I learned about this hike maybe a year or two ago, and was kind of annoyed I didn't know about it earlier, since it's short, accessible by paved road, and still an incredibly interesting hike.
It's not on the NPS handouts, but it's not a secret. It is, however, a fair drive from the main canyon, where most people stay. To get to this trailhead, you go east on UT-9, 6.8 miles east from Canyon Junction. A little past 3/4 of a mile beyond the second, short tunnel, parking is on your right. There's a wooden fence along the road, the only such thing in the area when I visited. There is no signage here. Room for about 6-8 cars, depending on how well people park.
Because of the limited parking, I wanted to get there early. Turns out, however, in January, it's pretty dead in Zion. I think there was maybe one car when I got there, and two other cars when I got back.
From the parking area, you either head down on the south side of the road, trending to your right, then loop under the road (smallish tunnel, but short and high enough it shouldn't be a problem for most), or you cross the road, walked west 100 yards or so, and take the shorter but steeper route directly into "Petroglyph Canyon." Once on the north side of the road, I'm going to guess it's 150-200 yards along a sandy wash bottom before you reach the petroglyphs on your left.
There are two panels, about fifty yards apart, along that wall. One panel has a whole "herd" of bighorn sheep. The coloration difference is gone, but you can still see the indentations in the stone.
The non-petroglyph shots are all further up the canyon. The sandy washbottom transitions to some large sandstone exposure. The first "barrier" is easily bypassed by heading to the left, up the grippy sandstone, rather that straight up the dry falls. Once at the top of the first barrier, the onion-skin layers could be seen in places. And, on this January day, there were many pools of water, some with a thin sheen of ice on the surface.
The second barrier, again, probably less than 1/2 mile after the first barrier, if I wanted to, I might have been able to work up and around it. But no way to know how much further I could have gone after that. And my wife was back at the petroglyphs, so I headed back.
Still, as I said, for such a short hike, the scenery was striking, and I had never hiked this part of Zion, before.
It looks like there are numerous other similar short walks that could be taken along different finger canyons along this road. The actual "Many Pools" trailhead is just a bit west of here, maybe 1/3 of a mile away. And, if you continue east another 2.75 miles from Petroglyph Canyon, there's the Checkerboard Mesa. Smidgen past that, and you're at the East Entrance to Zion National Park.
Currently, there's not a lot at the East Entrance, besides some vault toilets and a fee kiosk. There were also a few locations with vault toilets along the drive out, east of Canyon Junction, but there were no facilities at the Petroglyph Canyon trailhead.
Relatedly, an interagency visitor center is being built somewhere further east of the entrance, which is supposed to open sometime later this year.
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