Leonard's Basin Petroglyphs

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 12 miles
Difficulty: Strenuous
Elevation: 4806 - 5450 feet
Cellphone: 0-3 bars
Time: 8 hrs. 30 mins.
Trailhead: McCarty 38.73764, -108.26732
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs

The Leonard's Basin Petroglyphs are located in the Dominguez Canyon Wilderness between Delta and Grand Junction, Colorado. Images at the site include numerous horses, big game animals, and a scene of 2 Indians on horseback shooting at some Mexicans. For this post we are reaching Leonard's Basin via a route across McCarty's Bench that is 12 miles round trip, with a little over 2,500 feet of total elevation gain, by following a partially cairned route and various game trails that require advanced hiking skills and route finding abilities

For turn-by-turn directions to the trailhead enter either McCarty Trail or its GPS coordinates 38.73764, -108.26732 into your driving app. After turning off of US-50 onto the Escalante Canyon Road it is 4.8 miles on a well maintained gravel road to the trailhead.

The McCarty Trail climbs steeply away from the trailhead and comes to a large cairn at the 0.4 mile point. From here leave the McCarty trail by taking the right fork.

Follow what continues to look like an old 4WD road for about 800 feet (0.15 mi.) and go left. There is a small cairn at this spot with a few more cairns along the way.

The goal is to eventually reach a spot that we call Falls Crossing that is a shallow spot in an otherwise very deep wash. At this point you are 1.1 miles from the trailhead.

From Falls Crossing the route is very tricky. The object is to get around the point of the cliff above the Falls with as little effort as possible. There is a cairned route if you are able to follow it. Getting too low below the point means arduous climbing in and out of deep washes that will make the hike more brutal than necessary. Once around the point of the cliff the best route continues across McCarty Bench closely following the 5,400 foot contour.

It's helpful while crossing the bench to pick out a large boulder up ahead and hike in a straight line in that direction. At the 1.4 mile point from Falls Crossing, and 2.5 miles from the trailhead, the route comes to some large boulders that we marked on the map as Shelter(ed) Rocks. From here the route starts bending toward the mouth of Palmer Gulch. Not sure how the 'ed' ended up on the name but there are a couple of nice shelters made by the way the rocks are piled.

At present there isn't a good trail leading from Sheltered Rocks to the area overlooking Palmer Gulch but once you get to that point there are game trails that lead down off of the bench that are frequently used by deer and bighorn sheep heading down to the Gunnison River to drink.

Upon reaching Palmer Gulch the object is to head up the wash a few hundred feet and find a trail that leads out of it on the opposite side. As a reference, the first petroglyph site in Palmer Gulch is under the overhang on the left that you can see in this photo.

From Palmer Gulch the route bends around the west side of a prominent butte where it crosses a smaller unnamed gulch. Crossing the unnamed gulch it follows game trails around to the front of the next butte where it comes to a private property fence that prevents hiking on around the butte to the mouth of Leonard's Basin. It just so happens though that there is a steep trail that leads up and over the mountain and crosses a saddle between two highpoints of the butte to the rim of Leonard's Basin.

From the rim of Leonard's Basin there is another steep trail that drops down into the basin where the hiking once more becomes easy. The hike up to the saddle of the butte that brings the route to this point only has 300 feet of elevation gain which is followed by a 300 feet descent into the basin.

Once in Leonard's Basin it is pretty easy to find the petroglyphs. All you have to do is hike along the short cliffs on the right side of the wash and a little before you reach the mouth of the wash there they are on the right beneath an overhang with a large boulder in front of it. The photo above is of the panel that tells about the Indians on horseback shooting at some Mexicans.

 These are most of the other images at the site. Mostly horses and deer but one image looks a lot like a moose.

It took 2 trips to work out the route to Palmer Gulch and 2 more to work out the route to Leonard's Basin. Since we were finding a few cairns in places we probably only repeated what others also have done. In both Palmer Gulch and Leonard's Basin there were tracks left by people that obviously were able to drive there so if you aren't in to long difficult wilderness hikes that is your other option.

If you would like to see the Leonard's Basin Petroglyphs for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.