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Yours truly
Petroglyphs Of
The Valley Of Fire
One of the features of Valley of Fire State Park is the cliff face petroglyphs. They consist of patterns "pecked" into the dark "varnish" covering the sandstone. Because they are now almost 40 feet above the valley floor (seen in the lower right corner of the bottom image), they were protected from the worst vandalism that has occurred in other places. After the Park built a metal stairway up the cliff so they could be seen close up, some one managed to scratch their initials into the stone over one of the glyphs. The Park then placed heavy plastic panels in front of the cliff, so that future vandals will have to work harder. The samples shown here are apparently all original Native American marks and are thought to date to the period from 300 BC to 1150 AD. The animal that appears most frequently is the big horn sheep and was apparently a major food source for these people.
This is the second flight of stairs leading to the viewing platform. The
petroglyphs are inscribed on the flat rock face in front of the platform.