Before heading back home on a recent trip, we made a quick visit to Black Dragon Canyon on the east side of the San Rafael Swell.  This canyon is very picturesque and has some very fun Jeep or off-road trails to explore.  You could of course hike up the canyon to the pictographs but it’s more fun to use the off-road trails!

The dirt road to the pictographs is about 1.24 miles.  We didn’t encounter too many obstacles, in fact, it was a pretty tame road.  We just enjoyed being surrounded on all sides by 400 ft cliffs and seeing all the interesting red and orange rocks.

Once you get to the pictographs you will see a wooden fence with some signs.  Please be respectful and don’t go up and touch the pictographs and petroglyphs.

This canyon is home to one of my favorite pictographs – the red wolf!  At least I think it’s a wolf, or dog, or coyote or something…

Either way this canyon has some very strange pictographs.

There is a pictograph of some type of bird, pterodactyl or dragon??  This is where the canyon gets its name: Black Dragon.  I think it looks more like a goose with its wings extended.  Actually, it’s not a depiction of a dragon or goose.  If you have an app called D-Stretch, you can see that the head of the ‘goose” is actually a person bending its knees and holding both its arms out.  The feet of the goose or dragon is actually another person looking to the left.

These pictographs were higher up on the canyon wall so you will need a good zoom lens to get some good photos.

If you follow the cliff wall to the right you will find more rock art such as hand prints, tally-marks and perhaps some headdresses.

We had a blast exploring around the Swell.  But unfortunately for me, my vacation time was over and it was time to head back to Alaska to work.