1/4 Mouse's Tank Trail, Valley of Fire

Valley of Fire is not only a beautiful place, but Native Americans used the oxidized rock walls extensively as palates for their artwork.  These aren't rock paintings or "pictographs" because no "paint" was used.  Instead, the artist pecked at the black, oxidized faces of rocks with other stones to draw pictures.  The resulting artwork, or petroglyphs," last centuries, or until the rock falls off naturally.  

There are hundreds of rock faces in the park that have been used this way, and some are very close to the campground.  However, today, I drove up to Mouse's Tank Trail and walked this very easy trail back into the "tank."  A tank, by the way, is a depression in the rock that will hold rainfall for months or even years, so it was an important resource for the Native Americans.

The trail is flat and sandy, so the only problems in walking it were the stones that kept getting into my sandals.  Also had to be careful not to trip over rocks as I looked up for pictographs. 

No one knows for sure what these figures are, but they seem to be dancers holding hands.  Possibly the two figures on the left are wearing costumes.  

This large rock was just covered with petroglyphs!

This is a closeup.  The two symbols made up of a horizontal line with crooked lines coming down from it is supposed to mean rain.  There is also something that looks maybe like a millipede on the lower right. 

 The more weathered drawings, like these, are probably older. 

One interesting symbol is on the lower left.  It is a central circle with smaller circles surrounding it and connected by lines.  I saw similar images in several places.  Also note the two "feet" in the upper right and the snake. 

Not sure why one "foot" has five toes and the other has only four.  Or maybe these are hands without thumbs?  Or just a bad artist?  

And another circle image.  

More "feet"?  And more "rain"?  Looks like a couple of deer, also. 

The image in the upper right looks like it might be the sun.  And the deer is very clear.  Have no idea what symbols at bottom might be. 

A little bit of everything on this panel, but notice the "dancers" on the lower right. 

The path is about half a mile long.  One interesting thing is that nearly all the drawings were done on the sunny side of the canyon, or the north side, since the sun is shining mostly from the southeast or southwest.  This is looking back towards the entrance.

Headless "dancers"???

One of these dancers apparently has deer antlers on his head.

???????????

More dancers.  Dancers and animals were probably the most common symbols.

Could the the spotted thing be a turtle?  There were turtles in this area. The animal to the left of the deer looks maybe like a lizard. 

End of the trail at Mouse's Tank.  The depression in the lower center of the photo holds a rock "tank."

I tried but could not get down into the tank. You have to squeeze through a crack and drop down about five feet at the same time. It would have taken someone to help me down and a whole team to get me back up, so I decided to pass on this one!  But at least you can see how this depression could hold a lot of water.

Note: I went back into photos from December, 2013, and found this photo of water in the tank.