Upper Salt Creek

As with Grand Gulch, how many archaeological sites you find along Upper Salt Creek in Canyonlands National Park depends on how much you look around. Below are just a couple of sites in this area, which was occupied by the Anasazi primarily between A.D. 1075 and 1150. Cool little caves, rock arches and other natural features also abound in the Upper Salt Creek drainage.

Photo tip: Bring color film. You'll

want it for the All American Man,

a spectacular 4-foot tall pictograph

painted in red, white and blue.

Large and inaccessible to

hikers, the Big Ruin lives

up to its name.

A closer look at a few of the

Big Ruin's 24 rooms (taken

with a telephoto lens).

The ground directly below the

Big Ruin is littered with prehistoric

"trash," like this black-on-white

potsherd. The top of the sherd

was the pot's rim.