Nine Mile Canyon as often been called “The World’s Longest Art Gallery”. Despite its name, the canyon stretched 46 miles through east central Utah and has as many as 10,000 petroglyphs along its course. This route has been traveled for thousands of years, undoubtedly beginning as a wildlife trail which followed the easiest path through the mountains. It was used by a people we refer to as the Fremont People for many hundreds of years and they are responsible for most of the petroglyphs chipped into the canyon walls. Later, Ute Indians made their way through the canyon and made their own carvings, including those of horses and bison. Fur trappers and settlers followed the old Indian trails. The Nine Mile Canyon Road was originally built by the Black Buffalo Soldiers of the Ninth Cavalry to connect old Fort Duchesne to the railroad at Price. Once the road was complete, stagecoaches started using the canyon to deliver mail and freight and settlements began to spring up. Later, mining and natural gas extraction began in Nine Mile Canyon and continues today. Nobody knows how 46 mile long Nine Mile Canyon was named. Many people believe that explorer John Wesley Powell named it because the name first appears in his journals, but Powell was pretty good at naming things so I’m not buying that explanation. Also, I love a good mystery and don’t mind when one goes unsolved.
I started my drive from Wellington, just south of Price. The road is paved all the way to the Great Hunt Panel (and beyond if you continue up the side canyon), but has a stretch of decently maintained gravel road if you want to continue through to Myton (which I did). I loved seeing so many wonderful petroglyphs in such a small area and I know I only scratched the surface (pun intended) of what was out there. My favorite is the first one pictured below: Coyote Placing the Stars. I also loved the Owl Panel and the Juggling Man and of course the Great Hunt which is one of Utah’s most famous panels. There were a lot of old homesteads along the way and even an old townsite once called Harper but abandoned over a hundred years ago. There are some beautiful new homes out there as well and aside from the mining trucks rumbling past I imagine it’s pretty quiet out there most of the time. I really enjoyed my day out in Nine Mile Canyon and I hope you enjoy these photos I took along the way.
