Shamans' Gallery, Grand Canyon

A few days ago, I was informed that a friend of mine, Jeff Frost, was going to be hiking to Shamans' Galley in a few days and he wanted to see if I wanted to come along. It was definitely time for a hike, as it had been a couple months since I had been; but as I researched this hike on the internet, I realized that this was not only a hike, it was an opportunity to view a piece of history.


The multi-colored paintings found in Shamans' Gallery are believed to have been painted before 1000BC. Although the National Park Service was made aware of the paintings in 1986 by Gordon Smith, there is evidence at the site that the paintings were discovered in the 1940's as well.


I met Jeff at his house at 6:15 and we started on our way to meet up with some of his hiking buddies, Terril, Mark, and David, at the Toroweap turn off, located about 6 miles east of Pipe Springs National Monument off Utah hwy 59/ Arizona hwy 389, (8 miles west of Fredonia) and marked with a large brown sign. We arrived at 7:03 and hopped in their suburban for the remainder of the ride.


Once on Toroweap Road (aka BLM 109), the next 49.1 miles are all on dirt road. The first 32.2 miles are on a decent dirt road which is passable for any passenger car. Once to the Hack Canyon turnoff, the unmarked turnoff to the trail head is about 9 miles away. Look for 3 volcanic mounds on the right and not much past them is a turn off on the left hand side of the road. This small dirt road was more rough than the main road that we just left and would need a high clearance vehicle to navigate (but impassable even for a 4 wheel drive vehicle when wet). In .6 miles past the turn off, there is a cowboy horse corral. Where the road splits at the corral, veer to the right and head in a south western direction.


For the next 7.9 miles, this small dirt road will take you to the Grand Canyon Park Boundary. Just before the park boundary, Jeff's brother-in-law Rick and his friend Joe were camped. So we met up with them and the seven of us made our way into Grand Canyon National Park. Once past the park boundary, the road gets drastically worse and really is very slow going for the next 8.4 miles to the trail head. We arrived at the trail head at 9:45 and got on our way at 9:51.



The temperature was extremely cold and made a beanie a necessity. So I left my trademark hiking hat in the car and donned the beanie. The trail head is marked by a small bird house looking structure. The trail is slight, but decently defined for the most part. It starts at an elevation of about 5800 feet and quickly starts descending. A drainage is soon encountered ahead, and the trail turns left and stays just above the drainage on the left hand side.





A little over a mile into the hike, we encountered a makeshift gate made of barbed wire and old logs. Just before reaching the gate, views of the valley below open up, and the approximate location of Shamans' Gallery can be ascertained. In the distance, there is a canyon which seemingly has a river of rocks flowing from it. Just to the left of the river of rocks, the canyon wall in the distance has a small section of bright red coloration. Shamans' Gallery is between these two landmarks below.

1.3 miles from the start, or .3 miles from the gate is an old cowboy camp. I went in to investigate and found some old tin cans which would have been used many decades of years ago. The Cave went back in much farther than it appeared to when I spotted it from the trail.



The total hike down to Shamans' Gallery losses about 1800 feet over 3.6 miles. Just before getting to the ancient artwork, the canyon wall to the right is made up of volcanic rock and a new wash/canyon intersects the trail. This canyon is Tuckup Canyon - the canyon where the Gallery is found. Just a short way down the dry creek bed and up on a shale shelf on the left is Shamans' Gallery.


We arrived there about 11:20 and after snapping a few pictures from the canyon floor, we climbed up to the shelf and took some close up pictures. The pictures speak for themselves.

After admiring the amazing historical site and eating lunch, we started back at 12:50. My legs were feeling the workout on the way out and I arrived back the the parking lot at 2:15. We ate some snacks and took a little side trip to an overlook into the grand canyon while waiting for all of our group to return.

At 3:05, we started on the road out. We got back to Toroweap road (the good dirt road) at 4:12 - which means we covered the 16.3 miles in an hour and 7 minutes. We got back to the paved highway at 4:57, meaning we covered the last 32.2 miles of dirt road in 45 minutes. We made it back to Hurricane at 5:47.

So our total drive time for the trip was about 5 1/2 hours and total hiking time was about 7.2 miles and 4 1/2 hours.

Note: If you're interested in petroglyphs, a much more accessible site is the "Falling Man" site, also known as the Whitney-Hartman site, just south of Mesquite, Nevada. Info on the exact whereabouts can be found on my trip report found by clicking the link above.

Also, there are some rarely seen petroglyphs near Mount Kinesava in Zion National Park. These are much less accessible due to the difficulty in getting there. You can click the link above to see images of the petroglyphs and read my trip report.