The Frank Church Wilderness of no Return encompasses nearly 2.4 million acres of Idaho nature — rugged mountains, wild rivers and alpine lakes. It was designated as wilderness in 1980 and is the largest contiguous wilderness area in the Lower 48 states, It has been inhabited by humans for at least 12,000 years, most recently by the Shoshone-Bannock and the Nez Perce tribes, and a few white pioneers (miners, some ranchers, hermits).
There is lingering evidence of these historic people, most obviously by the art they left behind. Generally this art is either painted onto rocks (pictographs), or scratched into them (petroglyphs).
We saw several examples of this art during a recent trip there; here are some representative photos. No one is exactly sure how old these pictographs are — somewhere between hundreds to a few thousand years old. They were exposed to nature, so have faded with time, but are still interesting.
They are copies of handprints, people, animals (like bighorn sheep and deer), among other symbols I couldn’t quite make out. I am always fascinated by this sort of stuff and wonder how many hundreds — perhaps even thousands — examples of this art exists here.
