Last
time we were in Petit Jean State Park it was a lot wetter. The waterfalls were
plentiful and big. This time was easier for hiking and had some great views.
One
of the big things the area is known for is turtle rocks. Turtle rocks are
Leizengon structures. The porous sandstone allows water to flow through. Iron
concentrated in veins and is harder than the sandstone so iron patterns are
revealed over time.
The
problem is that the iron surface can’t survive thousands of people walking
through the area. The light areas in this picture are where the brown iron has
worn off. While there is a sign saying keep off the rocks, the sign was almost
at the end of the area. Plus, there really isn’t a fixed path down these rocks
so people wander through and damage a large area.
The
park also has pictographs. There are actually quite a few pictographs but they
are so faded it’s hard to find them and see the entire shape. I found out that
taking pictures make the art clearer but I hope that doesn't damage the
pictograph. No one knows what these shapes really mean. What do you see in these?
Oh,
and all this picture taking is either wearing out my camera or my memory
card. We visited Petit Jean’s grave, saw spectacular views from an overlook, saw more pictographs, and walked through
the Bear Cave area while taking plenty of pictures. They all seemed to have
disappeared from the memory card. I did some reformatting of the card so we’ll see
if it is fixed now. This overlook was from the next day.
A
stick bug that John found on the RV.
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