June 29, 2003: Western Trip, Day 9
	June 27, 2003: Western Trip, Day 7
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Today we will begin heading for home, but since we only need to be in far southeast Colorado by nightfall to make tomorrow's drive reasonable, we will have time to stop and see a few things on the way.

The Sego Canyon Petroglyphs

We were up and gone from the National 9 Inn at about ten, and on our way back to Dallas.

Getting to the Sego Canyon Petroglyphs

To get to Sego Canyon, we went back from Wellington the way we had come, traveling down US 191/6 to Interstate 70. Then we went east past Green River and Crescent Junction to the turnoff for the small town of Thompson, Utah.

Once off the Interstate, we took Main Street through the little town of Thompson, and then north out of town on Sego Canyon Road. it was about five miles to the parking area for the petroglyphs.

The sandstone cliffs here at Sego Canyon have become an outdoor art gallery, or perhaps a holy place. Native Americans painted and chipped their religious visions, clan symbols or records of events onto the cliffs. There are three distinct styles present which represent three separate cultures adn time periods within the past several thousand years. This site is on the National Register of Historic Places and is undergoing long-term conservation and preservation treatment.

As we came north on Sego Canyon Road from Thompson, we found the parking area for the petroglyphs on our left. There was just an information kiosk and some diagrams of the trails, along with one or two other cars. So we borrowed one of the little trail maps (from which much of the information below was taken), and headed off to walk on the pathways around the 50-foot cliffs where the petroglyphs and other rock art were found.

The trail map showed us what to look for, and we did find representative petroglyphs from the three main cultures that have left their mark in this area (not counting the modern graffiti, an example of which you'll see on one of our photographs). I think the best introduction would be to show those three examples, and then follow that with some of the additional pictures that we took.

Some of the most spectacular examples of rock art in the Southwest are attributed to Archaic people. These people were nomads, hunting large and small game animals, collecting and processing wild plants. They did not build permanent habitation structures, but lived in caves and in small brush shelters built in the open. They occupied this area from approximately 8,000 years ago until the introduction of corn agriculture about 2,000 years ago.

This rock art, the Barrier Canyon Style usually consists of larger than life-size anthropomorphic (manlike) forms. The identifying characteristic of these figures is hollowed eyes or missing eyes, the frequent absence of arms and legs, and the presence of vertical body markings. This panel is characterized by at least 19 painted anthropomorphs with bug-eyes, antennae, earrings, snakes in hand, and legless torsos. The "ghostlike" images may represent shamanistic art associated with ritual activities of the Archaic people.

The Fremont culture thrived from about 600AD to 1250AD and was contemporary with the Anasazi culture of the Four Corners area. It is distinguished by its remarkable rock art. Like the Anasazi, the Fremont planted corn and lived in pithouses and surface stone structures. They constructed a distinctive basketry and made pottery. They had a complex social structure, as is illustrated in their rock art, and were highly adaptive to the extremes of their environment.

At the top of the panel are the oldest figures. These are the line of large, red-painted figures with the rectangular bodies and small heads, which are similar to the Anasazi Basketmaker style. Superimposed on the older, painted figures is a line of carved (pecked) human figures. Typically, these have trapezoids for the head and body. The most recent Fremont period is also represented by superimposed carvings. They are the deeply grooved outlines of two life-sized human figures with collars and waistbands, and the associated mountain sheep and abstract elements. This last group is representative of the Classic Fremont style.

The Historic Ute rock art is identified and dated by the horse and rider figures. Horses were introduced to North America by the Spanish in the sixteenth century. Other figures or elements, painted in red and white on the panel include a white bison, a human figure with leggings, several large human figures, and large circles believed to be shields.

The Ute people practiced a hunting and gathering lifeway. They used the bow and arrow, made baskets and brownware pottery, and lived in brush wickiups and tipis. The No-tah (Ute people) lived freely throughout western Colorado and eastern Utah until about 1880, when they were forced onto reservations.

