Seminole Canyon State Park is near Comstock, TX.  We arrived on a Sunday.  

You are only allowed to go into the Canyon with a ranger or guide.  Because it is off season, these walks are only offered Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  We were going to be leaving Wednesday.  It was also NFL playoff time and the Eagles were playing the Rams.  So….I went on the hike and Dave watched the game.

The hike was to the Fatte Bell Annex and Shelter.  They were named after the person who sold the land to the state.  The showcase of these two caves are the pictographs.  There also were some fossils near the base of the caves.    The pictographs were Pegus River Style and only used black, red, yellow and white, which was also the order the colors were painted on the walls (all black, then all red, etc.).  The paints were mineral based.  The type of mineral determined the color.  There were also binders used, which were most likely bone marrow from deer and the bulb from a plant that was like a soap.  For paint brushes they most likely used plant, animal fur and their fingers.  They would also put paint in their mouth or a tube and spit/blow it out around their hand on the rock.  (Lynn, how do those paint supplies sound?)

Picture of the shelter where the pictrographs were

Tree at the end of the shelter still surviving

Fossils 

Fossil

                                                    This picture shows various pieces of shells

The indigenous people who lived here were nomads, but used this shelter for over 8,000 years.    They noted that they were nomads within a 60 mile radius of this cave.  There is all kinds of conjecture about the meaning and purpose of the pictographs, but it is something that we will never truly know. 

These were names written in 1884, people who were building the railroad

This was conjectured to be people holding hands

In the middle of the picture are handprints in red

On the right is some type of creature and on the left is a fern like drawing, plus lots of dots

There are several pictographs along the center of this phot on the whitest part of the rock

This is one of the most well preserved of the pictographs.  

They said this rock in the shelter was used as a cutting board and place where they worked on various things.  

Weather effect on limestone wall

The only other thing we did while at this park was tour the museum.  The museum spoke about the pictographs and their history.  It also explained the industry from 1880 - 1973 when the area became a state park was overwhelmingly sheep farming.  

This was during the cold snap and it was in the 20s at night and maybe 40 and windy during the day.  We did take one short walk one day, but enjoyed our toasty camper and other activities.  These are a couple pictures from our walk. 

Til next time.