Rock Art for the Ages

Nine Mile Creek begins as a trickle running off of the West Tavaputs Plateau and travels through a deep canyon to the Green River.  The canyon is known for its amazing quantity and variation of ancient Native American rock art. 

The group who lived here from 800 AD to about 1200 AD produced art that has elements of both Fremont and Anasazi styles.  They lived in pit houses on the valley floor, or sometimes in rock  dwellings on the cliffs, raised corn and squash, and hunted for deer, elk, and bighorn sheep.  This petroglyph shows hunters with bows and arrows, and perhaps tells the story of a hunt:

One of my favorite sites, known as the Sandhill Crane panel, shows a pair of water birds at the top:

We toured the section of Nine Mile beginning at the junction with Gate Canyon and going toward Argyle Canyon.  In 3 hours of scouting with binoculars, climbing the cliffy hillsides for better views,  and taking photos of the numerous petroglyphs and occasional pictographs on many rock panels, we only managed to cover 3.5 miles. 
Do you see a Mardi Gras mask here?

The tree-like figure above is thought to represent a corn plant.

This guy has seriously cool headgear:

Were the ancients into matrix math?

This elk has quite a rack:

I like the sunburst:

Did space aliens visit this culture?

Paradoxically, Nine Mile Canyon twists and turns for more than 50 miles on its way to the Green River.  The name Nine Mile seems to have come from the John Wesley Powell Expeditions, 1868-1871, possibly given to the canyon because of the 9 miles between it and Desolation Canyon.  There are other theories on the name, but none that make as much sense.
Nine Mile Canyon can be reached via the Nine Mile Canyon road from Wellington, Utah, or via the Wells Draw Road from Duchesne, Utah.