Below are thumbnails for some of the other pictures we took of petroglyphs here in Sego Canyon; just click on them to view the full-size pictures:

There was a ghost town a couple of miles further up the road, but we decided to forego it, and make some other stops as we began winding our way towards home. As we were going back through Thompson, which seemed kind of like a ghost town itself, we stopped briefly to take a picture of the Thompson Fire Department, which happened to be next door to the abandoned Thompson Motel. Then we were back on the Interstate heading East.

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We Visit Palisade, Colorado

We got on Interstate 70 and headed east. Fifty-five miles later, we passed into Colorado, and another 50 miles after that we were passing through Grand Junction. We saw signs for two wineries in Palisade, a small town east of Grand Junction, so we thought that we would stop and get some bottles of wine- some for Fred and some as a gift for Prudence.

There were actually two wineries just off the highway- the Grande River Vineyards and the St. Kathryn Cellars. They must have been associated with each other, for the store and tasting room carried both labels. Fred found a nice Merlot for Prudence and a couple of other interesting bottles for ourselves. Just after purchasing the wine, we walked outside where I got a picture of Fred in one of the vineyards.

Outside, near the parking area, we found two interesting sculptures, both made of metal parts like screws and nails and gears and such. One, untitled, was of a rooster. The other is actually fairly well-known, apparently, and was titled "Rusty's Dream". Of course, if you look at the picture the title will have obvious significance. You can see another, perhaps better, view of this sculpture here, and when you got real close to the dog, you could see it was made of nuts and bolts.

Just for fun, I Googled the title of the piece and found a number of references to it. Apparently, it has been moved from its position at the Vineyard downtown to adorn the front of a bank. We never would have run across it there, for we just got back on the Interstate and continued east.

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Going Through Hoosier Pass, CO

From Palisade, we are pretty much heading home non-stop.

To get home to Dallas, we need to get down to the point where I-25 goes from Colorado to New Mexico. If you draw a triangle with that point, Denver and our location in Palisade as the vertices, we will generally need to traverse the hypotenuse of that generally right triangle. The closest route approximating the hypotenuse would take us south from Grand Junction and then on a zig-zag route through the Rockies all the way to the Colorado-New Mexico border. We have done most of this route before, and it would be relatively slow, although very scenic.

A better compromise is to head generally east on I-70 to the Vail-Breckenridge area, and then go southeast from there on a more direct highway through the Rockies. This would bring us to I-25 near Pueblo, Colorado. We will make use of the speed of I-70 and I-25, and shave off the trip through Denver with a shorter, slower cutoff. All in all, it saves about three hours over the shortest route, with an hour of that saving coming from avoiding Denver. You can see all this on the map at left.

So we begin by taking I-70 to a point just past Vail and then going south on Colorado Highway 9 through Breckenridge and over Hoosier Pass:

Highway 9 is very scenic through Breckenridge; we will have to return here sometime to do some hiking.

After Breckenridge, the highway began to climb steadily to the Pass.

Hoosier Pass, elevation 11,532 ft, is one of the high mountain passes through the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The pass is located on the Continental Divide at the northern end of the Mosquito Range, in a gap between Mount Lincoln (west) and Hoosier Ridge (east). It sits on the boundary between Park (south) and Summit (north) counties. It is traversed by State Highway 9 between the towns of Breckenridge (north) and Fairplay (south). The highway over the pass provides an alternative route from Denver to the ski areas near Breckenridge and Keystone. It is generally open all year round, is traversable by all vehicles in good weather, but is occasionally closed during winter storms. The road over the pass has a smooth approach on the south side but has several switchbacks on the north side with a grade of 8%.

This pass is the highest point on the TransAmerica Trail, a transcontinental bicycle route that stretches from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon.

We stopped at the top of the pass to admire the view and take some pictures.

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Driving to Walsenburg, CO

The four maps below will show you our route from Hoosier Pass all the way to Walsenburg. It was very scenic driving south on Highway 9, all the way to Canon City. Highway 50 from there to the Interstate was a little less so, but there were still mountains around. It was getting dark by the time we got on I-25, and by the time we found our motel in Walsenburg we were quite ready to turn in.

	June 29, 2003: Western Trip, Day 9
	June 27, 2003: Western Trip, Day 7
	Return to the Index for Our Western Trip