JANUARY 2022
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MOLEN REEF |
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THE JUGGLER |
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ROCHESTER PANEL |
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ROCHESTER PANEL |
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ROCHESTER PANEL |
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ASCENDING SHEEP |
Molen Reef is an area near the town of Ferron, Utah with some amazing rock art that I had overlooked in the past. I expect this area to get a lot more visitation over the coming years, and for more rock art sites to be popularized on-line, as the local jurisdictions appeared to be starting to cater more to tourism. As I was here on a cold non-holiday weekend in January, I was all alone when visiting the sites above.
Molen Reef is a nice snake-like petroglyph located at a pull-out along the Moore Cutoff Road that only requires a short walk to see. There are also supposed to be dinosaur tracks located nearby, which I was unable to find. From the Molen Reef petroglyph, I decided to scramble up the steep hillside behind it and try to find the Ascending Sheep pictograph, which I was able to find after a bit of searching. You can actually drive to Ascending Sheep on a backroad if you have a high-clearance vehicle, but as I heard the road was a bit rough, I decided to hike it from Molen Reef.
From the Molen Reef pull-out, it is only a 1.1-mile drive east on Moore Cutoff Road to a pull-out for The Juggler petroglyph. You can park in front of the gate, or open and drive a bit closer to the butte. Either way, it is a short walk. This is actually a really cool area with some massive boulders that's fun to explore. It took a little while to find the Juggler, as it was expecting it to be on one of the larger boulders along the butte, but it was on a smaller rock a bit away from the hillside.
It is only about ten miles from the Molen Reef pull-out to the Rochester Rock Art site which has a well-marked half-mile trail to an amazing panel with some really detailed and interesting artwork.