After a night of backcountry camping in Horse Canyon, my friends, Van, Bill, and I decided to visit some of the noteworthy sites in and around Canyonlands National Park. The first stop was a state historic monument known as Newspaper Rock, which is just off of state highway 211 outside of the Needles District of the park.
The parking lot offers ample parking for the curious and a very short walk to the right of the to visit a sandstone cliff face covered in desert varnish. The single largest petroglyph panel I have encountered greets visitors. For two thousand years, the ancient Native Americans of this region carved their marks and/or stories into this large rock. The panel is about 50 feet across and 30 feet tall. It is covered with hundreds of glyphs of many different styles. It is truly an impressive site and demonstrates the extremely rich cultural history of this region.
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