
The outline of a lot of images can be seen that were never finished. To the right of these 2 sheep you can see where the outline of another one was scratched onto the rock but never pecked out.
In places it's hard to tell what all is graffiti and what are unfinished images.
Here's a deer or elk for which there are a lot of in the area on both sides of the border.
There a few more images around on the left side of the cliff that are also heavily graffitied.
We had been by this panel of petroglyphs quite a few times in the past and seen it from the road. Thinking that it was on private property we never ventured up to it for a closer look. Later we purchased a map from the BLM office in Grand Junction that shows what is public land and what isn't. We then looked at the spot on caltopo.com and confirmed that it was actually on public land. The map at the top of this post is from caltopo using their public land feature.
If you would like to see the petroglyphs for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
