Snake Gulch Arizona Rock Art Site – Petroglyphs and Pictographs
In April of 2007, a group of 4 embarked on a 14
mile roundtrip hike to review the Rock Art in
Snake Gulch. Snake Gulch is well known by
Rock Art advocates, hikers, and horseback riders.
Only a couple of horseback riders who were
returning after a longer trip to the Grand Canyon
were encountered, so we had the Gulch to ourselves.
As a note the panels are essentially undamaged by
either pioneer writings or modern graffiti. The debate
of the government site managers about more
visitation (informing interested parties about the
location of the site) and nondisclosure of the site
location in this case weighs toward information being
available. Reduced visitation could possibly permit
destruction of the panels.
Our objectives were to select a long day, yet avoid the
snakes that come out in hot weather. We were
successful, starting at about 10:30 am and finishing
about 7:30 in the evening. Our plans were to start at
the North end, hike the 7 miles in with no photography,
have lunch, hike out and photograph the Rock Art panels.
Unfortunately on the hike in, we missed photographing
some very nice panels that display better in the morning
than they do in the afternoon.
However, the next time, a different plan:
Start earlier in the morning.
Photograph on the way down (also) since the lighting
favors some panels in the morning.
There are some observations or advice:
Have a high clearance, 4-wheel drive available.
Take a good lunch, and stash (hide) some water
midway in the hike.
And the normal precautions – maps, hat, good
hiking shoes, camera, sufficient memory, batteries,
cell phone (although we are not convinced it would
work in the area), and let people know where you
are going to be.
Will we return?
Without a doubt. As Rock Art advocates know
one review of the site frequently does not discover
everything that might prove to be interesting. The
repeat trips through reveal more panels and
allows improvement of the photographs. We gained
many good pictures and identified some that need
improvement. You can see the results of our effort at http://exploringrockart.com/snake_gulch1.htm and http://exploringrockart.com/snake_gulch.htm.
Although we normally do not release locations and
directions to the site, there are previously published
directions which we include in the Ebook.
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