Back Road Adventure

If Distance and Remoteness Are Your Flavors, Trek to the Little Black Mountain Petroglyphs

Where did they come from? Where did they go? Why did they come to this broken hill on the Arizona Strip? My thoughts were swimming in a place without water, 500 miles, it seemed, from the nearest answer.

Little Black Mountain Petroglyph Site is barely in Arizona, though it feels like it's barely in the world. The "black mountain" looks more like a red sandstone mesa, its top a giant mouth that I pictured howling at the open sky. The 500-foot-high mesa sits 14 miles southeast of St. George, Utah, a mere .3 of a mile south of Utah's border with Arizona. This is the same as saying that Little Black Mountain is alone with other mountains. The human population went away centuries ago and left only their enigmatic symbols and drawings scraped in the dark patina on the rocks.

At this particular spot, they left some 500 pictures of bighorn sheep, snakes, spirals, stick figures, bear paws, lizards, turtles, and strange designs that could mean anything. The only thing anyone can say with any certainty about these glyphs is that they were made over a period of approximately 5,000 years by Indians from different cultural groups of the Great Basin, Lower Colorado River, and elsewhere. Some things can be said with a little less certainty.

The Bureau of Land Management plaque at the site says, in part: "The Little Black Mountain Petroglyph Site is probably a religious ceremonial and calendar watching location. The majority of the glyphs (figures) have a religious or seasonal meaning. The relative isolation of the site lends itself to the performance of secret ritual acts/vision quests, and many of the glyphs - snakes, handprints, sheep - are indications of sacred locations. Seasonal or calendar indicators depend on the interplay between light and shadows and are deliberately placed to indicate changes between seasons. The glyphs indicating calendar watching include spirals, circles, bisected circles, plants, baskets and constellations."

Getting to this site took me a long time on a network of secondary roads and one dirt road, but all were in good shape. The major roads in this network one flows into the other are U.S. Route 89A and State 389 in Arizona, and Interstate 15 and Utah State Route 59 in Utah. Using Flagstaff as a starting point, I drove north on U.S.89 about 100 miles to where the road forks with U.S. 89 going north to Page and U.S. 89A heading to Jacob Lake. I took U.S. 89A.

As the road climbed the 42 miles from Marble Canyon to Jacob Lake (where there is no lake), I began to get a feel for the unique geology of the area. The Arizona Strip is a block of the Earth's crust that has been uplifted and tilted to the northeast.

Over time this block has been divided into a series of elongated and nearly isolated north-south trending plateaus including the Shivwits Plateau (the westernmost plateau), the Uinkaret Plateau, the Kaibab Plateau, and the Marble Platform. The cliffs along these plateaus range from 200 to more than 400 feet high.

I followed U.S. 89A to Jacob Lake, then headed west on State Route 389 to Fredonia and Colorado City and crossed the border into Utah, where 389 connects to Utah Route 59 and leads to Interstate 15 and St. George. By the time I reached St. George, I was about 265 miles northwest of Flagstaff, or 406 miles northwest of Phoenix.

There are two routes to the Little Black Mountain Petroglyph Site. One requires driving endless dirt roads across the west end of the Arizona Strip. The better route because it is shorter and mostly paved begins at the intersection of St. George Boulevard and 700S. From the intersection, drive south to the stoplight at 400E. Turn left (east) and continue to River Road (400E dead-ends at that point). Turn right (south) on River Road and follow it south. The road will soon cross a bridge over the Virgin River and bend to the right and then make a wide curve to the left. As you round that curve, Brigham Street is on your right, and a large Mormon temple is visible. Be sure to bear left before the structure, remaining on River Road headed south. You don't want to be on Brigham Road. The Arizona-Utah border is 4.2 miles south of the point where Brigham Road meets River Road. Where the pavement ends, Arizona begins. Continue south .4 of a mile and watch for a dirt road that takes off on your left (east). The dirt road is narrow, and about 50 feet in you'll see a Bureau of Land Management sign that says "Little Black Mountain."

It would be much more helpful if the sign were at the junction of the two roads, but it isn't, so keep your eyes open. When you see that sign, you're still 4.7 miles from the petroglyph site. A half mile after turning onto the narrow dirt road, you'll come to a T. Turn right (south) and gradually climb a hill. There is one point near the top of the hill that is a little rough, but I drove it slowly in a full-size sedan. The road gets narrower as it crosses the hill, and it could be treacherous in wet weather.

From the top of the hill, you can look south into the most isolated portions of the Arizona Strip and for miles see nothing but folds of mountain ranges and haze-blue mesas. Drive over the top of the hill and down the other side. When you get to the bottom, ignore the dirt road leading off to the left. Continue straight. In a couple of minutes, you'll come to a barbed-wire gate you must open and close after you've driven through. From the gate, it is 1.9 miles to the petroglyph site.

and haze-blue mesas. Drive over the top of the hill and down the other side. When you get to the bottom, ignore the dirt road leading off to the left. Continue straight. In a couple of minutes, you'll come to a barbed-wire gate you must open and close after you've driven through. From the gate, it is 1.9 miles to the petroglyph site.

There are no facilities at the site other than a picnic table, a gravel trail, and brochures in a metal box. And, of course, those mysterious pictures etched on the rocks.

TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

More information on the Little Black Mountain Petroglyph Site can be obtained from the BLM's Arizona Strip District Office, at 345 E. Riverside Dr., St. George, Utah 84790; (435) 688-3200.

Back road travel can be hazardous if you are not prepared for the unexpected. Whether traveling in the desert or in the high country, be aware of weather and road conditions, and make sure you and your vehicle are in top shape and you have plenty of water. Don't travel alone, and let someone at home know where you're going and when you plan to return. Odometer readings in the story may vary by vehicle.