A gallery of ancient art amid Grand Gulch rocks and ruins

“We’ve got a problem up here!”

Alarm colored the voice of wrangler Bryon Himelick, who was ahead on the trail. I clambered onto a shelf of sandstone to get a better view. Two llamas had slipped their guide ropes, walked off the trail and into a brown puddle. The 3-year-old named Howell was in quicksand up to his panniers.

In seconds, Bryon and the two other guides shucked off their backpacks, raced to the llamas and gently pulled them back to solid ground. It was a reminder of how quickly things can go wrong in the wilderness.

We were on the fourth day of a five-day trek through the Grand Gulch Primitive Area, just east of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in southeast Utah. Grand Gulch is a narrow 52-mile canyon that squiggles southwest across Cedar Mesa to the San Juan River. I was one of six hikers, mostly friends, in search of a camping and hiking adventure, as well as prehistoric rock art and ruins.

Larry Sanford of Buckhorn Llama Co. was trip leader and cook. Our guide was Jay Willian, an ethnobotanist with extensive hiking experience in the Gulch. He had an unerring mental map of the art and habitation sites of the Anasazi — now called Ancestral Puebloans — who lived here centuries ago.

We had reconnoitered on a late-September Sunday at the Recapture Lodge in Bluff, Utah. I had driven from California with three friends, Jean and Joel Gillingwators and Linda Worlow. We met another longtime friend, Katherine Wells from New Mexico. Our band was rounded out by a self-described “rock art junkie” from Boston, Lanny Rubin.

Larry, who had 22 years of wilderness experience behind him, could predict our questions. We would walk five to six miles a day, he told us. Our water would be drawn from standing pools, filtered twice.

“Weather’s iffy,” he said. “Bring rain gear and warm jackets. We’ve had a wet September, which has created a second spring, and the Gulch flooded three weeks ago.”

My worst fears about the sanitary facilities were confirmed when he held up a trowel attached to a red drawstring bag containing toilet paper and baggies for used paper.

After orientation we dined well at the Cow Canyon Trading Post and slept in rustic rooms at the lodge.

Monday morning, we met the eight llamas that would porter our food, clothing, tents and sleeping bags, enabling us to hike with only daypacks and water. All stood about 6 feet tall and evinced the same mellow temperament. But by the end of the week I could distinguish them by color and markings. My favorites were Theo, for his attractive black eye patches, and Trent, who had the most regal bearing. Llamas, even when laden with heavy panniers, walk at the same speed as people.

After an hour’s drive, a truck and van delivered us to the end of a dirt road, and we set off on foot across Cedar Mesa, fragrant with blooming sagebrush and decorated with orange globe mallow, yellow rabbitbrush and white winterfat. At Government Trailhead, one of the Gulch’s few access points, we hiked down switchbacks into Grand Gulch and set up our first camp in the shade of a giant cottonwood tree.

Before dinner we visited the first of many ancestral ruins. Jay led us to a nearby multi-room dwelling, explaining the protocol of “site stewardship”: Don’t climb into rooms or on walls. Don’t touch rock art. (Oils from skin can damage them.). It’s OK to touch pottery shards, but put them back where you found them, and don’t arrange them on a rock as if they were a museum display. Take nothing away, and leave nothing behind.

At this and other alcoves during the next few days we saw masonry rooms, granaries and defensive walls. Ancestral Puebloans inhabited Grand Gulch from 100 to 1300. When they abandoned the area — no one is sure why, though there are theories — they left behind baskets, sandals, pots, textiles, tools, flutes and jewelry.

In the 1890s, cowboy archeologists, such as Richard Wetherill and his brothers, excavated artifacts, many of which ended up in museums in New York and Chicago. Now only a few tantalizing clues remain to show how Ancestral Puebloans lived. At one site, Jay pointed out a broken mano, or grinding stone. At another, corncobs had been used to chink the walls. Soot from ancient fires still blackens the stone ceilings.

Back at camp, lasagna was heating on the Coleman stove — campfires aren’t allowed because of fire danger — and a box of red wine sat on a card table. Camp was kept scrupulously clean. We put each morsel of uneaten food in the trash. “Crumbs attract rodents, and rodents attract rattlesnakes,” Larry explained.

I fell asleep to the sound of wind in the cottonwoods.

Perfect hiking weather

The next two days were glorious, with temperatures in the low 80s. We climbed to several art sites — most of them on narrow ledges high above the valley floor and invisible to the casual hiker.

Rock art falls into two categories, pictographs and petroglyphs, and we saw splendid examples of each. The Big Man panel of pictographs, which are paintings on the rock’s surface, contained red angular human shapes called anthropomorphs, one male and one female. Another, outlined in white, appeared to be a female with a smaller figure inside.

“It should be called the Big Couple panel,” Katherine said.

Petroglyphs are pecked or incised into a layer of dark desert varnish that covers the sandstone in places. The largest panel we saw was “Railroad Tracks,” nicknamed for a prominent design of parallel lines and zigzags. Above it, a jumble of strange, nonrepresentational shapes seemed to make the rock quiver with life.

Motifs at other sites included flute players; lizard men; bighorn sheep; canines; snakes; concentric circles; turkeys; atlatls, which are throwing sticks that predated the bow and arrow; medicine pouches; and strange rake-like designs that may represent rain falling from the sky.

