Valley of Fire State Park: Rock Art

A cairn found in Cohab Canyon, Capitol Reef National Park.

Frank and Anne's Canyon Country Hiking and Camping Notebook.

Valley of Fire State Park

Campsite

This page contains a discussion of the rock art found within Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. All photographs are from our our personal collection. If you'd like to see more rock art from this location, or if you'd like to see higher resolution or larger images, send us an e-mail message and we'll see what we can do.

Rock Art

There is a lot of rock art within Valley of Fire State Park. We found the most in the area of Mouse's Tank Trail and the picnic area across the road from the parking lot at the trailhead. It seems to be everywhere in that area. Down low, at eye level, and up high along cliff faces and along the dark stained ridges.

Another area where there is an impressive panel is at Atlatl Rock. It is located at Map Coordinates (NAD83): ~ 36 25.353 N; 114 33.022 W; at an elevation of 2,259 feet. I believe there is also some in the Cabins area as well.

See Archaeological Site Etiquette.
See American Antiquities Act of 1906.
See Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979.
Archaeological Resources Protection Act Hotline: 800-227-7286.

I believe this panel is along the trail to Mouse's Tank. Most of it in this area seems to be along the east side of the tight canyon, but there are a few examples on the opposite wall as well. There is a lot of the dark desert varnish in the area, covering many smooth surfaces. Apparently ideal conditions for the creation of petroglyphs.

Rock art panel in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.

This panel is near the picnic area across the road from the Mouse's Tank Trail trailhead parking area. The petroglyphs here were unexpected, since the literature didn't mention them on this side of the road. While eating our lunch I happened to look over toward the cliff face and noticed a few pieces sticking up above the tall sage. After lunch we explored the area and found that they covered the smooth surfaces to both the north and south of the picnic area. Again, some down at eye level, but many up on the steep sloping sides of the outcrops above. This panel is just to the south of the south end of the picnic area.

If my memory is accurate, I believe this is part of the main panel at Atlatl Rock. Most of the petroglyphs here can only be accessed by a tall set of steel stairs that climb up the side of this huge rock face. Because of the shameful amount of vandalism, a plastic shield has been set in place to protect the art work. One is left wondering how the creators of this work were able to scale this face and place this work so far off the ground.

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More Rock Art

All of these photos have been resized and manipulated in Photoshop to give the best representation of the image. Some color distortion is inevitable. If you would like to see higher quality versions of these shots, or if you would like to use these images for any purpose, please contact us and we would be glad to help if we can.

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This page was last updated Monday, June 15, 2009

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