3 votes

Potash Road Rock Art Sites

Highway 279, Moab, Utah 84532 USA

Free

Free to Visit

Independent
Not Wheelchair
Accessible

“Petroglyphs from the Formative Period”

From Highway 191 take Utah Scenic Byway 279 (Potash Road) south for 5 miles where you will find an "Indian Writing" interpretive road sign and pull out adjacent to the river. Caution: Watch for highway traffic. Looking 25 to 30 feet up the rock wall on the cliff side of the road you will see petroglyphs from the Formative Period. Look for the line of "paper doll cutouts" and horned anthropomorphs holding shields and abstract images, as well as a wide variety of other animal and abstract images. The panel extends along the road 125 feet. The round holes carved into the sandstone underneath the left side of the petroglyph panel once held the roof poles of a structure which was excavated by archaeologists prior to road construction. The structure and the rock art panel were easily accessible before the talus slope was cleared away to make room for the road. Continue south 200 yards to the next "Indian Writing" sign. You will find the large bear with a hunter at the bear's nose and another over its back. At an interpretive pullout approximately 0.75 miles further along the Utah Scenic Byway 279, you can see Indian rock art and dinosaur tracks. On the north side of the road two spotting tubes indicate the location of three‑toed allosaurus tracks in the Navajo/Kayenta sandstone interface. Binoculars are needed to view the petroglyphs located to the left of the tracks at the base of the cliff. Approximately 7.5 miles farther along Highway 279 is Jug Handle Arch (near the mouth of Long Canyon). Proceed to jug Handle parking area via a dirt road that travels east from the highway. The rock art is located above the parking area to the north.

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Reviewed by
mendonca6

8 Reviews
3 Helpful

July 02, 2022

Rated 5.0

7/2/2022 I loved this little trip to the petroglyphs. The Moab Tour booklet from our RV site explained it so well that we had to go. Be safe on the road, but it was easy to park and cross the road because you have plenty of time to see the cars that come and go. The pullouts to stop at are well marked and there is a sign explaining the history and things not to do to preserve the site. Some things you need to know:
— NORTH is on the side closest to the 191 highway.
— The petroglyphs are not very big from the road, so don’t look for something the size of the examples.
— You will find them about 20 feet from the ground. I spent a great deal of time looking way up to the top, almost deciding to leave. Glad we stayed.
— The easiest to spot was a line of maybe 20 stick figures with arms touching— you know, the kind you first drew as a kid? Once you find anything, the etchings go left to right for more than 100 feet. Some easier to see etchings are around the corner of the south edge of the rock face.
— Lastly, the “Big Bear with Hunters” that are shown on the signage. We were there for a very very long time before realizing we weren’t going to find it. Another car was farther south down the road at our next stop (Don’t miss the 0.3-mile loop at the “Poison Spider Dinosaur Track” trail) and left a bit before we did. On our way out, this man was waving for our vehicle to stop, we flipped a u-turn and went back to find our new friend had located the Big Bear petroglyph! There were many more petroglyphs and some were even larger and easier to see. DIRECTIONS: Continue farther south in your car to the next pullout past the line of paper-doll and other carved petroglyphs. The four-legged bear is pretty big, with two tiny hunters at its top, though my adult daughter didn’t think it looked bear-like.

Hope you love your day as much as we did!

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