Culture Pass Presents: Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve

One of the nicest things about living in Arizona is the culture pass. It is a pass you check out from your library, and it gives you FREE admission to a participating museum in the Phoenix area. You can only check out one culture pass every two weeks, and it is usually good for two people. If you have two adults in your family, you can have a free activity you can do once a week. (Kids under a certain age are usually free).

Last week, C and I visited the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve, one of the participating museums. It features a small indoors museum as well as a 1/4 mile trail outside that snakes along the base of a small, boulder-strewn mountain. About 1,500 of the boulders in this area are covered with petroglyphs, carved rock designs that were created by the Native Americans that inhabited the area hundreds and hundreds of years ago. It was pretty amazing to see the different types of petroglyphs that were there and to try to reflect on what they meant. For example, in the picture above, there are many petroglyphs on the boulder that resemble deer. Could it be that the artist wanted to carve deer to influence a future hunt, or could it be that the image represents a hunt that took place prior to the carving? There are many different possible meanings, but no one knows for sure which one is correct.

In the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve, you can see many more petroglyphs like these of all different shapes and characters. Some petroglyphs are close to the trail and are easy to see, while others are quite a ways in the distance and may be hard to distinguish. For this reason, I suggest bringing a pair of binoculars. You cannot leave the trail to get a closer view of the petroglyphs higher up on the mountain.

Although the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve is not a large museum and will take no longer than a couple of hours to see in its entirety, it was still quite a fun place to go to. C and I went in the morning around 9:30, and had no problems with the heat, but make sure you take plenty of water just in case. Because you will be walking along a gravel trail, it is not stroller friendly.

Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 8 am - 2 pm (summer hours: May-September)

On the third Saturday of the month during the summer, the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve is open to the public for FREE! However, when we visited the museum, we were the ONLY people there (we went during the week). I would highly suggest going on a week day if possible as we were able to take our time at the petroglyph sites and were not pushed through the museum.