Desert Varnish

                             Yesterday was a Travel Day.

                             Travel Days are usually uneventful unless we hit a swarm of Bugs, or some strange warning light illuminates itself on the dashboard.

                             But yesterday was a thankfully an uneventful day, bookended by two activities that kind of fell into our laps.

                             Our first nice surprise was a relatively regular sunrise in Grand Teton. The previous day, we arrived in the Park fairly early in the morning (which proved beneficial because of those pesky clouds later in the day) and were rewarded with some nice views of the Mountains. Yesterday we planned to get up even earlier and see if we could catch some even better views of the Tetons on our way out of the area.

                             Clouds were on the Eastern Horizon, so the sunlight could only peek in and out every so often, but, as we drove southward with the Tetons on our right-hand side, the clouds parted and rewarded us with some very nice photos. We even got one of our House-On-Wheels in front of Grand Teton itself!

                             The goal of the day was to be in Price, Utah by mid-afternoon, leaving just four or five hours left on our trip to Durango, Colorado where my daughter Lorelyn and her husband Travis live.

                             In speaking to Lorelyn and telling her of our plans, she excitedly informed is that some of the BEST rock-art/petroglyphs in the entire southwest were located a relatively short stones throw away from where were planning to spend the night….. the famous Walmart of Price.

                             We needed to drive an additional five miles in order to get to Nine Mile Canyon, which questionably, is about forty miles long.

                             And the petroglyphs that we’re going to look for started thirty-three miles in! That means that we added approximately another eighty miles to our daily total, but it was worth it!

                             Lorelyn and Travis have brought us to many examples of these ancient art forms over the years. They have become somewhat of experts on this topic, and we return their favors by appreciating these thousand-year-old renditions of both everyday life and the fantasies of the peoples that lived here so long ago.

                             The Ancestral Puebloans (relatively new term for Anasazi) and their contemporaries, the Fremont People are the folks that are responsible for carving all of these designs, figures, and stories into what is called Desert Varnish. Desert Varnish is the dark stuff on some of the rocks and cliffs that are seen through this area. It is not by any means considered rare, but it does not appear just anywhere as the conditions needed for it to form are the correct amount of moisture, sunlight, minerals, wind, and some organic material that are present all around here, just not deposited everywhere.

                             The interesting thing about Desert Varnish is that it takes thousands and thousands of years to accumulate on the rock’s surface. And…. it’s really thin!

                             The Varnish grows at rate of about a micrometer every thousand years. For comparison purposes, a human hair is several micrometers thick.

                             The Artists would chip away at the varnish-covered rock faces with quartz chipping tools in order to achieve their desired results. These panels of artwork were done about a thousand years ago and as you will see, the Desert Varnish has yet to even grow back on the chipped away areas!

                             Please don’t get the impression that Paula and I are any kind of experts on this subject and somehow found all of these examples. Nope, we were led here by some very detailed maps and such that allowed us to “find” them for ourselves. But I will show you how hard it is to initially see these things by some comparison photos….. so here goes!

Petroglyphs are the ones that are “pecked” away at, achieving their desired results by removing a layer of that Desert Varnish. Pictographs are the ones that use different minerals and dyes to “paint” or make outlines of things using a brush of sorts. Everything at these sites were of the petroglyph variety.

And last but not least, I have a favor to ask of all of you. The next two photos are identical in subject and framing. The only difference is that one is in Color and the other is Black and White. I would like for you to vote on which one you prefer. In the Comments section below, just type in Color or BW. Nothing else is needed, but you are obviously welcome to make any comments at any time. I pretty much answer all of them!

Thanks! And we will see if any “Adventures” develop in the Durango area that are worthy of a Post. Soon we will be back in Texas, but it is still really hot down there so we are not rushing it!