Lobatos Bridge Petroglyphs

Rating: 
Round Trip Distance: 0.3 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 7442 - 7464 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 30 mins.
Trailhead: Historic Lobatos Iron Bridge
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs, picnic

The Historic Lobatos (wolf cubs) Iron Bridge is located about 14.5 miles east of Antonito, Colorado where County Road G crosses the Rio Grande River. The BLM has constructed a very nice day use area with a developed trail that leads by a few petroglyphs.

For turn-by-turn directions enter Historic Lobatos Iron Bridge into your driving app. From Antonito it is an almost straight shot east on the well maintained Road G. The recreation site comes up right before the road crosses the bridge.

The short trail begins near the restroom and forms a loop that takes it down to the river and back.

The petroglyphs are on the short cliff on the lower part of the trail.

There are maybe a dozen or more images but most of them are too faded to make out.

Several of the small human like figures show up the best.

We took advantage of the Rio Grandes low water level and hiked along the cliffs on the west side of the river.

The few petroglyphs that we found along the river were also very faded.

Near what may have been a small rockshelter we found a freshwater muscle half shell. It was about palm size and would have made a good treat.

The boat ramp, restroom, ramadas, and everything else have all been added since the Google satellite took its current photos of the area.

Several picnic sites are on the bridge end of the trail.

 In a  circle of kiosks there is one that mentions the Mondragon Store which was a trading post from back in the mid 1800's that once stood at this location. Mondragon married a Native woman and had 18 kids.

The Lobatos Bridge seemed to us to be a little remote but when we arrived there was a bus load of nice local ladies that we chatted with about the low water level or the river amongst a few other things. When we left another small group of younger people had shown up that were swimming in one of the deeper pools of water. A nice way to spend a warm summer day in July.

If you would like to see the Lobatos Bridge and petroglyphs for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.