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West Clear Creek Petroglyphs On our first hike through upper West Clear Creek in the summer of 1972 I took lots of pictures with my Ricoh SLR. Alas I have only saved a few of these. I scanned the 1972 slides of a series of petroglyphs and have matched them with the portions of images from our 2007 reunion hike.
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| June 9-11, 1972 The branch of the small shrub in the lower right is New Mexico locust (Robinia neomexicana), a common shrub along portions of the canyon. |
May 24, 2007 Twenty-five years later the locust has hardly grown at all. Not surprisingly, since it is well under the overhanging cliff and receives little direct precipitation. It is also heavily shaded by the cliff and surrounding coniferous trees. It is very good to see that the droves of people who have visited these carvings since 1972 have had little or no effect on this group of carvings. |
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 June 9-11, 1972 Unfortunately, a large portion of the petroglyphs were visually ruined by some dimwitted stupid morons[1] who built a fire directly under them. Fortunately, the cultural "data" are still there since the figures are created by pecking at the soft Coconino sandstone with a harder rock. Notice another small locust on the far left which does not appear in the 2007 photo. |
 May 24, 2007 The May 2007 match shows the effects of this on the far left side. I have other images from that visit which shows the whole area to the left. It really is quite tragic. |
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[_private/footer.html] [1] I don't care if it's redundant. |
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