Rock Art Ranch: Holbrook, AZ

Tuesday Sept. 28

A very good place to see a valley full of petroglyphs, Chevelon Canyon, is on a private ranch just west of Holbrook and close to Winslow, AZ. It was mentioned in our Frommer’s guide to the American Southwest. It is part of the old Hashknife Ranch which was the largest ranch in the US in the late 1800s. You have to make a reservation and pay a fee to see the canyon, (928) 288-3260 available Monday through Saturday year round. We were debating this after our wonderful day in Petrified Forest National Park.

Incidentally, we met a couple at dinner that evening, Deb and Don, who had made a reservation to visit the Rock Art Ranch and invited us to join them. We met up with them at the Holbrook Safeway, where we picked up our lunch, and drove to the ranch, about 30 minutes southwest of Holbrook.

At the ranch we were met by Brantley Baird, the 75 year old owner and guide, if he isn’t out on his horse tending the cattle and bison herd with his ranch hand, the “old cowboy” (90 years old this month). He is a quiet-spoken gentleman with many years’ worth of stories of life in the Arizona ranch land. None of his sons is interested in living there and carrying on the ranching

or petroglyph preservation. First on his agenda is a look at the ranch’s history displayed around the sides of a large mess hall. But, for us, the best was the display of MANY museum quality ancestral Puebloan pots of all kinds, arrowheads, tools, and other household and hunting items, many of which he had found over the years on the property.

After the tour of ranch buildings, we were taken to see the bison herd and stopped at a Hopi Hogan on the short drive to the petroglyphs. At the Chevelon Canyon site there is an overlook with several roof covered picnic tables to get out of the sun for lunch. The stone stairs down to the canyon floor follow the same route used by the Ancestral Puebloans to access this water source from their mesa top houses and fields.

The thousands of petroglyphs are viewable from the stream bed at your leisure. It was a hot sunny day and we were melting until we offed our shoes and socks and soaked our feet in the cool, fast-running water of the stream. The only requirement is to lock the gate when leaving and drop the key into the lockbox on the gatepost. The four of us wandered around a short segment of the canyon, exclaiming over the extensive petroglyphs and marveling that they had remained intact with virtually no graffiti over many centuries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a great site to view petroglyphs up close and at your leisure. Take water and a lunch and have a full day to spend at the Rock Art Ranch. If you plan ahead you could arrange to tent at the site and have lots of time to view the petroglyphs. Go soon, because who knows what will happen to this fascinating site when Brantley Baird is no longer in charge.