If you are planning on visiting a pictograph or petroglyph site, enjoy it! It is a thrill to observe the paintings and carvings of long-gone people, or to hold an arrowhead in your hand and marvel at how precisely the craftsmanship employed shaped it.

For your visit, there are some common-sense guidelines to keep in mind, the most important of which is:

Leave no trace of your visit.

It is a natural impulse to want to include all your senses in an experience, so it is an immediate thought to reach out and touch any pictographs or petroglyphs.

However, rock art, especially pictographs, is very vulnerable to damage. Refrain from touching the pigment in any way – your touch will only help wear the pigment from the rock, or leave behind a damaging skin oil residue. Also avoid brushing up against the pictographs with your body. Some of them are in confined spaces and it is easy to brush against the rock as you move around. Make sure you know where your limbs are going at all times, especially when taking photographs, when it is easy to become distracted and focused on what you’re photographing instead of keeping all your surroundings in mind.

The “hands off” rule goes not only for your hands, but also for a walking stick, pen, etc. Do not touch the pictographs or petroglyphs with any object at all.

Also never, ever alter the pictographs or petroglyphs in any way. Some have been vandalized by people tracing with chalk where they thought the designs’ outlines were. This only defaces the art and detracts from the designs. Leave them as they are. Yes, the designs are often very faint and you may wish to point them out better to others. Take some photographs instead, and later on, manipulate your photographs or draw over your them to point out the designs. Another option is the excellent ImageJ plugin, DStretch, that Jon Harman wrote. I use that extensively myself.

Finally, leave any artifacts you may be fortunate enough to discover where you found them. Collecting archeological artifacts, such as arrowheads, from any federally protected land is a federal crime. Do not be a thief – finders keepers do not apply when you walk on someone else’s land, and the protected artifacts belongs to everybody, not just to you.

Keeping these guidelines in mind do not detract from the thrill of a discovery in any way, and ensures that others who come after you will also have to opportunity to make an exciting discovery. After all, your opportunity to view pictographs and petroglyphs, or to find an arrowhead, was made possible by those who came before and left these resources unchanged from their visit.

Also, if there’s any site I wrote about that you’re interested in visiting, keep the following in mind:

• Site names in quotes are typically ones you won’t find directions to. I’d be happy to talk to you about those sites, and if you have been researching them and you have some questions about general location or conditions of the nearby roads at the time of my visit, I’d be happy to help out, but exact GPS coordinates will not be forthcoming.
• Site names not in quotes are generally well-known or public sites, and if you’re wondering about some particulars of getting to them, or whether it would be safe to drive there, I can probably give some general information, though the onus to make sure you personally will be safe during your visit is on you.

Happy hunting!

– Peregriff