Nearly every site had handprints, usually rendered in red or white pigment. A few were negative images, made by placing the hand against the wall like a stencil and probably blowing paint from the mouth.

Between sites we walked along the streambed, lush with vegetation. We passed pools of water surrounded by animal tracks — raccoon, deer and mountain lion. You could find potsherds and chunks of petrified wood if you wanted to look down, but I preferred looking up at the ever-changing panorama of Cedar Mesa. Most of the layers are sandstone in shades of white, red and brown. Hoodoos in the cap rock looked like fat toadstools. In one narrow, sculpted passage were bathtub-shaped potholes.

Tuesday and Wednesday nights we camped near Deer Canyon on a floodplain that had recently been under water. Grasses were slicked down as if they’d been combed, but yellow wildflowers bloomed despite their flattened foliage. Bryon tied the llamas separately on long ropes and they happily browsed tamarisk and black brush until he fed them their preferred diet — a mixture of oats, corn and alfalfa pellets.

“Llamas are either bred as pets or as pack animals — their personalities are not dual purpose,” Larry said. “They’re attentive and smart, but they’re not touchy-feely.”

I was surprised to learn they work 15 to 20 years after their training, which starts when they are 2. They drink only once a day. They’re favored for packing because their soft feet have little impact.

Camping in the rain

Wednesday night, after a dinner of sliced brisket, beans and coleslaw, Larry entertained us with deep-voiced recitations of cowboy poetry, then sang a romantic rendition of “New Mexico Rain.”

The rain that hit my tent after midnight wasn’t nearly as romantic. It continued sporadically all night, accompanied by brilliant lightning and ear-shattering thunder. But rain is never unwelcome in the arid Southwest and we made the best of it the next morning, hiking about four miles down canyon, crisscrossing the streambed, scrambling up and down cutbanks that were 6 to 12 feet high, at times thrashing through soggy underbrush.

Soon after, we looked up to see Bannister Ruin, framed by pinyon and juniper trees. Named for the wooden railing in front of the dwelling, it sits on an inaccessible ledge. Below is a well-preserved kiva, or underground ceremonial chamber.

In late afternoon we arrived at a camp near the Narrows, where the canyon squeezes to a few feet across. We unfurled wet tents and set them up on a sandy bench amid lavender asters, then set out to a nearby rincon, slogging across hills of clayish mud that added pounds to our boots.

As we studied paintings on burgundy-colored rock faces, we heard a boom that sounded like cannon fire in the distance. We looked at one another and said, simultaneously, “Rock fall!”

Back at camp, things were looking up. Larry had prepared a meal of tamales, Spanish rice and refried beans. The rain stopped. Homemade brownies appeared on the table.

That night I drifted off, listening to the stream, which was now running continuously. At midnight the sound got louder as a flashflood swept through the wash. But by morning the stream had shrunk to a 12-foot-wide rivulet. As it was only inches deep, we forded it easily to visit our last panel of rock art before we left the Gulch. On the way, we startled a covey of large, handsome chukars, sending them scuttling for cover.

Grand Gulch was a vast alfresco art gallery. Of all the ancient images I viewed there, it was the handprints that touched me the most. They looked as though they were made yesterday instead of centuries ago. Gazing at one the size of my own hand, I felt a strong connection to the woman who might have made it. We both seek water and food, shelter and society. We feel the urge to create, to make our mark. I write and take photos; she stood in an alcove, dipped her hand in red paint and pressed it against the stone as if to say, “I am here on Earth.”

---

Kathryn Wilkens is a freelance writer in Upland.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

In the Gulch, not left in the lurch

GETTING THERE:

From LAX, America West, United and Frontier offer connecting service (change of plane) to Grand Junction, Colo., about 120 miles from Moab, Utah. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $335.

WHERE TO STAY:

The Recapture Lodge, 220 E. Main St., Bluff; (435) 672-2281, https://www.recapturelodge.com . This smoke-free motel isn’t fancy, but staff is friendly and the extensive library will help answer geology, history and hiking questions. Doubles from $54.

WHERE TO EAT:

The Cow Canyon Trading Post and Restaurant, Highways 191 and 163, Bluff; (435) 672-2208. The menu changes daily. Home-cooked meals (bean soup flavored with sage, lamb stew, vegetarian lasagna) $8-$16.

LLAMA TRIPS:

Buckhorn Llama Co. Inc., P.O. Box 343, Bluff, UT, or P.O. Box 63, Masonville, CO 80541; (800) 318-9454, (435) 672-2466 or (970) 667-7411; https://www.llamapack.com . Grand Gulch trips from $200 per person a day, including meals, transportation and community camping gear.

Far Out Expeditions, P.O. Box 307 (7th and Mulberry streets), Bluff, UT 84512; (435) 672-2294, https://www.faroutexpeditions.com . Hiking and backpacking trips year-round. A five-day backpack trip into Grand Gulch costs $1,500 per person, including transportation from Bluff, meals and a guide.

TO LEARN MORE:

Grand Gulch Primitive Area, Bureau of Land Management, P.O. Box 7, Monticello, UT 84535; (435) 587-1500 or (435) 587-1532 (for road and trail information), https://www.blm.gov/utah/monticello/cedarmesa.htm .

Utah Travel Council, Capitol Hill/Council Hall, 300 N. State St., Salt Lake City, UT 84114; (800) 882-4386 or (800) 200-1160, https://www.utah.com .

— Kathryn Wilkens