Not too far from the highway and only a short walk from a challenging forest service road are some amazing panels of rock art. Welcome to Red Tank Draw.
The draw is a deep wash draining from Rarick Canyon on the Mogollon Rim into Wet Beaver Creek, often carrying cold snow melt in the early spring. But today the flow of water was quiet and gentle. It’s been a warm and dry winter, after all.
From an article in the Red Rock News:
“Petroglyphs are the main attraction but multicolored lichens growing on the sheer rock walls can be found here as well, some forming designs as intriguing as the etchings.”
“As ancient as the rock art, lichens are the unlikely combination of a fungus and an algae (although sometimes a fungus and a cyanobacterium)”
On this warm spring day, we wandered up and down the draw examining numerous panels of rock art. We’ve been here before and knew where to look so we went for our favorites.
This panel is often referred to as the “sabre tooth cat” panel. It looks like a sabre tooth cat but is probably a more common feline predator such as a bobcat.
But the best panel is found on a large sandstone wall that has evidence of geologically recent rockfall. As the sun moves westward and shadows creep across this face the rock art becomes more impressive until, finally, a single spear of light pierces across the rock wall.
