Round Trip Distance: 0.2 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 7439 - 7459 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 1 hr.
Trailhead: 37.06612, -105.76798
Fee: none
Attractions: petroglyphs, ruins
The Historic Lobatos Iron Bridge is located about 14.5 miles east of Antonito, Colorado on Road G. Petroglyphs can be found at several places along the Rio Grande River in this area. The first are at the Lobatos Bridge Recreation Site and the next are another mile downstream. This post is for the downstream site where there are several ruins as well as quite a few petroglyphs.
For turn-by-turn directions to the Lobatos Petroglyphs enter 37.06612, -105.76798 into your driving app. From Antonito you will follow Road G, which is a well maintained gravel road, for 14.2 miles and turn right onto the Valley Road.
Follow the Valley Road for 0.9 miles and go left onto the S. Lobatos Bridge River Access Road.
After another 2 tenths of a mile the road comes to a bench above the river where there is a primitive campsite. From here the ruins and petroglyphs are pretty easy to find.
The first ruin is up near the rim of the mesa. Dry stack construction was used for the walls which still stand several feet high.
The first group of petroglyphs, which we labeled as P1, consists of 4 or 5 panels of images on the cliff behind a nice grassy terrace.
The images include little anthro figures, game animals, snakes, and what might be maps of the river showing hunting grounds or other sites.
This looks like a big fat lizard. The only fat lizards in Colorado that I know of are the Horned Lizards that as kids we called Horny Toads.
Here's a few of the other images.
These images are on a boulder right below the terrace.
Further along the cliff is another boulder with some images. An image near the top of this rock looks like a scorpion.
Here there are two deer. One has a circle around it for some reason.
There are a lot more faint images but here are a couple that still show up pretty well.
Below the cliffs is the rubble pile remains of another ruin. When this photo was taken it was a severe drought year for the Rio Grande. During a normal flow the green grassy banks would be under water at this time of year as some locals informed us.
This location was well suited for habitation being above the flood plane of the river. It is also the only place in the area where you can ford the river without having to climb any cliffs. It was probably the main route before the Lobatos Bridge was built. (lobatos is the Spanish word for 'wolf cubs'.)
If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
