Vermillion Cliffs National Monument is a remote 280,000 acre geological treasure. A lot of the hiking trails in the monument require a permit because they are so popular. That’s not really worth it to me to have to hike with a bunch of people. There is still plenty of cool stuff to see out here without doing that.
To begin with, to get to most of the areas of the monument you have to drive out a long stretch of dirt rocky road. Other sections off the main road require high clearance four-wheel drive because there are long stretches of deep sand. We didn’t feel like doing that much driving so we stuck to the main road mostly.
First, we drove out to the northern terminus of the Arizona Trail. Throughout our years on the road, we’ve ridden several sections of the Arizona Trail and it was cool to see the northern terminus now. This terminus is at the stateline of Arizona and Utah, We hiked up the trail a little ways to get a good view of the cliffs. There’s a little campground here that I imagine gets a lot of use with Arizona Trail hikers and riders.
Another area that we checked out is called the Maze Rock Art Site. This site got its name from the abstract petroglyph featured prominently on the main panel. (You can see it in the pics below). Prehistoric people created these petroglyphs and occupied a large part of the Southwest. The rock art is though to have originated between AD 850 and 1300. The hike to the art starts on some switchbacks but those are short and then up on the mesa you continue through a gate and across a scrubby field to a jumble of sandstone rocks on a hillside. One can never know exactly what all the art means or why exactly it is here, but it was important enough for people to etch it in stone.
The last hike we did was more of a wandering up some washes to see if we could get back into the painted hills. We ended up coming to a series of fences and respected the potential private property although there were no signs. Oh well, it was still sobering as we picked our way across the desert, to think about just how hard life was back then.
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