Hoodoos and Petroglyphs, Sept 29, 2010

Today we were walking the Hoodoo Trail.

Soon we were in the hoodoos, nice hike through the hoodoo formations. 

  This petroglyph of a buffalo was on a sandstone panel about 12’ up.  Not easy to spot, we did have a drawing of what petroglyphs were on the wall, but not where.

The views were endless.  It was also so quiet, we could only hear an occasional bird singing to us.

The shrubs added some fall color to our hoodoo views.

The next grouping of pictographs could not be located by us.  They were painted on with a reddish mixture from the iron ore. 

But then we came to this last one on the trail called the ‘Battle Scene’.  This panel had over 250 characters.  They believe the drawing was carved in the late 1800’s and depicts an actual battle of “Retreat up the Hill” fought somewhere along the Milk River in 1866.

They were very hard to photograph, but these are the two horses that are at the top right (as you are looking at it) of the panel. The lower horse is pulling a travois.

This panel is very well protected behind a fence about 15’ away.  All the petroglyphs were on the light colored area.

Our hike ended up near the visitor center, it is now closed Monday through Thursday.  Now there are more petroglyphs to be seen but you can only see them on a special guided tour and the next one won’t be until this Friday, bummer. 

 

Bob caught me in the act of snitching another empty campsite’s leftover fire wood.  Wouldn’t you think he could of helped me carry my treasure!

 

I washed our windshield one more time, wish I had kept count how many times I have done this since mid May when we crossing the border into Canada. 

 

 Here is Bob, the great white hunter, tonight we had flies, 20+ at a time, on our front door screen trying to get in, and quite a few of them did.

The next photo is kind of interesting.  The green blur is the fly swatter in pursuit of one of the dastardly flies.  In the mirror is Bob swinging and me taking the photograph.  Looks like a green ghost.

  A thistle with two bees!

Tomorrow (Thursday) we are headed out into the “Outside”, crossing at Coutts.  We will be staying at Shelby, Montana tomorrow night, so only have about an hour and half drive with a border crossing in-between.  Then to Missoula to get some repairs done (steps and slide adjustment).  Oh, the windshield star now has two lines heading about 3” out from it, so it is no longer quarter size, so it will need to be replaced as well.