Along the Panorama Trail, one of the most popular hiking trails in the Kodachrome Basin State Park, is the Indian Cave. The small rock overhang was thought to have been inhabited by Native Americans.
Along the outside wall of the cave are hundreds of what might be grooves or handprints (they resemble hands) “carved” into the wall. Some are very deep, while others are shallow indentations.
Although the Indian Cave is signposted, there’s no protection of the site, no signage, and very little information on the petroglyph site online. It’s likely that the handprints are not very old, and equally likely they were not made by American Indians – but I can’t be sure either way.
Getting to the Indian Cave Hand Petroglyphs
The signposted site is about 0.6 miles (one kilometre) from the start of the Panorama Trail. It’;’s a very short detour off the main track.
4 Comments
Zachary Bryan · October 27, 2023 at 7:48 pm
Why are there no comments!?
oliverd :-) · October 27, 2023 at 8:08 pm
There is now 🙂
Sharon Fay Diehl · October 31, 2023 at 3:49 pm
These are NOT handprints. The grooves are an erosional feature called “tafoni”. Note that thin stratigraphic layers cross cut these erosional features–hence, the grooves were not “cut into” the rock.
oliverd :-) · October 31, 2023 at 3:58 pm
Thanks Sharon. That’s what I suspected, but could not find much information online. I am much more familar with indigenous rock art in Australia – and our tafoni formations here are very different!