April 5, 2011

Cowboy Cave

You can see two caves just above the junipers on the right hand side of the above photo. The larger one is known as Cowboy Cave. We call the smaller one the mother-in-law cave, but its official name is Walter's Cave.  To read about our first visit to these caves, click here
Both caves are carved from Navajo sandstone and have been excavated by archeologists.  They found many interesting artifacts that are thousands of years old.
The above photo is from the University of Utah's Anthropological Papers Number 104, 1980, titled "Cowboy Cave" by Jesse D. Jennings.  The photo from the book shows examples of sandals and woven objects the archeology team discovered.
One 8000 year old sandal was found.  The dung of mammoth, bison, an extinct type of horse, camel and sloth was recovered from these caves. Ornaments, leather pouches, unfired clay figurines, split-twig figurines,
an atlatl shaft, many arrowheads, rope snares, and lots of other objects from ancient daily life was present.  All of it was removed to the Utah Museum of Natural History (located on the U. of Utah campus).  I don't know if the artifacts are on display at this time.
I liked looking out through the picture window of the ancient ones, who predated the Anasazi.
Steve and Daisy made interesting silhouettes, reminding me of "The Allegory of the Cave," found in Plato's Republic, describing people who lived their lives seeing only shadows of the life occuring outside. Illusion became their reality. 
Surprisingly, we found a group of about 10 college aged kids from Missoula camped near the cave.  Way out in the middle of nowhere, you don't expect to see anyone, but hikers tend to be friendly folk.  We stopped and visited for a few minutes before moving on.

21 comments:

  1. Another great adventure! Those cave photos are awesome. I especially like the second one which shows Steve and Daisy in silhouette. (Also - how lucky to see the owl in your former post.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd love to have those picture window views.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pretty darn awesome. Good observation about the campers you found -- funny to find them there but friendly as expected. That's good country. (Talk about a ride back into time ... if that cave could speak!)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Those are awesome pictures of an interesting place. Every time I look at your blog I think of John Ford westerns. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. It must be wonderful to visit spots that have such a long history associated with them. I really like your last photo.
    We've also found hikers to be very friendly folks. That's one of the joys of hiking.

    ReplyDelete
  6. What an amazing place to ride. The view goes on forever. Aren't you afraid of snakes? I'm not so sure I'd venture into that cave.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Incredible. All that stuff pulled out of the caves. I kind of wonder what the looters ran off with.

    ReplyDelete
  8. The silhouette photo is brilliant!!!
    Loved seeing the interesting artifacts from here and I LAUGHED at the MIL cave!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I liked the info on the artifacts collected. 8000 years old. Hard to imagine. Good shots from inside the cave which really shows how large the cave is. Nice post.

    ReplyDelete
  10. That's a really cool cave. I think it's funny the little one is just called "Walter's Cave". Pretty pics.

    ReplyDelete
  11. those are some interesting artifacts they found. They look like grass or plant weavings.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'm glad you've shown the photos of Steve and Daisy with the caves to show how big the caves actually are. How nice that a few artifacts were found there and are being kept in a safe place.

    ReplyDelete
  13. What great photos Janie and what amazing caves. I'm on my way home and spending the day waiting for a bus in the local library looking for that NG DVD:)to watch again! I often sit at the site of the ancient Haida longhouses looking out a sea and wonder what it was like for them, their life, their ways!!
    Thanks for sharing.
    Smiles

    ReplyDelete
  14. I especially like the first and last photos. Great shots! That red sandstone country looks amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  15. The cave is so huge and what a beautiful view from it. I doubt the original inhabitants had much time to stand and stare.

    ReplyDelete
  16. You and Steve find the most awesome places in the middle of nowhere USA.. great cave shot, Janie.

    hugs,
    Pam

    ReplyDelete
  17. I, a Brother-in-law, and one of my son's visited Cowboy Cave in the middle of the night in about 1988. We arrived in the area about 9:45 p.m. in late July. It was just about to get dark, but as the sky gave way to night time, a FULL MOON came out and we were able to hike down the ridge and find Cowboy Cave by Full Moon light. We climbed into the cave and spend about 1/2 hour looking around. Not much to look at at midnight, using flashlights, and not knowing anything about the place. The hike in and out was very interesting due to the fact that a large number of wild burros were braying. Hideous sounds in the middle of the night. Very fun trip, once in my lifetime.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Another great adventure with wonderful pictures. I love looking at the Museum items.

    Jo

    ReplyDelete
  19. The sandals are on display at the museum in the dry cave lab.

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin